Reviews for Superiority Burger, Faro, and More

As noted yesterday, Pete Wells is impressed by the seasonal vegetable dishes that Brooks Headley and his team are turning out at Superiority Burger in the East Village. Here's Wells on the "Superiority Wrap": "The rice has an excellent nutty taste. Shredded cabbage has a refreshing effect. A streak of bright tahini whirred with roasted sweet and hot peppers cuts through the tofu like a searchlight. And I loved the playful sweetness provided by a vein of candied sunflower seeds." Two stars.

Gael Greene likes a lot of the Southern-style dishes she samples at The Heyward in Williamsburg: "The shrimp and grits cooked in a buttery shrimp broth are especially lively, with the addition of chorizo and shishito peppers. Only the fried green tomatoes, served alongside fresh cut tomatoes stoked with buttermilk ricotta, seem a little stodgy."

[Faro by Krieger]

Some of the dishes are a bit heavy for Amelia Lester's taste, but the Tables for Two critic is a fan of Faro in Bushwick: "Faro should, by rights, be annoying, precious, and easily dismissed, but there are so many pleasing details, like pickled mustard seeds in the beef tartare, and chèvre cream beneath the fire-roasted beets—not to mention all those idiosyncratic plates scraped clean. Dessert’s a moist, dense cake, like polenta, made with corn ground in house."

[Tempura Matsui by Nick Solares]

Tejal Rao has some great dishes along with a few flops at pricey Japanese newcomer Tempura Matsui: "The Japanese ceramics throughout the restaurant are beautiful, and the compositions of dishes leading up to the tempura can be stunning as well. But on a recent evening, the shell of tempura batter surrounding a shrimp tail was spongy. And while the eggplant tempura was meltingly soft inside, you could see the grease bubbling underneath the surface of the batter, and you could taste it too in an unpleasant gush of hot oil."

Ligaya Mishan swoons over the Caribbean fare at Food Sermon in Crown Heights: "Oxtail comes not collapsed in a stew but in hunks still whole, half-hidden under broad leaves of watercress and garlanded in chickpeas. With each bite, I experienced a kind of sinking in, as if I were the one yielding to the dish and not the other way around." She also likes the curry goat roti and the macaroni pie.

[Seamore's by Nick Solares]

The Blogs: Chris Stang gives a 7.2 rating to Kiki's on the Lower East Side, Goodies First pays a visit to Señor Frog's Times Square, the Food Doc likes the fish more than the side dishes and accompaniments at Seamore's, and Joe DiStefano digs both the beef noodle soup and the fried squid at Happy Stony Noodle in Elmhurst, Queens.