Sarah DiGregorio at the Voice walks away "amicably" from Cienfuegos, the semi-hidden retro rum bar in the East Village. "It's Alice in Wonderland meets Hemingway-era Cuba—turquoise walls, wrought iron-work, glass tchotchkes, brass candlesticks, giant white-leather banquettes, and worn shutters over the windows," DiGregorio declares. "The female servers wear colorful aprons and A-line skirts, '50s-housewife-style, like Betty Draper in a better mood. All of it is purposefully distressed, simulated decay. Everyone is drinking a bit too much, eating a bit too little, in a happy, bright, rum-soaked way. It can get loud. 'I've definitely made out with a guy like that, but I've never dated a guy like that!' shrieked a girl at the table next to us in a pitch usually reserved for air-raid sirens."

Time Out's Jay Cheshes awards four out of five stars each to two ramen joints: Totto and Hide Chan. The former "adheres most closely to a traditional ramen-ya: It’s designed for quick meals, with most seats along a counter, behind which the chefs crisp pork slices with a propane torch while tending to bubbling stockpots." Hide Chan, meanwhile, focuses on pork tonkotsu broth—a luscious meaty soup, more cloudy than creamy."

GQ's Alan Richman is simply blown away by Danny Meyer's Eleven Madison Park, "where Daniel Humm is the chef. He's young, only 34, and all of his experience as a head chef has been in this century... I'll just say this: I think of French food as gratifying in winter, life-affirming in spring, and buoyant in fall. This was summer food as I'd never imagined it could be. It was the best off-season French meal of my life."

New York's Adam Platt files from Williamsburg's Southside, where he finds evidence of alchemy at Fatty 'Cue, "one of the great destinations of this year’s barbecue season... My daughter would like you to know that the pork ribs at Fatty ’Cue are nothing like the knobby, pre-lacquered ribs she’s used to at the Chinese restaurants in our neighborhood. They’re meaty and smoky-sweet (basted with smoked-fish palm syrup and Indonesian long pepper), and even if you’re a diminutive 10-year-old, it’s pretty much impossible to eat just one." Platt also has a fine time at Balaboosta in Nolita, where "the exceptionally tender house chicken is cooked under a brick, in the Mediterranean style, and served with couscous, apricots, and a pot of fresh-made gremolata on the side."

And The New Yorker's Andrea Thompson gives some love to little Caribbean restaurant Kaz An Nou in Prospect Heights: "The restaurant’s name means 'our house,' and eating here does have the feeling of home: the host, waiter, and chef, Sebastien Aubert, owns and operates the place with his wife, Michelle Lane, and minimal other assistance. 'We don’t have any soup tonight,' Aubert said one recent evening, by way of greeting. 'The entrée special is nice and simple, but it took all my time.'"