Where Colin Ate: Mitsuru, Mariscos El Submarino, 4 Charles Prime Rib, Lev Street Cart
Plus: Excellent bites at the new Time Out Market
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.
Last week, I found your new favorite backyard weekend hangout, checked out a high-end tasting menu in Greenpoint, and dined at one of the hardest tables to get in town. I also found some time to check out the newest downtown food hall and a few other neighborhood favorites. It was an absolutely stellar week of dining, and I hope you enjoy.
Colin
Mariscos El Submarino
📍Greenpoint
🍽️ Mexican
Last weekend, I got together with some friends and finally made it to Mariscos El Submarino. We went to the Greenpoint location on a warm fall weekend, where we were seated in the bustling backyard. I honestly could not have been more impressed with our meal here. What an insanely fun restaurant. I know I’m super late to the party on this one, but I wish there were a location closer to me, as I would be there frequently. We started with a mixto aguachile negro, a spicy and bright dish featuring mixed shrimp, fish, octopus, onions, and avocado. It was compulsively delicious and served with tostadas on the side. A finely-chopped pescado ceviche helped to balance out the spice of the aguachile. It was a perfect counterpoint dish to be served together. We ordered most of the tacos from the menu, but the best was definitely the octopus taco, served with cheese, avocado, and what I believe was a salsa macha. The octopus was perfectly cooked with a great chew and crispy outside edges. Following the tacos, we ate through really good peel-and-eat shrimp, cooked on the grill. We used the aguachile to dip the shrimp, and it all felt right. Finally, we ended with a tostada rosarito with fish, shrimp, and crab swimming in a creamy pink sauce that our table absolutely devoured. I could not recommend a more fun weekend hangout, and I can’t wait to come back.
4 Charles Prime Rib
📍 West Village
🍽️ Steakhouse
Even though I don’t eat here as much as I used to, 4 Charles continues to be one of my absolute favorite spots in NYC. My good friend Dan was coming to town and wanted to hit a fun place for an early birthday dinner for his son before his show at Irving Plaza later that evening. We ended up with a 6-top in the best seats in the house and really went to town. My go-to order starts with shrimp cocktail and oysters, as well as the green salad, which is so wildly underrated and is fantastic. After that, depending on the size of your party, I like to try to make sure each person has half a burger as well as a bit of the prime rib sandwich. For this visit, we opted for a perfectly cooked porterhouse that was a special, as well as the Dover sole to lighten everything up (ha!). For sides, I am pretty classic and don’t really deviate from their incredible garlic mashed potatoes and blue cheese creamed spinach. For me, no meal is complete without the lemon meringue pie. The team was nice enough to send us all of the desserts to celebrate. Such a fun place and always the best experience.
Hibino
📍 Cobble Hill
🍽️ Japanese
Fresh off of last week’s thoughts on neighborhood sushi spots, I found myself in Brooklyn with a few friends after the taping of Jimmy Kimmel and was able to pop into Hibino. My friend Frank (Frankies Spuntino) had been telling me for a while now that this is his go-to spot for neighborhood Japanese food. For me, Hibino is a spot to get some fun rolls and a few bites of nigiri if you’re feeling it. The fish quality was solid, and the rice was well seasoned. The best bites for me, though, were the other Japanese dishes on the menu. Hibino has a specials board highlighting their obanzai, which are small seasonal plates (traditionally from Kyoto), as well as other fish specials for the evening. That night’s obanzai in particular, “chicken cake,” happened to be my favorite dish of the evening. The dish consisted of two meatloaf-like slices of a chicken cake, made from ground chicken, lotus root, onion, egg, and sweet red miso, served in a light broth with a sprinkle of chili powder on top. The texture was meaty with a slight crunch from the lotus, and it was just a really comforting dish. Hibino is another really great neighborhood restaurant that can hit the spot when you’re craving a bit of homestyle Japanese food, as well as a few simple maki rolls and a small selection of nigiri.
ILIS
📍 Greenpoint
🍽️ Seasonal North American
For as many times as I have been to ILIS for snacks and cocktails, last week was the first time I was there for the full experience, and it was really special. Ilis is a fine dining restaurant in Greenpoint, led by Noma Co-Founder Chef Mads Refslund. Ilis uses hyper-seasonal ingredients and puts together two different tasting menus built around what is in the market right now. Their cocktail program, led by my good friend Bobby Murphy, has always been a highlight, and the mixed beverage pairing that came with our meal was no different, easily switching between cocktails and wine throughout the meal. If you haven’t been to the space yet, it is a really beautiful restaurant and definitely worth getting at least a drink and a few dishes from the bar menu to get a feel for what they do. As a special occasion spot, no restaurant in NYC is doing anything very similar to what they are doing here, and it makes it a really fun and unique experience. The meal started —after a few cocktails—with roasted chestnuts, served in a small bowl with a side of chestnut miso, to dip them into after peeling. The nutty, earthy flavor was a great way to get started. One of my favorite dishes of the night was a warm onion soup served from a hollowed-out onion. It was creamy and rich with onion flavor, slurped through an edible straw. Scallops served cold and simply with a tomato (I think) sauce was a great way to bring out the sweetness of the fresh scallops, still attached to the shell. Chef Mads then, for a bit of theater, brought out a large mortar and pestle along with a variety of peppers, herbs, and eggplant that was then crushed into a tableside salsa of sorts to go with the bread and butter course. Following the bread was a really fun course of oysters, cut up and served with tuna marrow and salty oyster leaves, served on an ice cube and eaten with the flat side of an oyster shell. It was a briny burst of flavor that I loved. Caviar covering the entirety of a beautiful oblong sweet potato with a rye crust was another easy-to-love dish. Another really fun presentation was mussels and pork sausage cooked in a pig’s bladder, opened tableside, and served with a mussel aioli for dipping. It was rich and absolutely delicious. The menu started getting fuzzy on recall for me around this point, but we were also served a great tuna course, cooked this time after eating it earlier in the meal as an aged tuna ham, and finally a small roasted leg and breast of a quail served with grapes and jus. Overall, it was a really great experience and definitely worth checking out if you have a fun occasion coming up.
Quick hits, Pop-ups & New openings
Cincinnati Night @ Edwards
📍Tribeca
🍽️ American bistro
One of my favorite pop-ups is the monthly Cincinnati Night at Edwards in Tribeca. The pop-up happens on the last Monday of every month, and they offer a bunch of Cincinnati favorites, but I mostly go for the Skyline Chili. The place gets packed for these nights, so I recommend either reserving or going early. I recently saw this kid on Instagram named Hot Dog Harv, who sings hot dog parody songs a la Weird Al, and his first banger was a song called “Cheese Coney Club”, set to the tune of Chappell Roan’s Pink Pony Club. The song has been stuck in my head for weeks now so making it to Edwards for chili night seemed like the only move. I ordered two cheese coney’s, hot dogs with chili, mustard, onions, and cheese, as well as a four-way chili with onions. Four-way chili is a Cincinnati style of eating chili over spaghetti, and the “Four way” is in reference to the ingredients. This one was 1.) spaghetti, 2.) chili, 3.) Cheese — always shredded cheddar, 4.) onions or beans. I always choose onions, but you can also order it “five way”, which includes all of the above. The spaghetti is definitely the highlight with the savory, sweet cinnamon flavor of the chili, topped with all the other fun stuff. It’s not necessarily every day food, but it’s so much fun to have as a once-per-month option if you’re ever craving a cheeky taste of the Midwest.
Mitsuru
📍 West Village
🍽️ Sushi
My good friend Sarah got back to town this week, so we made some time to get some sushi together. I have already written at length about how much I like Mitsuru, so I won’t go crazy here, but it was another absolutely stellar meal. This visit included three different hakarimono (silverfish), which is always my favorite. We were treated to saba (mackerel), aji (horse mackerel), and my absolute favorite right now, which is sanma (pike mackerel). Getting a selection like this for a below-market $175 starting point for the nigiri omakase is the best you can do in NYC right now. It’s also a bonus that they accept $FLY, so I can basically eat for free from the $FLY I’ve accrued from dining out!
Lev Street Cart
📍 Soho
🍽️ Middle Eastern
Lev is a roaming pop-up/events catering company that is known for Middle Eastern-style food. They currently have a cart outside of REI on Lafayette, right by our office, offering kebabs, sandwiches, and mezze plates. I thought it was some of the best food I have eaten from a cart in NYC, and I highly recommend it. While waiting, the team offered some of their soup to everyone waiting for their orders, which I thought was a really nice bit of extra hospitality that was surprising given the venue. The soup was a hot deeply flavored lamb broth, thickened with yogurt and popping with acidity and herbs. It let me know I was at the right place. For lunch, I ordered something called brik, which was eggs, harissa potatoes, and onion in a flaky fried crepe. The brik came with two sauces, a spicy schug and a preserved lemon, both of which were great on the dish. I also ordered the day’s special, which was slow-cooked lamb shoulder, potatoes, tahini, and schug in a hollowed-out baguette that was really great. I highly recommend checking this place out while it’s still here.
Kebabwala @ Time Out Market
📍Union Square
🍽️ Indian
I found myself in Union Square around lunchtime after a meeting and decided to check out the new Time Out Market. The market has a really nice selection of vendors, and it should be really interesting to see how they do. For food, I decided to check out some familiar faces and made my first stop at Kebabwala. It was really nice to see both Chef Chintan (working the grill) and Roni on site. I ordered the seekh kebab plate, which was served over rice with a small salad of red onion and peppers, and all topped with a really nice mint chutney. The kebab was perfectly grilled and juicy. Food this good has no business being in a food hall, but on this day, I’m glad it was!
Lori Jayne @ Time Out Market
📍 Union Square
🍽️ American comfort food
I also checked out Lori Jayne, which had up until recently been making some of the best bar food in the city out of a bar in Bushwick. As I had tried most of the menu previously, I wanted to check out something new, so I went with the Buffalo chicken sandwich 2.0, which was a really delicious and juicy fried breast on a potato bun with Buffalo sauce, blue cheese, and pickles. Immediately one of the best Buffalo chicken sandwiches in the city. Next time hitting the chili cheese burger.
Frijoleros
📍 Greenpoint
🍽️ Mexican
After our amazing meal at Mariscos El Submarino, we wanted a sweet bite and walked a few blocks away to the newly opened Frijoleros. Frijoleros is a new Mexican restaurant in Greenpoint with a solid mezcal backbar and nicely designed space. I ordered a fun mezcal—Cinco Sentidos Verde—to go with dessert. My favorite of the ones we tried was a “tomal de elote,” which was a really great warm corn cake served with whipped goat cheese on top. I definitely want to come back and try the savory side of the menu as soon as possible.