Lychee House: Fresh Spins on Oriental Favorites

I love Chinese food but hate reviewing Chinese restaurants. That's because their menus are so much alike. What can be said that hasn’t already been said a zillion times? The three-month-old Lychee House breaks the "if-you've-been-to-one-you've-been-to-'em-all" syndrome.

Salute! - Sophisticated Italian on the East Side

Salute! epitomizes sophisticated East Side dining. A bouquet of soaring cherry blossoms that’s changed weekly stands in the center of a strikingly handsome room of candles, white cloth-covered tables, carpeting and comfortable white leather chairs.

Bangkok House: Authentic Thai Cuisine on Restaurant Row

Manhattan’s Restaurant Row -- on West 46th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues -- offers a multitude of choices. Italian, French, Spanish, American and steak house spots line both sides of the street. Yet there’s only one Thai eating place: Bangkok House

Vince & Eddies: A Fresh Spin on American Comfort Food

Vince and Eddies is my kind of restaurant -- and if you’re like most Americans it’s yours, too. It’s a father-and-son operation that serves superior versions of familiar American comfort food with some Italian spins.

Barbecue is America’s soul food, but it was a non-starter in New York City. Then New Yorkers began to understand the glories of slow food, and barbecue that is smoked for many hours over hickory wood is the ultimate slow food. As barbecue popularity grew in Manhattan so too did Brother Jimmy’s BBQ.

Planet Hollywood has better food than it has any right to. Let’s face it -- this colossal monument to the movies is a tourist heaven seemingly dedicated to fun, not food. Out-of-towners and locals enter this Times Square landmark through a retail store selling Planet Hollywood T-shirts, jackets, and souvenir glasses.

Sometimes everything at a restaurant feels right. These attributes accurately describe the new, impressive Montenapo Ristorante Della Moda in the courtyard of the New York Times Building.

Buenos Aires: Authentic Argentinean Food in the East Village

Tourists, especially out-of-town foodies, would be flooding Buenos Aires if they just knew it existed. It’s an authentic Argentinean restaurant serving hefty portions of hearty South American specialties like empanadas, savory sausages, monster grilled steaks, Argentinean wines, and a caramel and whipped cream cake covered in meringue with dulce de leche and chocolate shavings. There’s nothing like it in Topeka or Oshkosh.

Inakaya is the most Japanese of New York’s Japanese restaurants. This striking five-month-old spot in the New York Times Building is noteworthy for yet another reason. It’s unlike all the standard cookie-cutter, predictable Japanese eating places that dot the city.

Wow! is the word that comes to mind when entering Rouge Tomate. Other appropriate descriptives would include spectacular, flamboyant and fashionable. This luxurious New York branch of a Belgian restaurant chain was designed with an eye to blowing diners away and it succeeds.

There’s no more exciting place to be in Manhattan than the Theater District during the hour or so before the performances begin. The teeming, animated crowds spill over the sidewalks into the streets. There’s electricity in the air.

Outside on the sidewalk, a cigar maker is rolling stogies; and in the rear dining room, large tables of Latino families and friends are eating, drinking and laughing; wall-size murals and pictures of old pre-Fidel Cuba cover the walls; a jazz quartet with a Latin beat is playing away (they have music nightly); and the aroma of suckling pig, black bean soup, garlic, onions, and peppers fills the air.

Dining Review: Devi

Devi: Unexpected Fare in Exotic Surroundings. Is Devi the best Indian restaurant in New York City? If it isn't, it's in the top three.

Dining Review: Benjamin Steakhouse

If a restaurant looks like a great steak house, if the steaks taste like those at a great steak house, and if the menu reads like those at a great steak house, it probably is a great steak house. This one continues the Peter Luger legacy in East Midtown.

Dining Review: Hill Country Barbecue

A sprawling barbecue joint that opened less than a year ago, Hill Country could justifiably describe itself as "All Texas All The Time." Everything at Hill Country, from the wine to the firewood, comes from the Lone Star State.

Dining Review: Sofrito

Sofrito: A Caribbean Fiesta in East Midtown

Dining Review: Brasserie

A Cool, Modern Take on the Traditional French Pub

Dining Review: Natsumi

Low lights, dark wood, and cozy seating create a pleasing minimalist backdrop for contemporary Japanese and Italian-Japanese fusion cuisine at this sophisticated new restaurant.

The long-standing love affair between American diners and Italian restaurants can be understood after just one visit to Ancora, a welcoming place with more free food before you order than many restaurants serve after you do.

The name is a bit difficult to say, but the restaurant is very easy to take. This sophisticated, seductive, big-city-style midtown steakhouse is a palace of prime meat & New Orleans favorites.

Dining Review: The Russian Tea Room

This fabled, 80-year-old symbol of old New York is as resplendent as ever as new owners have recreated the grandeur of bygone days

Dining Review: Bice Ristorante

Established in Milan in 1926, with 40 restaurants worldwide, Bice looks like an upscale, prestigious restaurant should, filled with well-heeled, knowing New Yorkers and tourists

Dining Review: Hawaiian Tropic Zone

Hawaiian Tropic Zone -- a glitzy, three-tiered showbiz extravaganza that's equal parts bare tables and bare skin -- bills itself as "the hottest place on earth." And it's also the kind of place that gives theme restaurants a good name.

Dining Review: Patsy's

Patsy's is more than a restaurant -- it's a New York City tradition, a landmark Italian eating place, an institution, and a colossus. Patsy's opened 63 years ago, where it remains to this day. Pasquale "Patsy" Scognamillo opened it and was its first chef. His son succeeded him and, for the last couple of decades, his grandson has been the kitchen commander.