Randall Lane made it in to Momofuku Ko and gives the place five stars, gushing, “dish after dish dazzles with class, innovation and balance.” The behind-the-counter action, with David Chang berating a girl cook for the way she wrings a dishrag, maybe isn't “great theater” though. [TONY]

Bar Q “thrilled” Steve Cuozzo “on all visits but one,” when chef Anita Lo wasn't around, which is too bad, since his dishes on the off night mar what might have been a rave review. [NYP]

Robert Sietsema, on the other hand, hits bar Q hard: Lo's BBQ sauce “tastes like it's been dumped out of a white carton from the local Chinese carry-out,” and her “pork wings” “remain flightless because they're heavily coated with cloying Korean ketchup.” Ouch! [VV]

Alain Ducasse's war to win New York seems to be working: Frank Bruni gives Adour three stars, calling it a “qualified victory. It’s not through-and-through rapturous, but it’s first-rate.” [NYT]
Related: L'Obsession [NYM]

Maze by Gordon Ramsay comes in for a thoroughgoing appreciation by Bloomberg's Richard Vines, a Brit who knows Ramsay's restaurants the way New Yorkers know Mario Batali's. [Bloomberg]

Jay Cheshes sees in Elettaria a checklist of downtown tropes — mustachioed bartenders, swank design, of-the-moment ingredients — but it's lacking somewhat in the way the food is conceived and executed, in a three- (of six) star review. [TONY]

“It's a new era, and Bar Boulud belongs to it.” That's why, even though the hot items are mostly “snoozers,” the restaurant deserves two stars. Another Zeitgeist review from Frank Bruni. [NYT]

Steve Cuozzo doesn't give out stars, but if he did, he wouldn't be giving three to Dovetail, whose stellar critical reception he recapitulates in a forceful, acerbic review. “The Times' Frank Bruni, who found 'drab' décor at Anthos a reason to deny that truly original, forward-Greek place three stars, overlooked Dovetail's butt-ugly brown palette to exult over the likes of — holy cow! — monkfish and lobster on the same plate.” [NYP]

Writing on his GQ blog, Alan Richman obliterates Brasserie Les Halles, but why? Who was thinking about it, anyway? And who thought it was good? The review seems conceived as a blow against Tony Bourdain, but it does him no harm. [GQ]