Where Colin Ate: Kanoyama, Quique Crudo, Hellbender, Union Sqare Cafe
Our columnist helps a friend. Plus: Michelin-level sushi and brûléed cheese.
Colin Camac (aka @resyguynyc) is officially Blackbird’s “Strategic Sales Lead,” and unofficially is our resident insider’s insider. He is out, on the town seven nights a week, sniffing out the city’s best joints, skateboard in one hand, martini in the other.
Another week, another multi-borough culinary adventure that started with a lost phone rescue mission in Sheepshead Bay and ended with refreshing snacks at a recently reborn New York City institution on a sweltering day.
Colin
Roll-N-Roaster
📍Brooklyn
🍽️ Fast food
A close friend of mine woke up realizing she had left her phone in a cab the previous evening and reached out to me to see if I had time to help her track it down. As I am always down to help out on an adventure, we got to work trying to locate and track her phone. After an hour or so and a few way too expensive cab rides, we found ourselves on a random corner of Sheepshead Bay, her phone safely returned and in hand. Rather than head directly back home, we (I) decided it would be fun to make a day of it. We soon found ourselves at one of my favorite places ever, called Roll —N—Roaster. For those not in the know, Roll-N-Roaster feels like a 1970s fever dream serving roast beef sandwiches and cottage fries in a place that looks like a franchise from years ago. The truth is, I have only ever been aware of one other location that was short-lived in the East Village in the early aughts. This is where I had first tried Roll—N—Roaster before it soon closed, and I made the pilgrimage out to the original many years later. We ordered a beef with cheese and onion sandwich, as well as a side of fries and gravy, as well as a dope hoodie, as it was a bit cold in there. The Kaiser roll held it together nicely, and once dipped in the jus, it all came together as a decadently delicious bite. It’s weird to feel nostalgia for a place you never actually grew up with, but somehow the vibe of this restaurant makes it all happen. A quick walk up the road is another absolute classic spot in the area, Randazzo’s Clam Bar. We quickly sidled up to a few empty barstools overlooking the small open kitchen area up front. Randazzo’s is known for its galamah (Brooklynese for ‘calamari’) and sauce, as well as all the regular raw bar stuff. The place is a total throwback and feels like nothing has ever changed, and honestly, I don’t think it needs to. It’s pretty perfect. We ordered pretty light with an order of raw little neck clams and some fried galamah with both the regular and the hot sauce on the side. The clams were briny and perfect. Given the choice, I would take perfect clams over oysters anytime. They taste like the cleanest gulp of the ocean in the best way possible. The calamari was lightly breaded and nicely fried, coming with both sauces in small dishes on the side. Both of us agreed that the regular sauce was the way to go. A wonderfully deep tomato sauce that was one of the better versions I’ve had and the ideal pairing for the fried mollusks. The hot was good, but had a smokier flavor that didn’t hit what I was looking for in the dish. Definitely worth a quick trip to check out both of these classics.
Ops
📍Brooklyn
🍽️ Pizza
I had an artist friend from Paris in town for the week, and we decided to do an early birthday celebration for her at Ops. Ops is, to me, one of the best pizza spots in town, leaning more towards a neo-Neapolitan style with a less fluffy crust and less soggy center. They have a very limited menu of salads and starters, as well as five base pizzas and a calzone and pizza special each day. I highly recommend just going for it and ordering as much as you think you can handle from the starters, as they are all great. In particular, the beans and salad are always standouts and should be non-negotiables on any visit. For pizza, we went with almost all of them as a group of 6, but the standouts for me were the pops with sauce, mozz, guanciale, onions, and pecorino. Thick-cut onions give it a great texture and bite with the salty guanciale. The rojo topped with mortadella, almost like a meat blanket over a red pie with pickled peppers, is always a great choice, and the calzone of the day with lonza, broccoli rabbe, and ricotta was an absolute hit. We also preordered a cake from our friends at Loser’s, who perfectly depicted one of our friends' plates that she created on top of her cake, which was an incredibly moist and delicious “crispy, toasty, brown butter coconut cake” that blew us all away!
Kanoyama
📍East Village
🍽️ Japanese
Kanoyama is one of the more old-school sushi spots in the city, opening in the early 2000s and offering both à la carte and omakase. Besides being a solid neighborhood option, their omakase for under $200 ($195) is one of the best options in the city for the price, offering 6 seasonal dishes followed by around 10 pieces of nigiri, a handroll, and really tasty red miso soup. You need to reserve the omakase in advance and it is offered Wed-Sat each week. Of the starter courses on this visit, an early course of sesame tofu topped with uni and fava beans in a dark soy blend was fantastic. The textures worked really well together, and the pops of uni as well as the slightly nutty favas all played their parts well. Another highlight was the sweetfish tempura over snap peas and blistered tomatoes with perfectly cooked abalone, maintaining its trademark slight chew. The nigiri here is some of the best around, served hand to hand from Chef Nobuyuki Shikanai. Some of my favorite bites from this visit were the ama ebi, lean tuna zuke, uni, and a really fantastic bite of shima aji. Kanoyama gets lost in the shuffle a bit, but I highly recommend it when looking for a great sushi meal that’s still below market rate for a really high-quality experience. Kanoyama somehow gets lost in the shuffle
Hellbender
📍Queens
🍽️ Mexican
Caught up with a good friend and took the trek to Hellbender out in Ridgewood last week. Hellbender is the popular Mexican-American restaurant from the Rolo’s team run by Chef Yara Herrera. I had previously been for drinks when they first opened and a great brunch—hello masa pancakes—a few weeks back, but had never had dinner here. The vibe and feel are really fun, and they have a sneaky good, tight mezcal selection, which is a big plus for me. As a mezcal drinker myself, I've found that so many places have really terrible mezcal. I know I am in the minority, as most people don’t really care, but I think it’s important to have at least one well-made bottle that you can drink neat, and they have several. We started with the shrimp cocktail, which was chopped up shrimp in a pool of clamato, topped with sliced avocado and mixed with a pico de gallo, served with tostadas. It was really bright and fresh tastin,g and a great way to get the ball rolling. Next up, we had the delicious fried Oaxacan cheese, which is lightly breaded in cornflakes and comes with a tomatillo salsa. My favorite dish of the night was the crispy lamb tacos, lamb shoulder crisped up on the flat top and added to a corn tortilla with avocado salsa. The crispy lamb bits added a great texture to the taco that put it over the top for me. Another really fun dish was the pork ribs al pastor, served on the bone, and we added some fresh tortillas on the side to create a little DIY taco situation, which is highly recommended.
Quique Crudo
📍Brooklyn
🍽️ Mexican
Quique Crudo is a tiny jewel box of a restaurant on Bedford Street in the West Village. It comes from Chef Cosme Aguilar of Casa Enrique, which was one of the first restaurants in Queens with a Michelin star. Even with Casa Enrique still buzzing in LIC, I have yet to come to his newer restaurant and not see Chef Cosme working in the small kitchen preparing perfectly seasoned, mostly seafood-focused Mexican food. I think due to its no-reservations policy and diminutive size, you don’t hear enough about it, but it is without a doubt one of the better restaurants in the neighborhood. I had a few friends in town, so we hit it early in the week, right as they opened, and snagged a few seats at the bar, which also serves as the open kitchen. The seafood here is all fantastic, and I would recommend that as the focus of your meal, as it takes up the majority of the menu. Highlights for me were the tostada de pulpo y camarón, which is a small personal corn tostada topped with shrimp and octopus in a sweet cocktail sauce with avocado, onion, and cucumber. It is refreshing and has a great chew balanced out by the crunchy toastada. I could eat about 10 of these. Raw oysters are always a good choice, today Island Creeks with hot sauce and pico de gallo. Next up, a really special razor clam prep, served cold on the shell with cucumber, lime, serranos, onion, and avocado. The clams are cut into slivers and add a slight chew to the crunchy texture of the onions and cucumber, rounded out by the creamy avocado. My favorite dish and one that I must admit I slept on is their version of a Caesar salad noted on the menu as “enselada ceserin” and is one of if not my favorite version in the city—crisp baby gem lettuce topped with boquerones, garlic panko and topped with parmesan cheese. Most people don’t realize that Caesar salad was created in Mexico, and this version pays homage to that tradition.
Quick hits, Pop-ups & New openings
Bar Kabawa
📍East Village
🍽️ Caribbean
I continue to enjoy popping into Bar Kabawa randomly for a snack as I did on the hottest day of the year so far last week. Something about the heat immediately makes me want to drink a daiquiri, and what better place than a bar known for them? I started with a Floridita #3 off of their menu, which comes with Probitas rum, grapefruit juice, and maraschino, which was bright, balanced, and exactly what I needed to beat the heat. For snacks, we ordered Dad’s sardines, which seem to get better each time I order them with the pepper sauce, giving it pops of flavor to balance out the sardines, onion, and avocado served with a fried saltine. I finally tried the Solomon Gundy as well, which is now a must-order for me, a fish dip with a bruleed top layer that is creamy and rich, served with what the menu just calls crispies, and is a really great snack while drinking. The best dish on the menu for me, though, is the baked geera goat patty ordered with a side of coco bread. The flaky pastry gives way to the cumin flavored goat wrapped in the hot, fresh coco bread, which is one of my most craveable dishes around right now.
Union Square Cafe
📍Union Square
🍽️ New American/Italian
Surprisingly, I still have never had a full meal at the newest incarnation of Union Square Cafe. I found myself walking through Gramercy on another brutally hot Summer day. It was the kind of day that almost makes you not want to eat due to literally every item on every menu sounding too heavy. As we were walking by we decided to duck in for a few seats at the bar. Seeing that all of the bar seats were currently occupied, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to be on our way, but to our surprise, there was another smaller but still full bar upstairs. Walking through the nicely air-conditioned room, there was quite literally nowhere else I would rather be. I quickly ordered a martini, arriving in a cold glass and hitting the spot so perfectly that it almost felt wrong. We only ordered a few things, as again, the heat made eating seem less of a priority. We started with a plate of a half dozen oysters, cleanly shucked and brimming with salinity. A perfect natural pairing for a martini. Following that, we ordered the baby artichokes, served room temp with pecorino, mint, and a good amount of garlicky bite. It was the perfect snack on one of the hottest days so far.
 | A guest post by
|