Midweek Special: NYC Restaurant Review Roundup

Still no word from Sam Sifton, Frank Bruni's replacement at the Times, so let's turn to New York's Adam Platt, who files on Daniel Boulud's beer and sausage mecca on the Bowery, DBGB. Platt visits with his famous actor brother Oliver, and notes that "the menu contains fourteen varieties of sausage made by acolytes of the Parisian pâté genius Gilles Verot, plus a 'Tête aux Pieds' (Head to Feet) section, which includes an entire deboned pig’s trotter and little squares of crispy fried tripe, a Lyonnais offal specialty. 'This is right up my alley,' declared my giant fresser brother as he cut into the pig’s foot (I’m not touching that monster,' sniffed Mrs. Platt) and then the surprisingly delicate tripe, before working his way through the excellent sausages, which have catchy names like “Beaujolaise” (a deliciously fat, pork-stuffed link sweetened with red wine), 'Boudin Basque' (spicy, porky blood sausage over whipped potatoes), and 'Vermont' (more pork, garnished with melty curls of Cheddar and crème fraîche)."

Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice checks out new French bistro Joseph Leonard, in Greenwich Village: "Seating is in a pair of rooms, at an L-shaped bar, and along a mini-counter that looks into the kitchen, where, amazingly, six cooks play Twister in a space no larger than a walk-in closet. The food they produce is often spectacular." But his colleague Sarah DiGregorio slams the new upscale, yet "home-style" Russian restaurant Mari Vanna, in the Flatiron District. "The service is so bad it's comical... This haphazardness makes a bit more sense when you learn that Mari Vanna was meant to be a private club, complete with keys for those who made the cut. Alas, the kind of snobbery that might have been a good business plan in 2007 just doesn't make much money in 2009, and so the restaurant (which has a branch in Moscow) reluctantly opened its doors to us hoi polloi."

At the New Yorker, Shauna Lyon gets around to Robert De Niro’s Locanda Verde in Tribeca's Greenwich Hotel. Like most other critics, she's in loooove: "Chef Andrew Carmellini’s blissfully homey Italian food serves as a reminder that cooking what you grow is a very old, and very good, idea...On a summer evening, the windows open to the breeze, a gaze at the sunset across the Hudson River affords a view of the gleaming silver Jersey City skyline. Lounging over cappuccino and brown-butter pistachio cake with plums, you might think, Maybe it’s time to dig up some of Grandma’s hallowed old recipes, back at the condo."