Restaurant Critic Roundup: Pete Wells Finds Fault In New York Ingredients

As always, the ratings range from stars to bells to beans, but every review offers specialized insight into the food, atmosphere, and service of eateries in each city's dining scene and the critics eating at them.

This week in New York, Pete Wells bestows only one star on Lower East Side's Yunnan Kitchen, lambasting their "redistribution of excellent ingredients," and prompting a call to action: "Before you file this complaint under what is referred to these days as White People Problems, consider that the kind of chicken, pork and fish I long to taste in these restaurants was the only kind anyone knew a century ago. Traditional recipes need traditional flavors."

In California, the Orange County Register has a new restaurant critic, Brad A. Johnson, the self-endowed "best food critic in America and worldwide." Elsewhere in the state, Los Angeles is complimented for complicated-sounding cooking, but "sunny and straightforward" results; and San Francisco pays new reverence to beer.

Washington DC's Seasonal Pantry is proven true to title, declared by Tom Sietsema as "a dinner party in a chef's pantry." Likewise happy, Miami critic Victoria Pesce Elliott raves over Shokudo's food, but doesn't let slip that "someone in the kitchen needs to sharpen their knives."

From the East Coast to the West Coast, from North to South, the weekly restaurant critic roundup is here for all of your dining out needs.
 

 Check out last week's Restaurant Critic Roundup.

Tyler Sullivan is The Daily Meal's assistant editor. Follow her on Twitter at @atylersullivan.