After a string of setbacks—including a kitchen fire that burned down her acclaimed restaurant Annisa last year—chef Anita Lo is back on top, winning raves from critics who've checked out Annisa's reboot. Today the big dog weighs in. "The food Ms. Lo is cooking there is as good as any she has made in her career," writes Sam Sifton for the Times. "Ms. Lo is not by any means a flashy chef. She does not stalk the dining room in gleaming whites, glad-handing patrons and accepting praise. She simply stays in the kitchen and works, cooking as the Puget Sound novelist David Guterson writes: precisely, with earth in closest proximity to sea." And Time Out's Jay Cheshes says Annisa, "as sparely appointed as a Japanese rock garden... isn’t any flashier than it used to be, but the food is more exciting than ever."

Robert Sietsema at the Village Voice digs The Commodore, which replaced the beloved old Black Betty in Williamsburg. "Assay the Tequila Banderas, a meta-cocktail composed of three overflowing shots (horseradish-laced tomato juice, bottled lime juice, and white tequila)," insists Sietsema. "The bolting sequence is entirely up to you, or request a glass and mix all three together in whatever proportion you desire. Among the 16 drinks on the placemat, you're sure to find a few likable ones to linger over in the Commodore's dark recesses. The best part: All cocktails are priced from $7 to $9... While the theme of the cocktail menu may be nominally nautical, the food strays into the usual Williamsburg retro-Southern-locavoric-hash-house fare."

Our colleagues over at The New Yorker agree with our endorsement of Faustina's outdoor seating area. "The patio at Faustina, in the Cooper Square Hotel, is an exceptionally nice place to eat dinner," writes Andrea Thompson. "The tables are made of sturdy, weathered wood; a fence screens out the street; green bushes and tall umbrellas give the feeling of an oasis." Unfortunately, Thompson finds the menu less than transcendent. "The crab was perfectly nice—with lots of tender meat inside crispy claws—but not exactly a revelation. Nor were the short ribs, with spaetzle and horseradish; or the chewy olive-oil-poached octopus."