Results tagged “restaurantreview”

Frank Bruni heads to Williamsburg to check out Rye, the South 1st Street joint from chef Cal Elliott (Dressler, Dumont). The NY Times restaurant critic admires the former bodega decor, where the "woodwork and pressed tin ceiling look like lovingly restored" and its "long, gorgeous mahogany bar," but ultimately offers one star: "Rye needs to be more consistent... when Mr. Elliott hits his mark, the cooking appealingly complements that atmosphere. It’s mostly a mix of bistro stalwarts and of-the-moment comfort foods like a side of macaroni and cheese, the non-slider sliders and the meatloaf sandwich, wet and wild enough to qualify as a sloppy Joe — an enormous, fantastic one at that. The mix of meats in its crunchy embrace included beef, veal, duck and pork."

This week Frank Bruni at the Times opines on really, really, ridiculously good looking Tribeca restaurant Macao Trading Co., which serves fancy Employees Only cocktails and two versions (Portuguese and Chinese) of every dish. It's a fun read, replete with descriptions of phalluses in locked cages and the waitress who's "trying not to think about what working here is doing to my psyche." In his generous one star review, Bruni says one of his companions "put it best. 'This... is a deeply silly restaurant.'

Adam Platt panned star chef Alain Ducasse’s Benoit (pictured), declaring it an “ersatz” brasserie and concluding that “French cuisine, as we used to know it, is deader than we think.” Now the Times’s Frank Bruni takes his turn, and while he disagrees that it’s “a throwaway restaurant,” he does concur that “Benoit is selling a dining experience so familiar it’s almost a cliché… And what of the ‘Parisian salad’? The city it’s referring to must be Paris, Tex. That’s a more likely cradle of this humdrum, deli-caliber mix of chicken, ham, cheese and lettuce.” But the veal appetizer (poached tongue and foie gras) “is worth the trip.”

Even though winter’s barely a week old, many folks in the city have come down with a doozy of a cold, perhaps due to the sharp temperature drop that marked the end of an otherwise moderate fall. Our nasty respiratory bug is finally on its way out, largely because we’ve been treating it with a variety of potent soups available in Queens. Whether you're sick as a dog or just in need of a warm up, solace can be found in these hearty soups and stews.

Hey, have y'all been using our new "Recommend this" feature at the bottom of each post? This week we're bringing you the "Most Recommended" posts from across the -ist world, as well as recommending some of our own.