Reviews for High Street, Abyssinia, Crave Fishbar, and More

— Lunch could use some work, but Pete Wells is still a big fan of High Street on Hudson during breakfast and dinner: "At dinner, the time when chefs make their big statements, the menu turned out to be full of small oddities and unexpected ripples of flavor when it was finally unveiled in January. Yet his restaurant doesn’t just put on a show at night and wait for you to be impressed. Mr. Kulp and his business partner, Ellen Yin, understand that coffee and a great pastry can be just as meaningful before noon as an artfully plated duck breast is after dark." Two stars.

— The Post's Steve Cuozzo is also enamored with Eli Kulp and Ellen Yin's High Street on Hudson: "High Street on Hudson tucks a stealth, four-star kitchen into a West Village corner shoe box. It’s an incubator for modern American cuisine like no other in town, highlighted by a way with pasta that Mario Batali and Michael White might drool over." Of the seaweed bucatini, Steve writes: "At last, a challenger to Marea’s octopus-fusilli-bone marrow for the title of El Supremo Pasta. Noodles, extruded in-house and green from kombu seaweed and squid ink, swirl merrily amid mussels and soft pork salami. Petal-like 'leaves' lend mystery — until you learn they’re shaved lobster bottarga. Truly one of the city’s greatest new dishes."

— Already a huge fan of the Midtown location, Gael Greene counts the ways she loves Crave Fishbar's UWS outpost in her latest review: "The deep bowl of cavatelli curls, steeped in tomato ragout with a plop of molten ricotta and basil purée to stir in, is perfect for me. It’s a huge portion, too. There’s a whole fiery Thai bird pepper riding in on top. Mitgang hopes heat-worshippers will cut it up and add it to the mix. Ideally, innocents will toss it aside."

[Crave Fishbar UWS] Photo by Nick Solares

— The spring rolls, soups, and noodles are great, but Ligaya Mishan is particularly smitten with the dumplings at Yaso Tangbao: "It is hard to stop talking about those dumplings. (Tangbao is the general category of soup dumplings; the versions made here are best known as xiao long bao, little basket buns.) Their skins may not be the thinnest in town, but the touch of doughiness is just enough to protect the broth and cut the richness of the pork — or, better yet, pork and blue crab, with its memories of sea shallows and eelgrass."

— Zachary Feldman is impressed with chef Liz Johnson's take on contemporary French at Mimi in Greenwich Village: "From MIMI's modest, subterranean kitchen, she deftly modifies classic French cuisine in truly audacious fashion, serving darkly caramelized tarte Tatin with a diner-meatloaf-size slab of blood sausage on the side as a shareable, $16 mid-course. Completely upending (or confirming) your expectations of a Francophile chef, Johnson dives deep into decades- and even centuries-old recipes." He adds: "Johnson's cooking is aided by engaging and knowledgeable service led by Levy and Daniel Bennett; well-composed cocktail standards from Evan Bennett; and Deterre's keen visual eye."

— For Christina Izzo of Time Out New York, the house-made breads at High Street are the main event. Overall, Izzo is a big fan of the Philadelphia import: "Those roaring bread ovens, visible in the open kitchen, alone make High Street a daytime destination spot—the lunch menu’s fat-marbled pastrami, piled high on tangy rye ($18), would make the Katz’s crew proud—but dinner cements the Philly import as a formidable New York restaurant."

[The bakery at High Street] Photo by Krieger

— Nicolas Niarchos praises the over fifteen meat dishes available at Abyssinia: "Some come raw and minced, like the 'special kitfo,' which tastes a little like a steak tartare with a jalapeño kick, and others are cut into cubes and cooked, like the yebeg lega tibs, a lamb dish that sings with fresh onions and tomatoes. In doro wat, the chicken drumsticks melt off the bone, and splitting an accompanying hard-boiled egg with hands full of injera is wildly satisfying. Each of the meat dishes is served with two vegetables, and among them the delicately spiced ye misir wat lentils and the shiro, or chickpeas, stand out."

The Blogs: Joe DiStefano tries the pastrami sandwich at Ben's Best Kosher Deli, The Infatuation gives revamped Acme a 6.7 rating, and The Pink Pig files his assessment of April Bloomfield's Salvation Burger.