Loud, crowded and unimaginative, Cafe Cluny still hews closely enough to the Balthazar mold in both the front and back of the house to earn one star from Bruni. [NYT]
Paul Adams likes Cluny even better, calling the food “impressive,” and laying off the cultural context. He’s just here for the duck. [NYS]
Meanwhile, Peter Meehan is fascinated by the “avian oddities” served at all-chicken spot Yakitori Torys and writes enthusiastically, though not exactly convincingly, of the joys of eating chicken bones and necks. [NYT]
Cuozzo visits Metro Marché, has easy fun at the expense of the “drab, cyclopean depot” that is the Port Authority. The food? Sure, it’s okay. [NYP]
The New Yorker’s Leo Carey likes Boqueria more than he expected, dwells on the atmosphere, which, for New Yorker types anyhow, is “lively to the point of insanity.” [NYer]
Randall Lane gets spotty service, high prices, and itty-bitty portions at the Russian Tea Room but praises chef Gary Robins’s cooking as “flavorful, gorgeously plated and packed with original touches.” [TONY]
TONY short takes: Jack’s Luxury Oyster Bar is a “perfect little East Village date spot“; Cafe Cluny “crowded and chaotic” with high prices and solid French bistro food; and BLT Burger a cynical hustle that happens to serve a Kobe burger that was “begging to be bitten into over and over again.” [TONY]