ARCHIVES

Bare-bones plain, cheap, and earnest, Je’Bon Noodles seems oblivious to our town’s bold new world of pulsating Asian eateries-on-steroids.

New York still lacks that great Moroccan restaurant�but until it arrives, Darna, with its modest Casbah accents and passion to please, will do.

A duo of fine-dining veterans, burned out by the city and smitten with Long Island’s rich local harvest, have made the brand-new North Fork Table & Inn an imperative year-round detour in a neighborhood that claims to be starved for quality.

How can it be that Ron and Colleen Marnell Suhanosky have been tending this offshoot of their Nantucket restaurant for three months and it hasn’t popped up on our foodie radar?

In the past, a Boathouse table was basically about inhaling nature�never mind the food. Today the kitchen sends out thrillingly pure crab cakes, and a lush salmon-and-oyster tartare with a dribble of caviar.

The scarred tile floors are real, and the abundant hills of tantalizing, gently priced food are real, too, a joy in this era of foam and froth. But everything else at the new Dressler is whimsy.

Le Cirque old-timers will be relieved to find crispy pig’s feet, tête de veau vinaigrette, and unabashedly retro quenelles de brochet.

I worry that the drive to reinvent the octopus has dizzied Michael Psilakis, the inspired young chef-owner of the Upper West Side’s Onera, since Donatella Arpaia lured him east to co-reign at her new, handsomely outfitted Dona.

Chopped-liver king Shelly Fireman decides to add a touch of sensuous finesse to his earthy repertoire; Larry Forgione brings a touch of class to Times Square.

Chef Patricia Yeo's gorgeous and gutsy global shenanigans bring new luster to 17th Street; Revel seems a bit greedy, even for the Upper East Side.