"...The noodles - never too floppy or too firm, yielding at just the right moment to just the right bite - come in three gradations of weight and texture...Most are so … clearly and cleanly flavored that you feel...that your senses have been sharpened, that your palate is more alert. Superior Japanese food has that effect." [link]

"Persimmon is an adventure, and the bumpiness of the trip - including spasmodic and sometimes confused service - is in large part redeemed by the price.The menu changes … every two weeks, and gives you about three or four choices for each of three savory courses, followed by a pre-dessert soup of cold rice and tea, then a modest plate of Korean cookies." [link]

"Part of what Mr. Conant does at Scarpetta, which opened in May, is resurrect the all-stars in his L'Impero lineup, some with and some without significant tweaks.
It's … Nobu by way of Naples." [link]

"The menu sprawls to more than 100 selections - it's too much, but then at this genre of restaurant it's always too much...

It allows culinary daredevils to strut their … stuff, giving them stir-fried duck tongue and stir-fried frogs (the whole critter -chopped - not just the legs) and stir-fried pig intestines."
[link]

"More than a decade and a half since it opened, Oceana presses on, still proud, still vital, still very much worth boarding. … The fish was excellent, and superbly cooked. More than that, it was a vessel for an exhilarating voyage around the world, through culinary traditions as disparate as Italian and Indian." [link]

"Don't get me wrong: Benoit isn't a bad restaurant, nor is it a throwaway restaurant, not even close. It has many enviable, pleasurable virtues. … But Benoit is selling a dining experience so familiar it's almost a cliche, and that puts a particular premium on seamless execution, lest the production feel phony and cynical." [link]

"Bar Milano bungles its pasta dishes. Not all of them, but too many, sometimes in small ways, sometimes in big ones. … Among the restaurant's antipasti, primi, secondi and dolci you'll find dishes that aren't entirely familiar and dishes with lovely grace notes. If your path through them is fortuitous, you're in for a terrific meal." [link]

"With stool seating, a focus on small plates under $10 and lengthy selections of wines by the glass, Terroir and Gottino are better described as wine bars, though … that term, too, doesn't fit, because the best of the food rises so far above the gussied-up sandwiches and glorified snacks with which wine bars once made do." [link]

"Bar Q is more than flesh and bones, and only obliquely related to the explosion of barbecue joints around the city. It's a laboratory in which Ms. Lo can root … around, paying special heed to grilling and smoking and occasionally exploring the similarities of hoisin and Western barbecue sauces. In the end her triumphs, more than her wobbles, stayed with me." [link]

"Brace yourself for confusion." [link]

"The ostensibly individual tables bisecting the dining room are essentially one way-too-long communal table, which makes for odd traffic patterns. … And why is this central and most crucial region of the restaurant so cramped when there's so much elbowroom and extra space around the bar up front? Elettaria is lovely but awkward, and its awkwardness undercuts Mr. Nawab's impressively creative cooking. But then his cooking also undercuts itself, some dishes mirroring the setting: seductive in the abstract, less so in actuality." [link]

"The Harrison ... is the very definition of dependable, poised to impress you, if not quite wow you, with a hefty, juicy 'English-cut' lamb chop that might well be the … famous Keens Steakhouse mutton chop just before the age of consent." [link]

"The menu had just been revised to reflect the advance of spring, and I had a green, green meal: a silky, bright-tasting soup of fava beans and early peas; an expertly … prepared risotto with more peas, ramps and, like a bright white archipelago on an emerald sea, dabs of house-made ricotta.

 Spring didn't get specific credit for what came next, a gorgeous, snow-colored piece of halibut in a green sauce of clam juice, vermouth and a generous measure of parsley. But the fish, bedecked with clams, spoke to the fine touch that Mr. Brown has with seafood." [link]

"Ko doesn't come easy, and that's a big part of why it is, and will no doubt remain, the most talked-about new restaurant this year. But it's noteworthy beyond its … addling all-computer reservation system and the intense, revelatory pleasures of its partly Asian, partly French, wholly inventive food." [link]

"Commerce in one sense evokes the Waverly Inn and in another emulates Balthazar. But in the end it isn't like either of them, which becomes clear when the menu arrives and, in its wake, the food.

While there's some wonderful food that reflects the talent showed and the experience he received at Montrachet and then March, there's … also some food that's not cooked or seasoned as it should be, and there's food that's too fussy, not just for the ambience but also for its own good." [link]