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Three Stars for Oceana; Richman Releases His New York Burger List

Everyone seems to have forgotten about Oceana, Frank Bruni tells us, but it’s still three-star good, thanks to the polyglot imagination of its new chef, Ben Pollinger: “Mr. Pollinger matches seafood with its adornments carefully and cunningly, taking into account not only the fish’s boldness and other intrinsic attributes but also the ethnic logic of it all.” [NYT]

Alan Richman, who eats a lot of hamburgers, uses his GQ column to announce his five favorite burgers in New York. To wit: the Shake Shack (“Not a great burger, but a very good one ”), Big Nick’s (“surprisingly good ”), Blue Smoke (“A great burger … I recommend it rare and without toppings, about as high a compliment as I can pay”), the Burger Joint in the Parker Meridien (“A tour de force.”), and Peter Luger (“wonderful” meat on “the best burger bun in America”). [GQ]

Scarpetta has made some fans, but Paul Adams isn’t one of them. It’s not because of the room or the neighborhood either: He just found the food overly rich, monotonous, and disappointing. [NYS]
Related: Southern Italian [NYM]

Danyelle Freeman discovers Mexican-Italian hybrid Miranda in Williamsburg, and marvels over the seamlessness of the fusion in her two-star review: “Eat a few of these dishes and you begin to realize how close the connection between Italian and Mexican cuisine really is.” Alright. [NYDN]
Related: Now, That’s Mex-Italian [NYM]

You wouldn’t think that a taqueria run by, and mostly for, white Manhattanites would please Robert Sietsema, but he seems to love Cabrito, other than the titular dish, which he found “sour, stringy, and somewhat skanky.” But the rest of the menu enthralled him, including a “trembling tower of coarsely textured meat in a mole so thick and red it could have been made from bricks.” [VV]

Randall Lane hits Wildwood Barbeque pretty hard, laying two (of six) stars on it and calling it out for dry brisket, mushy sausages, and worse. Most of all, he hates the corporateness of it. [TONY]

Andrea Thompson seems to like the Blue Ribbon Bar, but the short review is so full of overheard dialogue and character sketching that it’s hard to tell. [NYer]

Sam Talbot’s Surf Lodge may be the toast of Montauk, but it’s the pits as far as Ryan Sutton is concerned. [Bloomberg]

Three Stars for Oceana; Richman Releases His New York Burger List