Tulsi

This week both the Times' Sam Sifton and the Post's Steve Cuozzo visit Hemant Mathur's midtown Indian restaurant Tulsi and come away pleased, though Murdoch's man liked it more. Sifton doesn't love the place ("It is not a particularly enjoyable place to eat dinner") but he is a a fan of the food—"No one in New York makes lamb chops like Mr. Mathur," and the Manchurian cauliflower is "a magical dish, sweet and fiery, worth ordering in multiples even at a small table." In the end though the "chain-restaurant" service and the decor ("a bazaar of tables more reminiscent of Home Depot’s patio furniture department than anything filmed by Merchant-Ivory") are too much and he gives the spot just one star.

Cuozzo, on the other hand, finds the service knowledgable, the decor suitable ("it's exotic in a polite sort of way, as befits its UN nabe"), and the food memorable ("Mathur's regional Indian-inspired creations are original, complex and steeped in powerful, mysterious curries that stay in your mind for days."). He doesn't love the lamb kabobs ("bland compared with Tamarind Tribeca's scorchers") but he's all about the "sensational" breads, banana dumplings, and the house pesto-marinated tandoori chicken which "blew away [the] other chicken choices, fervently sparked with basil and ginger." In the end he gives the restaurant two-and-a-half stars.

But back to the Times! Sifton used his visit to Tulsi to make a trip to another new Indian restaurant, Junoon, where he seems to agree with Adam Platt's review. In his two-star take on the "comfortable and elegant" restaurant he talks up not just its beautiful space ("everyone looks good") but also its wine ("Junoon’s cellar has within it much to injure the belief that the best accompaniment to Indian food is beer."). And the food ain't bad either. In fact "it is, over all, very good."

Like shooting fish in a barrel Bloomberg's Ryan Sutton this week heads to Del Frisco's in midtown and, well he says that "the country’s highest-grossing steakhouse in 2010," also "ranks among the worst." Let's just leave it that he gives the chophouse half-a-star.

And the New Yorker's Table For Two goes to the downtown Austrian restaurant Edi & the Wolf and despite the fact that its decor "appears to be the hoard of an exuberant and undiscerning band of freegans" the food doesn't disappoint—though the "Schlutzkrapfen, an indulgent cheese ravioli, has been unfairly encumbered with one of Mitteleuropa’s least appetizing names" and the spaetzle is apparently "fancy-pants."

Finally the Voice's Robert Sietsema gets in touch with Ecuadorian fare at Bushwick's Sol de Quito a warm restaurant "filled with good smells." If you aren't familiar with Ecuadorian food (besides cuy) he recommends starting with one of the platters which seem to have a enough food on them for a small army. Meanwhile the weekly paper's Lauren Shockey hits up Jehangir Mehta's Mehtaphor in TriBeCa, the chef's second restaurant, and though it has its quirks (like the purposely messed up menus) and not all of the dishes are perfect, Shockey eventually declares Mehta "the real deal."