Frank Bruni’s best meal in 2008 was lunch at Le Bernardin, and his favorite new restaurant is Momofuku Ko. [NYT]

Robert Sietsema plays the lotto and eats classic Italian-American immigrant cuisine at Colandrea New Corner Restaurant in Dyker Heights. [VV]

“Kefi was already loved. Now it’s the perfect mecca for tough times,” says Gael Greene, who advocates the “wonderful shareable” pastas as starters. [Insatiable Critic]

At Irving Mill, Ryan Skeen seems “less secure when he can’t fall back on pork fat to tie a dish together. … Still, Skeen achieves some lovely subtleties,” writes Leo Carey. [NYer]