Today's review roundup includes: Tempo, Mancora, Cafe Gray, Little Giant, Philoxenia.
NYTimes Restaurants Frank Bruni gives Park Slope's Tempo one star (256 Fifth Avenue, Brooklyn; 718- 636-2020):
A decade ago, maybe even five years ago, Tempo would have been awash in buzz, heralded as a relatively rare example of Manhattan-style sophistication and Manhattan-caliber aspirations on Brooklyn's spotty restaurant landscape. But the opening of Tempo in September did not draw any special attention, and I have not heard all that much chatter about it since.
There should be a bit more talk, because Tempo does a few things remarkably well. It does many other things respectably. While it has its share of flaws and disappointments — for example, too few of the main courses measure up to the best appetizers and pasta dishes — its kitchen on balance makes a solid effort, turning out a fair share of accomplished food. The setting, moreover, is seductive: spacious, romantically lighted, warm and gleaming with immaculately polished wood.
. . . The only portion of Tempo's menu that held more letdowns than delights, however, was the stretch devoted to entrees. On the night I tried it, the grilled pork chop was dry. The "smothered steak" had been suffocated with a too distracting layer of mushrooms, and the very fine beef would have benefited from a crisper exterior. The accents that had been lavished on steamed red snapper — orange, clove, cumin, black onion seeds — produced a disconcerting, overly perfumed effect that brought to mind air freshener.
RECOMMENDED DISHES Porchetta; lentil soup; sheep's milk ricotta lune, or moons; bucatini with pistachio pesto; sautéed skate wing; butternut squash; date and toffee pudding; gelato.
NYTimes $25 and Under reviews Mancora (99 First Avenue; 212-253-1011):
. . . Its owner, Shahed Ahmed, worked in Peruvian restaurants in Texas before opening Mancora's first location on Smith Street in Brooklyn three years ago. Last March he opened a branch in Manhattan, on a corner better known for barhopping and Bangladeshi buffets than Peru's beloved ceviches and bargain-priced rotisserie chickens.
Enrique Peraldo, the chef of both restaurants, skews classics toward the mainstream, with sauces that are milder than you would expect, and presentations that are fancier. The servers — a smiling, sprinting bunch, many of whom hail from Lima — trumpet traditional specialties, like chicha morada, a spicy-sweet pineapple punch infused with cloves, lemon and cinnamon, and tinted with purple corn.
Peruvian cooks have a way with rotisserie birds, thanks to the country's Chinese immigrants, who introduced exotic spice blends to the local larder. Here, the chicken is tongue-numbing, marinated in sticky-sweet dark beer, then rubbed with garlic, oregano and fennel, and roasted to a blackened crisp and juicy underneath ($5 half, $9 whole).
It is the kind of meal you crave on the way home from work, or on a lazy Sunday, when you don't have the gumption to cook or dine out. With deep fried wedges of yucca or rice and black beans ($7 half, $14 whole), plus a romaine salad laced with a minty Peruvian herb called huacatay, it's as good as takeout gets.
BEST DISHES Rotisserie chicken with yucca or rice and beans; all ceviches; tamalito, papa rellena and flan.
NYPost Steve Cuozzo gives Cafe Gray three stars (10 Columbus Circle, Time Warner Center; 212-823-6338):
. . . Some foodies have the knives out, fed up with the hype over Kunz's return to the kitchen since leaving four-star Lespinasse. But the dumbest way to approach Gray's Café is by comparing it to Lespinasse, a wonderful but starchy French establishment twice as expensive, where a huge staff cooked for a handful of diners.
Taken on its own terms, Café Gray is fun. It delivers a many-complexioned, crowd-pleasing menu just right for the polyglot crowd at Time Warner Center, which really hit its stride this month with the opening of the Jazz at Lincoln Center complex.
At Lespinasse, Kunz wove Asian spices and French classicism into a seamless flavor fabric.
The same virtuosity informs more than a few dishes at Café Gray, open six weeks, while certain others are less than ideally conceived. (Disclaimer: I was recognized on all my visits.)
And the demands of serving nearly 200 Kunz-crazy customers at a time take their toll in a packed room that's as baffling as it is buzzing.
. . . Langoustine and salt cod ($29) reflect Kunz at the top of his game. The sweet crustacean perches like a bird atop the plancha-seared cod ($29), more lightly salted than traditional baccala and embraced in a glorious port, ginger and lime sauce — the sweet-and-sour, salt-and-spice harmony of Thai cooking without a single Thai element.
The same deceptive complexity characterizes dreamily tender, braised beef short ribs ($34), marinated in tamarind and mango pickle barbecue sauce, and set in Meaux mustard sauce. Have Southern, French and Southeast Asian themes ever melded so mellifluously?
But the three stars come with strings attached. Despite over-rehearsed waiters who call it their "favorite," fluke crusted with puffed rice in a conflicted, preserved lemon-brown butter sauce ($24) should be sent to the showers.
NYPress reviews Little Giant (85 Orchard Street; 212-226-5047):
. . . More often than not, in striving to be different, restaurants become caricatures of themselves. Little Giant, a new Lower East Side restaurant opened by lady chefs Julie Taras and Tasha Garcia, aims for creative but winds up cutesy. The menu is rife with names that some have called whimsical; to me, they're pointless distractions. Whimsy without purpose is just silly, and some of these names just should not appear on a dinner menu.
"Box of rocks" ($12) is an appetizer of cockles in herb broth, but the name whets the appetite about as much as…a box of rocks. Though "tenement soup" ($8) was a fine-tasting sweet-and-sour pork broth with smoky bits of ham and cooked Savoy cabbage, the name evoked chunks of brick floating in a bowl of sooty water. It was a wonder that our waitress could utter her recommendations that night with a straight face. "Baby's got bass is really delicious. And people love the swine." That's "baby's got bass" ($22), a well-flavored but overly salted entrée of baby clams, wild striped bass and lentil salad served in a broth-filled pot; the "swine," which we didn't try, is the "swine of the week" entrée of Berkshire pork shoulder.
The "fun" names notwithstanding, the restaurant ostensibly takes itself seriously. It lords the heirloom-variety produce over diners with a distinct sense of pedigree; the interior is painstakingly DIY hip—erector-set-style blond tables and chairs, exposed brick, expensive pillows lining the banquettes. The chefs were less playful when my sister sent back a nearly untouched overly sinewy bavette of beef ($21) served with sautéed mizuna, horseradish sauce and what were some very tiny, but unfortunately gnarly, roasted heirloom potatoes. After dinner, our waitress brought out a dessert that we did not order in place of offering to remove the beef from the bill. "The chefs feel really bad about the beef, so they wanted to give you this."
"This" happened to be a dessert that we chose not to order because of how unappealing it was: perfectly round scoops of ice cream wrapped in smooth pastel-toned mochi, a glutinous Japanese rice paste, which on the plate looked like freshly laid alien pods.
The overall dining experience followed the same downward trajectory that repeats itself at many Manhattan restaurants: Appetizers represent the highest point, entrées range from competent to flawed and the desserts are a wild card.
Village Voice Robert Seitsema reviews Philoxenia (26–18 23rd Avenue, Astoria, Queens; 718-626-9162):
The owners of Philoxenia—which means "hospitality" in Greek—come from Athens, and the menu displays none of the enthusiasm for whole fish found at most Astorian tavernas, which are mainly run by island folk. Instead of the fisherman, the shepherd looms large at Philoxenia. Hunkering around a table sopping wet, we warmed ourselves with a bottle of rustic Tsantalis wine from Macedonia ($18)—tart, purplish, with the merest suggestion of bubbles. Then the dishes began to arrive at intervals, giving us time to enjoy each one, and sit back a moment for a breather. The food was spectacular. As the last hurricane of the season howled outside, we bolted slices of salty haloumi cheese fried brown in olive oil ($7), so good we ordered a second helping; little hanks of loukaniko sausage stewed with peppers and tomatoes; a magnificent plate of fries ($4) sprinkled with oregano and dried cheese; a pair of meaty octopus tentacles dressed with olive oil and red wine vinegar; crusty salt cod patties accompanied by garlicky skordalia; and, best of all, a quartet of perfectly grilled lamb chops ($16), which, as one diner wryly noted, "are moist and delicious rather than dry." Even the lowly Greek salad—festive under its crown of crumbled white feta—was wonderfully turned out and left us smacking our lips.
