Bauer Gets "Stingy" Service At Mission Chinese, MORE

In today's edition of the Chron, Michael Bauer offers up a re-review of Mission Chinese Food, since chef and mastermind Danny Bowien moved on to New York. He still thinks the atmosphere is only worth one star, and while he calls the food "practically as good as I remember," the service suffers: "we were each brought just one additional tissue-thin napkin, a stingy offering for the aftermath of the ribs." The "take-it-or-leave-it attitude" plus a three star food rating keeps MCF at an overall 2 stars in Bauer's book. [Chron]

At West Portal restaurant Orexi SF Weekly's Anna Roth samples Greek dishes "that have been passed down from the old country." She writes that, rather than the "knockoff food you find mediocre renditions of in mall food courts," dishes taste like the kind "a Greek grandmother might make." Meats are "so tender it falls off the bone just by looking at it" and even normally unimpressive appetizers are "perfectly decent." [SF Weekly]

Craving the rustic Mediterranean cuisine she experienced in Turkey,
Patricia Unterman tests the fare at Troya. The Restaurant delivers in "hospitable spirit" and infuses traditional dishes with California flavor, like "leafy green salads that I never saw in Turkey." Though the pastry chef has a "delicate hand with pastries and dough," she writes that the kunefe doesn't quite measure up to "the one I had in the market in Antakya." Still, with "very soft, juicy, minced lamb" and dreamworthy baklava "even if you think you don't like baklava," she seems smitten. [Unterman On Food]

THE ELSEWHERE: EBX gets some old-fashioned Italian at Borgo Italia in Oakland; The Merc talks crabs with Nick's Cove in Tomales Bay; Marin IJ cuddles up with a glass of wine at San Anselmo's La Loggia; The Chron eats stunning sushi rolls at Blue Gingko in Danville, 2 1/2 stars.
— Ashley Mason