Today's review roundup includes: Convivium Osteria, Sweetwater, Kittichai, August.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Park Slope's Convivium Osteria one star (68 Fifth Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn; 718-857-1833):
Convivium Osteria is primarily a neighborhood restaurant, of the kind and level that every neighborhood wants. It does not force you to splurge, but it allows you to. You can eat conventionally or graze. Convivium accommodates different moods, and it changes with the seasons, opening up a lovely back garden with a wisteria-covered trellis during warm months.
. . . The pleasures for a carnivore on the Convivium menu are many. Tender slices of pork loin are accompanied by small coins of chorizo, which are meant to join the loin in each forkful, bringing a crispiness and a saltiness to the fleshy fun. A roasted baby chicken — succulent on the night that a friend and I tried it — was splayed on the plate in a way that all but demanded that it be picked up. Or maybe we thought so and heeded that call simply because we wanted to get to the meat closest to the bone.
. . . Among entrees, the most disappointing was a rack of lamb with a pine nut crust that was too thick and too intrusive. The most satisfying, in addition to the steak and chicken, was a dish of half-moon pockets of pasta that had been filled with duck, topped with shredded radicchio and speck and placed on a tawny, shallow pond of porcini cream sauce. A filling and pleasing salted codfish casserole with mashed potatoes and spinach tasted like a Portuguese spin on shepherd's pie.
RECOMMENDED DISHES String bean salad with egg; platter of cured meats and cheese for two; pasta filled with duck; whole baby chicken; pork loin; Portuguese seafood stew; rib-eye steak for two; apple tart; chocolate cake.
NYTimes $25 and Under reviews Sweetwater (105 North Sixth Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn; 718-963-0608):
Tom Kearney, formerly the chef at Sushi Samba, prepares food that is one part pub grub, three parts Left Bank bistro.
One minute you are slathering chunky house-made pâté ($6.50) onto grilled bread or fishing mussels ($7) from beer broth; the next, fighting for the last oyster fritter atop a bowl of sweet, steamy corn chowder ($4.75).
Nothing on the menu tops $15, and most dishes, like the Gruyère-draped burger on an oversize English muffin with skin-on fries ($7.75 plus 75 cents for cheese), ring up under $10. Snappy pickles, fresh mixed greens and market-fresh vegetables are surprising at this price. So are golden cod cakes with fresh corn-pimento salad ($6.50) and buttermilk-doused green beans with deep-fried goat cheese fritters ($6.75), bursting with warmth.
BEST DISHES Salads; corn chowder with oyster fritters; hamburger and fries; smoked and roasted salmon fillet; grilled pork chop with apricot-red-wine sauce; butterscotch pudding.
NYPost Steve Cuozzo gives Kittichai two stars ( 60 Thompson Street; 212-219-2000):
Welcome to Kittichai, the latest Asian-esque scene restaurant downtown with a mystique impossible to dent. It's so full of itself, you'd like nothing better than lay a zero on its irksome hosts, confused floor crew and wait-staff uniforms "by the budding Thai fashion designer Chomwan Weeraworawit."
But although I haven't yet recovered from the waiter who stepped on my foot, spilled water and knocked over a candle — all in one visit to the table — chef Ian Chalermkittichai's quasi-Thai menu is well-priced and annoyingly respectable.
. . . Kittichai is one of the very few Thai places in New York that uses the quality cuts of meat and fish required by the cuisine's colorful, basically simple dishes. But its menu emphasizes luxury-hotel excess over true exoticism. Some dishes apply lemongrass, Thai basil and galangal to familiar main elements that could just as easily go southwestern or Provencale with different sauces or seasonings.
NY Mag reviews August (359 Bleecker Street; 212-929-4774):
Oh, how I loathe to admit that August is worth the wait. But one slurp of white gazpacho, with its cool taste of cucumber sharpened by crushed almonds, olive oil, bread crumbs, and grapes, and who cares about teeny tables and noise that doesn’t quite get absorbed by the front room’s arched cork ceiling? When the sweet sting of sea salt and vinegar spiking the tentacles of grilled octopus hits, does it matter that the glass-topped back patio is hardly a room with a view? After I taste a cast-iron dish of crispy yet airy gnocchi knotted with tangy rapini and showered with bits of walnuts and sweet Italian sausage (the source of the aroma), time becomes someone else’s concern.
In fact, so much vibrancy and warmth issues from both Tony Liu’s kitchen and the personable, passionate staff that owner Jason Hennings has coordinated, that August feels like a local taverna along the Mediterranean. The sensation is enhanced by a seemingly banal bowl of blistered peppers whose flavor, all spice and spark and an occasional two-alarmer, spirits you away from the remnants of the workday. Croquettes of Serrano ham harbor lovely bursts of béchamel. Denser salt-cod versions use an aïoli dipping sauce. Both cod-and-pepper salad and arugula-and-fennel salad feel too familiar, but from the wood oven come two enticing variations on pizza: Alsatian onion tart with bacon and an ooze of crème fraîche, and a darker, crackling crust supporting a mélange of spinach, artichokes, pine nuts, and currants.
