Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup

At NY Mag, Adam Platt's wife "enjoyed a lot of the food" at Braeburn in the West Village, but he's got some problems, starting with the "lilting, vaguely clichéd, bucolic-sounding name... 'This is all very New Canaan,' someone said, as we squeezed into our little wooden chairs, at our little wooden table. Nor was the generic, slightly twee vibe in the joint greatly relieved by the clientele, some of whom wore thick cable sweaters and employed bifocals to peer at their menus through the faux-candlelight gloom. But Braeburn has what most bourgeois little dining establishments in the wilds of suburban Connecticut do not. It has the services of a topflight New York City chef, Brian Bistrong."

Casa La Femme (Katie Sokoler/Gothamist)

Danyelle Freeman at the Daily News seems thrilled to be eating in a tent at Casa La Femme (pictures), conceding that while "you can’t eat decor or the belly dancers, they both make the food taste a little better." Time Out NY's Jay Cheshes has a mixed review for midtown modern Spanish restaurant La Fonda del Sol (pictures): "Suckling pig is one of the glories of Spanish cuisine. Instead of the usual hunk of meat under crisp, burnished skin, the chef delivers a few slices of dry pig roulade—fat tragically trimmed—with mushy smoked dates."

And Alan Richman at GQ checks in on SoHo's Raoul's, which "defined a French bistro back in the 1970s, when it opened in a SoHo neighborhood littered with starving artists." He recommends a visit, but don't let them seat you in the back room: "A quick summary of the glass-enclosed back room, the so-called garden: Airless. Musty. Dreary. Occasional blasts of cooking smells venting from the kitchen. (Particularly noxious when it’s the fish.) The primary wall decoration is a chilling mural that incorporates the twin towers of the World Trade Center. This, in fact, is one of the least romantic rooms in New York, although a friend with me did point out, 'It’s so hot back here I’m thinking of getting undressed.' "