Where Colin Ate: Cosme, Gui Steakhouse, Kid Pizza, and Balthazar
Plus: the best damn breakfast burrito
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 fun week of dining is in the books. Steak Club made its return, finding some of the best prepared steaks in the city. I broke down dining in the village in the late 90s and early aughts with a trip down memory lane at an old sushi standby, and I loved a brand new Thai restaurant in Union Square.
Colin
Gui Steakhouse
📍 Times Square
🍽️ Steakhouse
After an unfortunate one-month hiatus due to scheduling, Steak Club returned this week with Gui Steakhouse in Times Square. Gui is a new modern steakhouse “through a Korean lens” from the Michelin-starred Chef Sungchul Shim of Mari & Kochi. Located off of 8th Avenue around 47th street, you walk into a small barroom area. We were an early bird res, so it was fairly empty when we walked in. The martinis from the happy hour menu billed as “cold a$$ martinis” were indeed cold and well-made. After getting our drinks, we made our way up the elevator - with our first elevator martini cheers ever - and were seated in a sprawling main dining room that was broken up by design into small sections. We were seated by the kitchen and able to see the massive grill and the team at work. I will say, I don’t think the rigid format of Steak Club was best suited for this restaurant, as we try to have a standard order at each place to make the comparison more apples to apples, but there were so many fun Korean items that I think would have been more in their wheelhouse. For me, the highlight of the starters was definitely the mandoo (Korean dumpling) filled with galbi with a cheese skirt and nuoc cham on the side. The crispy layer of cheese gave way to a nicely steamed dumpling with a fish sauce punch from the dipping sauce. The other thing I can say about Gui is that they serve some of the absolute best steaks in NYC. We ordered a porterhouse, bone-in ribeye, and prime rib, and each came out perfectly cooked and seasoned with incredible flavor on the beef. I would really love to come back again and order outside the confines of our self-imposed rules, as I think this place has a ton of potential to be great.
Kid Pizza
📍 Chelsea
🍽️ Pizza
I was invited to go to a fun bar event thrown by my friend Jinah at Kid Pizza with cocktails from T Edwards and Yola Mezcal. Kid is the new restaurant from the team that was behind neighborhood favorite Motel Morris, as well as The Commons right up the block. The restaurant had been on my list to check out for a while, and my buddy Felipe from Yola was bartending so it was as good a reason as any to come check it out. Kid Pizza has a very fun neighborhood feel with a game room downstairs and a very approachable menu based around pizza, small snacks, and veggies. I started with a Tomarita cocktail featuring Yola, Isolation Proof Mushroom Gin, masa, tomato, hoja santa, and lime, which tasted incredibly earthy and fruity. A really nice cocktail. Jinah and I decided to split some top-tier mozzarella sticks. Great breading and a cheese-pull made for Instagram. Before the pizza arrived, we were sent a few welcome surprises from the kitchen. First, a chicory salad - one of my favorite things - with delicata squash rings, pepitas, and some blue cheese in a balsamic dressing. We also received a really great charred caraflex cabbage, perfectly sweet and balanced out with a yogurt-like sauce - didn’t actually catch what it was - that was really solid. For pizzas, I tried 3, my favorite being one they sent out as an extra, which was mozz, pancetta, melted onions, and blistered tomatoes. Salty and sweet at the same time with a hint of heat. We also ordered the mortadella pie, which was a white pie with ricotta, pesto, and topped with mortadella. The pesto brought a lot of the flavor to this one, with the creaminess of the ricotta rounding it out. Another real highlight was the special Mexican-inspired pizza of the day that was topped with hoja santa, queso Oaxaca, avocado, pasilla chile & chapulines. I was offered a slice from a nearby friend’s table and only got to it when it wasn’t quite as hot any longer, but the flavors were amazing, and it was one of my favorite bites of the night.
Tomo21 Sushi
📍 Greenwich Village
🍽️ Sushi
When I started spending time in NYC in the late 90s, one of my favorite things to do was find a great restaurant to go out to eat. Staying in the Meatpacking district at the time, we went to all the neighborhood spots, starting with Florent, Chow Bar, Miracle Grill, Good, Mi Cocina, La Cucina (Freddy’s), Kobma Thai (my first pad thai), Piccolo Angolo, and eventually Pastis. Once we hit everything in the neighborhood, my other favorite pastime was scouring through the NYC Bible (Zagat Guide) to try to find hidden gems and things that sounded great and weren’t “too expensive”. On one of those searches, I eventually stumbled upon Tomoe Sushi, which, year after year (yes, I compared) had the best mix in the sushi category of highest score and lowest price point. I absolutely had to check this place out. Eventually, we did and found a bare bones spot that, to me at the time, served some of the absolute best sushi around.
After touching on the big differences I saw between NYC and LA sushi a few weeks back, the conclusion I came to was that high-quality neighborhood spots that were all over LA didn’t really exist in NYC. As I was thinking through it, I really wanted to figure out something that was a good comp to that style, and I realized that Tomo21 is exactly what LA sushi is all about, but in Greenwich Village. Around since at least 1995—based on the limited information I could find online—it was taken over by a few former employees in 2021, and the name was changed to Tomo21. As far as I can tell, everything remains almost exactly the same, except they now accept all credit cards - not just Amex - and it seems like a place that is not as in demand as it used to be. I walked right in last week, which was unheard of back in the day, and found myself a nice seat at the bar. The menu is exactly the type of thing that LA sushi excels in, simple classic nigiri and tamaki, with no crazy rolls and a bunch of traditional cooked dishes from the kitchen. Nigiri are all massive and of good-quality fish served over a slightly sweet, warm, seasoned rice. This is the type of spot you don’t really take chances, it’s all fastballs, negi tuna roll, spicy tuna roll, king crab California, spicy scallop, etc. They also serve a California classic you rarely see out here, which is essentially a baked crab roll, warm snow crab, mixed with rice in a tofu wrapper with yuzu kosho and spicy mayo on the side to dip. The hamachi kama is also a really fun dish off the hot food menu. Is this still my favorite sushi in the city? Based on how much my tastes have changed and evolved to understand the intricacies of sushi the way I do now, it can’t be. That being said, this is still a really great neighborhood spot that never got caught up in the omakase hype and still served quality stuff for a great price in a style that feels very much right out of the past. More places like this should exist, and if they do, they also deserve to be celebrated.
Narkara
📍 Union Square
🍽️ Thai
I had read about Narkara a bit and had it on my list to try since it opened in late August and happened to be by it last Saturday night, so I popped in. The restaurant is just off Union Square in the middle of the block on 17th Street. I was really impressed with the open floor plan as well as the high ceilings and large bar; it really felt great in there. I started off with smoked chili margherita, which infuses tequila with dill and vermouth with chili’s, then brightened up with pomelo. A very tasty drink that went really well with the menu. Narkara focuses on Northern Thai dishes, some of which, as my bartender explained, you don’t see in many other restaurants, not only in NYC but in Thailand as well. I started out with the mango salad, which, unlike many versions around the city, also included housemade rice noodles mixed in. The noodles added a different texture to the normally crunchy dominant salad, which was a nice change-up. Following the salad, I had some really good stuffed chicken wings, stuffed with glutinous rice and topped with fried garlic, chili, and shallots for some spice and extra texture. They did a really deeply, intensely flavored duck larb, with chili, lime, and seared foie on top for a richer taste. The larb paired really well with a fun side dish of “savory pork blood rice” that had a slightly earthy, metallic flavor and was mixed with fragrant herbs. My favorite dish of the night though, was a plate of both styles of Northern Thai sausage, a sai ua, more herb-forward and slightly spicy sausage, as well as my absolute favorite sai krok Isan, which is a tangy fermented pork sausage mixed with rice. Both came with a spicy nam prik fermented fish and chili dip with herbs and veggies. I will definitely be coming back to try some of the larger plates, as this was one of the more fun Thai meals I have had in a while.
Quick hits, Pop-ups & New openings
Best Damn Breakfast Burrito
📍East Village
🍽️ Mexican
Best Damn Breakfast Burrito is a new West Coast burrito spot that just opened in the East Village and was doing a $5 breakfast burrito promo for opening week. I went with a friend to check it out and tried three burritos and a juice. I love the vibe of a burrito spot that also has fresh juices. We went with the “beet it,” which was a delicious beet juice concoction that I don’t have any other info on. Of the burritos I tried, the two standouts were the La Neta, which featured an over-easy egg, bacon, cheddar, avocado, tater tots, and crema. It had great texture and a really fun mix of creamy and salty that worked really well. We also enjoyed the chorizo with scrambled eggs, cheddar and tots. Both are definitely worth trying.
Balthazar
📍 Soho
🍽️ French
I met my good friend Frank C (Frankies Spuntino, F&F) in Soho as we were invited for the Softside/Starburst preview night before their weekend collab. After trying the ice cream - a really fun cherry that tasted exactly like Starburst but creamy - we decided to try our luck walking into Balthazar for a light bite. Balthazar is one of the best rooms in town, any time of day, any time of year; it always feels good to be there. We ended up at a small table by the bar and went for some raw bar. I ordered a 50/50 martini and we caught up over a tower of clams, crab salad, shrimp cocktail, and really classic steak tartare. It was a perfect Friday night meal.
Cosme
📍 Flatiron
🍽️ Mexican
After a great dinner at Narkara, a few blocks away, I decided to stop in to see my friends at Cosme and get what I still think is one of my favorite desserts in NYC. I slid into a standing spot at the side of the bar and ordered a few fun off-menu mezcals and the incredible corn husk meringue. The sweet and savory flavor of the dessert was great with the funky mezcal and sotol, and was a great way to end the night.
Hamburger America
📍 Soho
🍽️ Burger
After a HUGE Giants win this week, I got back to the city and was craving a burger. I love the rotating monthly regional burger specials at Hamburger America as a concept and have had my eye on the Carolina Slaw Burger since it debuted earlier this month. It’s a smashburger with cheese, diced onion, mustard, cole slaw, and a perfect hot dog-style beef chili. Definitely worth checking out before it switches out early next month. I also re-tried both their classic and onion burgers and still think the classic is the way to go.
What Colin Made: Cocktails for a tailgate (Horsefeather)
📍 MetLife Stadium
🍽️ Cocktail
For this week’s Giants tailgate, we were gearing up to play the LA Chargers, so I found a great, easy-to-make recipe for a classic LA cocktail called the Brown Derby. Though there is some discrepancies about the origin of the cocktail, it is generally agreed that the cocktail was first created in LA in the 1930s, and according to Dale DeGroff’s “The Craft of the Cocktail,” was first served at the Vendome Club and named for a hat-shaped diner located nearby. The recipe is below:
1 ½ oz Bourbon, I’d use Buffalo Trace usually, but this time I went with Four Roses small batch
1oz of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice
½ oz honey syrup
Garnish with a grapefruit twist
Add all ingredients to a shaker with ice and shake until cold. Serve without ice and garnish.