Tom Fitzmorris Gives Two Stars to Mona's

What with that whole Thanksgiving holiday thing, not many reviews this week, but Tom Fitzmorris has one for us in this week's CityBusiness (subscription required). He gave two stars to local Middle Eastern chain Mona's, which, he argues, played a central role in taking the cuisine from an exotic niche in New Orleans to "a part of the convenience eating regimen." He writes that that's "especially true on the young end of the demographic spectrum," a decidedly not-young way to say that he has recently seen or (maybe even!) spoken to a young person.

Fitzy says that Mona's is essential because it used to be "in the Palestinian style, which meant that the hummus was the best around." Because it being Palestinian makes it the best around, by definition? At any rate, Mona's has since become "more generic" and "the consistency has declined," but it's "never bad" and even "occasionally brilliant."

He writes that for best results, you should just order a whole bunch of appetizers to share. And it's BYOB, with no corkage fee. They have four locations across the city, from Mid City to the Marigny to two locations uptown.

And now, the blogs. Emily Smith at Fleurdelicious took the time to review the Chicago-ish style pizza at Midway on Freret. While she admits to being a "thin crust, vegetarian" pizza kind of girl, she was impressed with Midway. "It's a great place for groups and the prices were definitely right on target."

And Lee Rudin of New OrLEEns Eats updated his review of John Besh's restaurant at the World War II Museum, The American Sector. What's the American Sector like? "If you took a 1950's era diner, mixed in some New Orleans cuisine with comfort food classics, and topped it off with the delicate touch emblematic of Besh's fine-dining pedigree," that'd be it. Oh, and the food was "stellar."

· All Weeks in Reviews from Eater NOLA [-ENOLA-]

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