• Armin Amiri's Socialista is closing for good, and Giuseppe Cipriani, of course, is partly to blame. [Page Six]
• Everything you missed at yesterday's porkfest, Cochon 555. [Eater, TFB]
• Masa Matsushita has returned to Matsugen for the next three months. [JGV]
• Tim Zagat chats with the Post about Restaurant Week. [NYP]
• Adam Platt gives two stars apiece to 10 Downing and West Branch. [NYM]
• Wass Stevens has landed himself a role in a BlackBerry commercial. [GS]
• More bad news for chef Gordon Ramsay: His empire is supposedly "crumbling," and he's also been banned from Mario Batali's restaurants for calling him "fanta pants." [NYP, Guardian]

Frank Bruni's list of the 10 Best New Restaurants of 2008 is online. Here they are: 1. David Chang's Momofuku Ko, 2. Drew Nieporent and chef Paul Liebrandt's Corton; 3. (tie) Scott Conant's Scarpetta; 3. (tie) L'Impero; 5. Dovetail; 6. Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Matsugen; 7. Adour Alain Ducasse; 8. Daniel Boulud's Bar Boulud; 9. Allegretti; 10. Mia Dona. [NYT]

• Frank Bruni of the Times heads to Elizabeth and bestows a single star on the restaurant that has seen two chefs come and go in recent months: "It has its problems, annoyances and confusions. Just four months old, it has already changed plenty, and it still doesn’t seem entirely sure of what it wants to be." [NYT]

• Adam Platt isn't feeling much love for Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Matsugen. In this week's issue, he gives JGV's soba house a single star. [NYM]

• The war between between Georgia and Russia is having an impact on the local restaurant biz: Russians are avoiding Café Georgia in Brighton Beach. [NYDN]

• Frank Bruni of the Times gives three stars today to Matsugen (left) for its "obsessive attention to detail." He especially likes the noodles ("never too floppy or too firm") and the "startling" desserts. [NYT]

• Frank Bruni of the Times hands out one star to Persimmon, where he says dining is an "adventure" filled with uneven dishes and "spasmodic" service. [NYT]

• Frank Bruni hands out two stars to Szechuan Gourmet in Midtown where, he says, "the heat is almost always on, and it comes at you in different ways." [NYT]

• Frank Bruni finds Midtown seafood stalwart Oceana "still very much worth boarding," handing it three stars and deeming its fish "superbly cooked." [NYT]