Where Colin Ate: Hoexters, Sendo, Superiority Burger, Salt Hank's
Plus: sushi! burgers! sushi! burgers!
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.
This week was heavy on sushi but also included a favorite burger, a viral sandwich, an UES neighborhood gem, and some of the best desserts in the city, coming from a vegetarian restaurant in the East Village. I also headed to Brooklyn for a much anticipated new opening. We pretty much hit every corner of the city, all in a week's work.
Colin
Hoexters
📍 Upper East Side
🍽️ American
I traveled uptown this week to finally visit my friend's restaurant, Hoexters on the UES. Hoexters is the revival of their family's restaurant from the ‘70’s and is filled with a ton of nostalgia and family history. The menu is classic American comfort that blends in some of the things Hoexters was known for back in the day. The most famous dish is their gorgonzola bread. The only other place I had seen this dish was at the first restaurant I ever worked at, a steakhouse called Jimmy Hays in Island Park on Long Island. When I was bussing tables there in the ’90s, we had “G-bread” on every table, and I figured it was a Jimmy Hays original. Turns out, they took the idea from the original Hoexters! It’s always fun to learn weird little tidbits that tie things back to old jobs. The current restaurant is helmed by Chef Harold Dieterle of Top Chef fame and is an ideal neighborhood spot. The dining room feels classic and comfortable, and by 6:30 p.m., the room was bumping and feeling great. After the bread, we ordered a great shrimp cocktail, properly served with both cocktail sauce and Dijonaise. Not being a huge fan of cocktail sauce myself, I always appreciate that touch. Roasted artichoke served with lemon and aioli is always a hit. For the mains, I loved the pork Milanese, served with a cold, crunchy watercress and potato salad on top. We also had a really tasty burger. Desserts here lean classic, and you can’t go wrong with warm chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream.
Quick hits, Pop-ups & New openings
Blackbird Burger League @ Red Hook Tavern
📍 Red Hook
🍽️ American
The Burger League took us to one of the early betting favorites this week in Red Hook Tavern, and I made sure I was around to join. The menu offered was a slightly stripped-down version of the normal one with all of their staples accounted for. I started with the Duke’s Martini, a gin and vodka split base brightened up with lemon oil, salted cucumber, and chambray vermouth. It was a really delicious drink. Strangely, almost every one of their martinis included a split base, which is just a fun quirk of the menu. We started with the delicious country ham croquettes, oozing with aged cheddar and it was my favorite starter here. The wedge salad is the platonic ideal with large, thick bacon draped over the top. On to the main event of Burger League, as each guest gets their own burger to personally devour. The burger here is a slightly updated version of the classic Peter Luger burger, using the same build (sesame bun, cheese, onion on the bottom, no sauce) and really feels like an honest homage to the famous steakhouse, but it does also stand on its own. The flavor is so beefy and always really well seasoned. I love the thick onion on the bottom as it adds a slightly sharp bite to round it all out. It is, without a doubt, one of my favorites and also one of the most consistent burgers in NYC. To finish off the meal, I ALWAYS order the amazing rainbow cookies, which are a favorite of mine but particularly here. I also love the story of how they came to be. A longtime bartender decided to start making them and brought a few into work one day. When the team tried them, they immediately decided to put them on the menu, and the bartender still makes them to this day. We had a similar story at my restaurant, Fatty Crab back in the day, with how we started offering our signature mochi cake with the check, where an employee brought in a family recipe for mochi cakes and we all could not get enough. It’s always so fun to learn these little tidbits about how things came to be. You quickly start understanding how many moving parts restaurants have and how each day you may find something that changes the way you do things from that day forward.
Icca Chef Kazushige Suzuki @ Sendo
📍 Midtown
🍽️ Sushi
Chef Kazu of Icca is one of my favorite sushi chefs in the city. While I have only had the pleasure of eating at Icca once, my dinner last week reminded me of how much I love what he does. I first met Chef Kazu when he was running the bar at the now-closed NYC location of Sushi Ginza Onadera. Ginza was another one of the really high-end expensive omakase spots, but the cool thing about it was that they served lunch. While dinner ran around $400, lunch was a much more modest $100-$150, and the price included service, which was wild. The restaurant ended up becoming almost a monthly lunch favorite and also felt like one of NYC’s best-kept secrets at the time because I could usually get in on relatively short notice. Eventually, Chef Kazu went out on his own and opened the really delicious Icca in Tribeca. While I have been to Icca, it had definitely been a while, so when I had the chance to eat his sushi again via the pop-up, I jumped at it and scored a solo seat at Sendo. Sendo is an affordable omakase in Midtown, that has gotten really good buzz via pop-ups like this with some really famous sushi chefs and other collaborations, while I had never been, this seemed like as good a time as any. The restaurant is on 6th Ave, one floor up from street level, and normally walk-in only. Once the tasting started and I had my first bite of nigiri, I remembered exactly why I had liked his tastings so much in the past. The rice was perfectly cooked and really well seasoned, and the cuts of neta melted in my mouth. The highlight bites for me were a chopped kawahagi (file fish) mixed in a sauce of its own liver served gunkan style with the nori wrapped around the outside of the rice. Another highlight was the hairy crab handroll with uni that was bursting with umami. Chef also made a really fun saba (mackerel) maki with pickled tomato, ginger, shiso, and topped with sesame seeds. It was a shame, I only got two pieces as I easily could have taken down the whole roll. Watching how quickly Chef Kazu worked, serving the entire 11-person bar while keeping up such incredible technique and quality was truly an awesome experience and so impressive.
i Cavallini
📍 Williamsburg
🍽️ Italian
I Cavallini is the much-anticipated new Italian restaurant from the team behind the Four Horsemen. I had been doing my best not to jump all over it as soon as it had opened—as I normally do—but when the opportunity came to dine with my good friend Richard Knapp (Mother’s Ruin) I was totally down. Not to add too much hype, but I found it to be one of the most dialed-in new openings I had seen in a while. Four weeks in I found a restaurant with a confident, fun menu that took chances while also using perfectly in-season ingredients in simple ways. We started with the delicious housemade focaccia with whipped ricotta and roasted cherry tomatoes. It tasted exactly as it sounds and was really nicely executed. For a more adventurous dish, we went with the nervetti (tendon) served cold, thinly sliced and topped with an onion salad. All of the flavors and textures worked really well, and it was a fun start to the meal. The standout of the first course was definitely the light and airy gnocco fritto, topped with thinly sliced culatello, and it was a perfect bite. For pastas, we went with the farfallone (large bowties) with chili butter and pancetta, which managed to balance salt, cream, and spice nicely, but the big winner for me was the incredible bucatini with sungold pomodoro and ricotta salata. The dish brought me back to the first time I tried Chef Scott Conant's famous pasta pomodoro at Scarpetta way back when, and it blew me away much in the same way. It feels impossible how something as simple could taste so good, but this was a perfect pasta dish for me. For mains we went with the lamb sausage with avocado squash and cherries as well as the tuna belly with chervil gremolata served over risina beans. The sausage was a real standout, fattened up with parm and really flavorful. As a full dish, the tuna belly was really well-rounded with the grassy gremolata and the addictive beans. Desserts were equally as impressive, with a massive delicious tiramisu and a must-order melon sorbet that I couldn’t stop eating. It was really a great night and a very impressive meal for such a new spot. I can’t wait to watch it grow and evolve from here.
Rosella
📍 East Village
🍽️ Sushi
I did a quick Saturday night pop-in for a solo snack at Rosella. I love when I’m walking by and can take my chances for a single seat at the bar. I ordered pretty light with just a few nigiri, a fatty tuna and kimchi handroll, and their always amazing fish slider. The team was nice enough to send me out the dragonfly salad, which is always delicious and now has some plums added for a nice sour pop. The highlight nigiri for me was the mussel, which I needed to re-order as the pickled, briny flavor was so good. As a joke, the team also made my slider supersized—adding another patty—and honestly, it was great.
Superiority Burger
📍 East Village
🍽️ Vegetarian
Right after my light bite ate Rosella, I walked just up the street for some of the best desserts in the city at Superiority Burger. I decided to pick one off the specials wall and then go for a gelato/sorbet combo. For the special, I went with a summertime trifle made with corn cake, lemon mousse, and fruit. It was, as most of their desserts are, incredible with fun textures and flavors all mixed together. I also ordered a labneh gelato and apricot sorbet that was another perfect combo. Always worth a stop here if you’re in the hood and looking for something sweet.
Late Night @ Mitsuru
📍 West Village
🍽️ Sushi
Sushi favorite Mitsuru did a fun late-night party Friday night, serving izakaya dishes alongside sake and wine specials. A friend and I decided at the last minute to stop by, and the place was packed! We were lucky enough to be seated at the bar at a few seats recently vacated by the last omakase turn. It’s always a pleasure to get the opportunity to sit in front of Chef. First, just to catch up, and secondly, because he was nice enough to hit us with a small sampler of a few of my favorite nigiri (aji, kohada, chutoro). From the actual menu, we started with a really solid kara-age (chicken nuggs), a spicy tuna onigiri, and sweet potato fries. It was all really perfect, drinking food. Chef also sent us out a dish of lightly cooked salmon belly with onion pickles that was really special. We capped it all off with a wagyu katsu sando that had us ready to hit the town. Such a fun night, I hope they do more of this in the future.
Salt Hank’s
📍 West Village
🍽️ Sandwiches
While deciding to pop out on the hunt for a Sunday afternoon lobster roll—‘tis the season—I stumbled past Salt Hank’s with almost no line and a sign that still said open. While I don’t think any sandwich would be worth the lines I’ve seen here, I did hear that they are delicious so I took this as a sign to check it out. The sandwich comes with horseradish aioli, thinly sliced prime rib, caramelized onions, topped with provolone on a Frenchette baguette with a side of jus and shoestring fries. The sandwich is really good. I found it even better when adding the fries on top of the sandwich for an added textural element. Overall, a really solid sandwich.
my fave night cap is a martini and dessert at superiority!
Incredible as always