Alexandra

Eran Shahaf and Liz Arana converted a Chinese restaurant on the ground floor of their own apartment building into an American bistro and crammed 40 seats into the space, ensuring that conversations cross tables. Shahaf acts as host; Arana prepares the food inside a kitchen the size of a closet. We can hardly blame her for keeping things simple—plain old Caesar salad, steamed mussels, scallops with risotto—but the downside is that not much of it proves very memorable. The baby back ribs "diablo" (marinated in "fiery" chilies) sounded the most exciting of all the dishes but were oddly bland. In fact, the ballsiest thing about the place is that it dares to be cash-only when the tab easily adds up to $100 for two.