Restaurant Critic Roundup: Pete Wells Spotlights Mission Chinese, Swift's Attic In Austin Impresses

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.

In New York, Pete Wells with The New York Times applauds chef Danny Bowien of Mission Chinese for his house made kung pao pastrami, commenting that the restaurant "does to Chinese food what Led Zeppelin did to the blues" – at once revering and subverting the tradition preceding it. Bowien's loud, busy Lower East Side joint earned two stars after a few flavor "stumbles."

On the West Coast, Michael Bauer visits St. Vincent, David Lynch's American Tavern in the San Francisco Mission, and finds that the wine list outshines dishes like pickled eggs, she-crab soup, and bone marrow. In Seattle, Providence Cicero enjoys Seattle's part locavore restaurant, part congenial social club, while in Boston Devra First criticizes Jamaica Plain's fledgling restaurant, Tonic, which doesn't quite deliver on its culinary ambitions.

In Austin, Matthew Odam is impressed by Swift's Attic, nestled in a reimagined meatpacking warehouse space, that offers dishes like flakey Idaho rainbow trout a la plancha, buttered popcorn gelato with root beer gelée, and homemade candy bars that "confuse and thrill like a whirlwind first weekend of dating a new love."

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.

Restaurant Critic Roundup: 7/25/12