The good again: Elsewhere in Hell’s Kitchen, where my consort and I reserved for after the Tow reception for the entrepreneurial journalism center at CUNY and where we arrived full from Evans catering but not so stuffed we couldn’t appreciate how great those portobello sliders are. We shared a respectable escarole/bacon/walnut salad to start, then each had one of the three sliders, chunked with spicy remoulade, and took the last home for an outstanding cold lunch next day for me. The place was pretty empty on this latest go, so the waiter had plenty of energy to oversell the gruner. WIGB? Anytime. Everything about it is way better than the neighborhood usually inflicts. 403 West 43d Street, 212 315 2121.

The half-bad: The Breslin in that weird zone of cheesy wholesale fashion, where we met three friends for a 9 o’clock Sunday breakfast and where the seating and setting made up for the lame food. The place is overdesigned to the max, right down to nonfunctioning water fountains in the basement, so we were happy with our booth with adjustable lighting, plug-ins for phones etc. and retractable curtain and buzz light to summon servers. They seemed disturbingly on, hyper and super-chatty at that empty/early hour. But the food. (And the coffee! My cappuccino tasted bitter and scorched, no matter how gorgeous the foam pattern was.) Our orders took forever, after we took forever ordering, and my grilled cheese with house-cured ham was totally flavor-free, even when slathered with coarse-grain mustard. Bob’s special bubble & squeak was more like bland & grease. One friend shared a good chunk of his skirt steak, which tasted livery to us. And I did not taste another’s Greek yogurt although Bob declared it a rival to sour cream. But Friend No. 3 was not a bit happy with her grapefruit, sliced on the bottom to sit flat but “whacked back and forth” without separating the segments, and encrusted with a clumped “ginger sugar mint” topping. WIGB? Only with friends from out of town on expense account. A for ambiance. D for cooking. 16 West 29th Street in the Ace Hotel, 212 679 1939.

The worth-the-line: Doughnut Plant on the Lower East Side, where I lured my consort before our awesome class at Pizza a Casa a coupla doors away. We hit it just right, with only two people waiting on the sidewalk as we walked up, so 15 minutes didn’t matter. Bob was happy with his tres leches cake doughnut, and we were both awed by the raspberry jam-filled square yeast doughnut I chose. So much so that we wrapped half up and schlepped it home to let The Cat taste before fighting over it. WIGB, though? Only if the line was nonexistent, or if an out-of-continenter was really hellbent on trying it. 379 Grand Street near Norfolk, doughnutplant.com