Pete Wells files on Russ & Daughters Cafe this week, and is mostly charmed by the dressed-up, sit-down version of the Lower East Side appetizing store. But he finds the cafe at its best before dinner:
"Unlike most New Yorkers, the menu looks best by daylight. Most helpings are modest, good for noshing. Salmon roe and crème fraîche with latkes, with hard-shell exteriors and fluffy white interiors, seem like breakfast. So does the sturdy bagel chip piled up with whitefish and salmon salads and flying-fish roe infused with wasabi. At lunch the excellent cold borscht could lead up to the herring sampler featuring rollmops, Swedish matjes and pickled herring, which has immediately joined the small list of dishes whose flavor helps define New York."Wells finds fault with a few overpriced dishes, but loves the cocktails, the rye bread, and the baby knishes. He gives the restaurant two stars.
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[Photo: Krieger]