Starting tonight (Cinco de Mayo) and continuing through Friday, Crema Restaurante will be offering a special five course prix fixe menu, with tequila drink pairings, that dovetails Mexican and French cuisines. Chef Julieta Ballesteros, from Monterrey, Mexico, calls the menu a “peace offering” of sorts to the French, and most of the dishes draw heavily upon her training at New York's French Culinary Institute. Even if you're not up for dinner, you might want to swing by Crema to sip some of their specialty French-Mex cocktails at the bar, like The Au Pear: White Rioja Sangria with Poire Williams Brandy. In this interview Ballesteros tells us about her twist on Cinco de Mayo dinner, her preferred hangover remedy and her worst kitchen injury. more ›

Bruni hits Jean Georges' "fringe players," Mercer Kitchen and Vong. Between the two, Vong emerges victorious with one star: "you keep wondering if the food they deliver is really as it should be and all that it could be, if the restaurant is receiving Mr. Vongerichten’s most considered judgments . . ." while Mercer Kitchen rates a mere "satisfactory": Bruni calls their menu an "ethnically indistinct assortment of dishes with enough pro forma salads and... more ›