Today's review roundup includes: Bouley, Chibitini, Per Se, V Steakhouse.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Bouley three stars (120 West Broadway; 212-964-2525):
The kitchen excels at tender flesh, especially fish. I had lobster that flirted, to just the right extent, with being undercooked. I had black sea bass that had been slow-roasted to moist perfection and served in a bouillabaisse that was seasoned, surprisingly and deliciously, with vanilla.
None of the entrees or appetizers were an out-and-out failure, but most fell short of fantastic, and a few puzzled me. Kobe beef has so much to offer on its own; why muddle that by choosing the funky, idiosyncratic flavor of Asian celery for a purée beneath it? The Parmesan dressing that accompanied a nicely cooked piece of skate overwhelmed it.
About the desserts at Bouley, there can be little complaint, especially not from chocolate lovers. One of the best concoctions by Mr. Bouley and the pastry chef, Alex Grunert, is a chocolate brioche pudding, although it gets fierce competition from the "chocolate frivolous" and the "sweet pleasures," both of which invite hazelnuts to multitiered or multifaceted chocolate extravaganzas. They weave a decadent spell.
But Bouley as a whole does not create or sustain the kind of rapture that the very best restaurants do. It wobbles, as absent-minded and careless at times as the man who toppled the lamp. It feels like an echo, or like embers: pleasant, warm and inviting, but without a crucial flame.
NYTimes $25 and Under Eric Asimov reviews Chibitini (63 Clinton Street ; 212-674-7300):
You could easily snack your way through Chibitini. A half-dozen sweet Kumamoto oysters ($11), mollusk analogs in their little cupped shells for the small sake glasses, are irresistible, while a bowl of salty edamame ($4) is a Japanese bar's not-so-secret weapon for stoking thirst. I'm not much of a seaweed fan, but I love the hijiki salad ($8), made from dried seaweed that is reconstituted and lightly sweetened.
Despite the prevalence of small plates, the best deals on the menu are the bento box dinners ($14 each), which Ms. Samsom recently added to the menu.
Each of these includes one of four centerpieces; a small portion of the hijiki salad; and a choice of rice flavored with shiso leaf, mild potato salad or soba noodles in green tea sauce, a superb combination that outshines the other two. By far the best centerpiece for the box dinner is ground veal flavored with ginger and pine nuts, and wrapped in cabbage leaves like German rouladen. The piquant ginger adds a lively contrast to the rich flavors of the meat and the pine nuts.
BEST DISHES Dumplings; oysters; edamame; hijiki salad; ground veal with ginger and pine nuts; seared yellowfin tuna; linzer torte; trifle.
NYMag reviews Per Se (10 Columbus Circle; 212-823-9335):
There’s nothing stagy or solemn about the food, however, which is beautifully conceived, elegantly presented (on a new Thomas Keller line of dishes by Raynaud), and as varied as the colors of the rainbow. The menu, which changes daily, is a jumble of bite-size tastings, the most modest of which involves five courses ($125) including cheese and dessert. The standard chef’s tasting menu ($150) is nine courses, and one eventful evening, dining in the company of a well-connected media friend (without connections, the wait for a table at Per Se is two months), I got caught up in a seventeen-course meal. I never got out of Per Se in under four hours, but this five-hour extravaganza began with six varieties of vegetable soup (one for each person), reached a crescendo with a whole black sea bass stuffed with watercress (foraged by Rabbi Zvi), and concluded with a blizzard of high-concept desserts (thyme-infused ice cream, cucumber sorbet, a deliciously milky chocolate soufflé) that left our party feeling dazzled but a little overwhelmed, like a bunch of country bumpkins stuck at an elaborate but overly long magic show.
. . . It all tasted quite impressive in the hushed restaurant gloom, although I couldn’t help wondering whether it would have tasted even better sitting a world away, in sunny Yountville, on a bright California afternoon.
NYPost Steve Cuozzo gives V Steakhouse three stars (10 Columbus Circle; 212-823-9500):
V is not exactly your standard steakhouse. Its fish is the equal of its meat. It offers amusingly tweaked appetizers, sides and condiments you won't find at the Palm.
And unlike noisy, testosterone-driven competitors, V is a plush and pampering place to dress up and settle into — as a horde of power brokers and incurable romantics have been doing for five weeks.
V's meat lineup reads like an ad for Niman Ranch. For dry-aged, richly marbleized beef possessed of concentrated flavor, I prefer old-fashioned, non-pedigreed cuts. Even so, V's are in the ballpark, and flattered by condiments like tamarind-kissed steak sauce and a compelling blend of Coleman's, Dijon and grainy mustards.
Porterhouse for two ($62), sliced Peter Luger-style, is crisply seared and juicy. Filet mignon ($28/$38), normally prized more for tenderness than for taste, satisfies with unexpected blood-rich intensity.
Juicy, baked free-range chicken (just $19!) is lightly caked in four cereals — Rice Krispies, Special K, Corn Flakes and Kellogg's Complete — bound to the skin with an egg yolk-soy sauce mixture. It's impossible to taste without chuckling — or wanting more. The fish not to miss is wild king salmon ($28), even though it's topped with olive oil foam that looks like shaving cream and tastes like nothing.
