The first less-than-stellar Ko review is in and suggests that reality is creeping in. Yes, the food was terrific, but you’ve already heard all about it, and the staff isn’t particularly friendly. Plus, “[s]itting on backless, uncushioned wooden stools for more than two hours can be a challenge for the best of us.” [WSJ]

It’s one-star time for Commerce; Frank Bruni admires chef Harold Moore’s as “ambitious and unpredictable,” but not necessarily in a good way. And the place is LOUD. [NYT]
Related: Commercial Appeal

A surprise two-star review for the mostly unnoticed Korhogo 126 in Brooklyn; Restaurant Girl loves the African spices. But did she really have to say that it had “soul”? [NYDN]
Related: Embattled Bistro Now Serving ‘Nouveau African’ at Korhogo 126

The view at Chop Suey is worth a star in itself to Frank Bruni, which is a good thing, because the food is “an uneven mash of inspiration and clumsiness.” [NYT]

Restaurant Girl is happy to have Eighty One on the Upper West Side; if only they did a better job with seafood, she would have been able to give it more than two stars. [NYDN]

Randall Lane is done messing around. This week, South Gate feels his wrath for “mediocre” food such as “gravy sporting the kind of congealed film I associate with bad TV dinners.” Two stars (out of six)! [TONY]

Randall Lane bestows three stars of six on Merkato 55 in a decidedly middling review. The place covers too much ground, he says, “an African greatest-hits tour that works only because there are so few top-shelf regional African restaurants here in the first place.” [TONY]

It's not that Steve Cuozzo doesn't get Merkato 55 or like Marcus Samuelsson. It's just that the food was pretty uneven when he went there and the chef was seldom around. Quoth the Cuozz: "But Samuelsson is too great a talent to let Merkato 55 slide into another Meatpacking District party venue. I hope he finds the time to make his labor of love worthy of our love, too." [NYP]

Alan Richman is back at what he does best, applying his critical pen to the efforts of high-toned tablecloth restaurants, in this case South Gate. He likes the food, but finds the place a little soulless and the staff entirely too service-y. (Though since he’s not anonymous; that’s bound to be a problem in any new restaurant he dines in.) [GQ]

“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]

In a landmark for molecular gastronomy in America, the movement’s top proponent, Wylie Dufresne, gets his third star for wd-50. A historic review, especially as Frank Bruni expresses the usual reservations about overly cerebral cooking. [NYT]

Bar Boulud finally gets some respect from Alan Richman, who praises its blue-ribbon charcuterie and says of its much-maligned mains, “The worst that can be said…is that the recipes are relentlessly conventional — lamb stew, roasted chicken, boudin blanc. The best is that such a style of cooking is terribly missed.” [GQ]

Restaurant Girl seems to have been distinctly unimpressed with about half of the dishes she tried at Adour, resulting in a lukewarm, two-and-a-half-star review. Ducasse’s latest is not getting off to a great start. [NYDN]

Frank Bruni can't help but make a one-act play out of his one-star 2nd Avenue Deli review: Sholom Aleichem by way of Oscar Wilde. A classic review, even if you don't come out of it knowing much about the food at 2nd Avenue Deli. [NYT]

Reviewing on his blog, Alan Richman delivers a less colorful, but more accurate and knowing account, of the place, which is even more admiring. [GQ]

Ryan Sutton isn't impressed one bit by Southgate — he thinks it's expensive and uninspired, broadly speaking. Not a whit of enthusiasm here. [Bloomberg]