Hot Plates knows you all love food, and you enjoy dining out. We also know how much you value something culture writer Virginia Postrel calls "look and feel." Food is never the end of the story, is it? You care about how the front of the house is run, how things are plated, how mishaps are handled. You enjoy small, unexpected touches and you loathe sloppy, careless service.

Moving into 2008, when we look at restaurant reviews, we will be keeping some extra eyes on style in restaurants -- not just decor, but the tone, attitude, mood, and personality radiating (or seeping?) from a place. We truly appreciate it when we read a review that explains some hard-to-pin-down aspect of a place's success or failure, and we know you do, too.

Speaking of that: Oof! Frank Bruni issues another sweet smackdown in his N.Y. Times review of Irving Mill, a place we will never feel the need to visit thanks to his review. It's not that he flat-out pans the place; it's that having lived, worked, and frequently dined in the New York City neighborhood where Irving Mill has just opened, we know what Bruni means. "Urbane rusticity" or "rustic urbanity" -- whichever it is, we know how some places can pull off this style, but not everyone can. If Bruni is correct that the food at Irving Mill just doesn't deliver -- he says "This is a menu that reads more flavorful than it tastes" -- then we just could not be bothered. Why is Bruni's prose so deadly sometimes? He titles the review "Old McDonald Had a Quail" and ends it by describing the joint as "Green Acres goes to the Greenmarket." E-i-e-i-o!

A rebirth, of sorts: Washington's Tom Sietsema (looking like a lamb, next to his New York comrade) writes a favorable short review in The Post about a new place just opened by the owners of the former La Colline on Capitol Hill. Ocean M is located in McLean, Va., and it offers "seafood in a dining room with a subtle nautical theme."

For pretense-free Portuguese food in D.C., get a red line Metro out to Wheaton (it's technically in Silver Spring, but closer to Wheaton Metro) to try Bacalhau Assado, a spot that's been around for more than a decade serving "rustic stews and charcoal-grilled meats." The dish people really go for, though, is the salted cod. No wonder the paper files this under its "Worth the Trip" header.

A trio of shorter reviews in The New York Times included a revisit of Gordon Ramsay at the London Hotel, and two first-time write-ups: One of SoHo pan-Viet spot Bun, and the other of TBar Steak and Lounge in the east 70s. In short: Bruni likes Ramsay's place better this time, but still was left "wanting something more." Bun is good cheap eats, and the wine list is surprisingly good, but about half the menu "misfires." Lastly, TBar Steak and Lounge is old-school in a bad way, with its "blue-rinsed crowd," its outdated menu and the lack of salt in the cooking.

Anybody who loves street food knows there are few pleasures in life as simple, on a cold or even rainy day, than getting a stick of perfectly marinated, grilled meat from a sidewalk cart for a dollar. This can happen in Astoria, N.Y., the commutable Queens neighborhood where there is a huge Greek community. But souvlaki, as the stick-meat is called, is available in most Greek places, and eating it in a restaurant (seated, as opposed to running to the subway with stick in hand) with a cold Athena beer and a pile of Greek salad is its own addictive pleasure. We don't know exactly why the Boston Globe has written up a place that's been around since 1989 -- not that we don't love an excuse to wax rhapsodic about Greek food -- but here is the link to the information you need about The Greek Corner in Cambridge, Mass.

There is a great profile on ramen-obsessed foodie-blogger Rickmond Wong ("The Rock Star of Ramen") in the L.A. Times, and alongside it there's a list of places to go in SoCal where Wong says the ramen is top-shelf. We are so jealous you are there and we are here! Know of a great ramen place in D.C.? Hot Plates needs to know!

Like we were saying before, it's a talented writer who can write a sophisticated negative critique. Some reviewers don't bother with nuance, though, like this one, who decided to start off the oh-eight with a slap. This cute little rip, which is interestingly unsigned, goes off on a new L.A. "WeHo" pizza spot called Terroni. It's titles "Whose Pizza Is It Anyway?" and from this small review, that's an interesting question. Hot Plates really subscribes to the old "customer is always right" mentality when it comes to service (unless the grimacing gremlin of a patron really just needs to be shown the door), so we don't like hearing about a place where you can't have it how you want it. Particularly with a food like pizza. "Cut it yourself" -- not something anybody wants to hear anyplace, and most definitely not at a pizza place, brothers and sisters.