This new sandwich joint and bar slings some great sandwiches. We ordered for delivery, but it was good enough to mention as a restaurant review here.
We tried a spicy mortadella, a Korean rib sandwich, a meatloaf banh mi, and a chicken Caesar salad sandwich. They have funky names and I forget which ‘wich is which.
The bread is great here, and if I had to choose favorites, I’d go with the banh mi and the mortadella.
CLUBHOUSE SANDOS & SUDS
22 Orchard St
New York, NY 10002
This KBBQ joint in K-Town is great. Their beef heavy menu has an impressive list of selections, including wagyu, beef belly and dry aged prime beef. This little video pretty much sums up the experience.
I’m still full almost a day later. Highlights were the wagyu (pictured below), and the fried chicken.
YOON HAEUNDAE GALBI
8 W 36th Street
New York, NY 10018
This place is legit! Some food blogger friends and I had a great meat feast here this past weekend.
Everything was delicious.
If you go, make sure you get these loaded fries. The portion size is HUGE, so prepare to share.
I was a fan of these dumplings/pot stickers as well.
LOVE BBQ
319 5th Ave
New York, NY 10016
Kjun is a Korean/Cajun fusion food concept that offers delivery service around NYC. They will soon reopen a physical location, but for now, the delivery is thoughtfully packaged, arrives hot, and travels well – nothing soggy, everything remains crisp that needs to.
We tried the fried chicken, ribs, and pork belly lettuce wraps. All were awesome. I especially liked the sides like the noodles and pickled watermelon rinds. Delicious food! Can’t wait to try their hanger steak dishes next.
I’ve been eating Chef Cho’s Kimchi Smoke BBQ for several years at the NYCWFF and various other food events around the city, but I finally made it out to his brick and mortar location in Westwood, New Jersey.
Here’s what I had:
Korean Corn Dog: This was tasty. Cheese interspersed with hot dog, deep fried on a stick and served with a remoulade and a gochujang style ketchup.
The Legendary Chonut: The newest iteration of his famous BBQ sandwich on a donut called “Version 2.1” comes with brisket, cheese, and a bit of kimchi. I really liked this, despite not loving the first version of this about four years back. This is well balanced between heat, sweet, fat and acid.
The Old Dirty Bird: This fried chicken and spicy Korean style slaw sandwich was perfect! I could eat this every day.
General Cho’s Chicken: These fried chicken fingers are coated with his rib sauce, which has a spicy gochujang kick to it.
For the real deal pit BBQ, we had a heap of brisket, pork shoulder, XXX bacon (smoked and deep fried), and two kinds of ribs (the gochujang sauced ribs, and a Texas style dry rub). All of it was delicious. We did some Korean slaw and smoked kimchi on the side to cut the fat.
Here’s a closer look at all of that meat.
I think the XXX bacon was my favorite of the meats:
Then we finished with banana pudding, which had Nilla wafers and chunks of banana in it. AWESOME!
I highly recommend this place. Everything was incredible, and that chicken sandwich is easily in my top dishes of 2019. Possibly the bacon as well.
KIMCHI SMOKE
301 Center Ave
Westwood, NJ 07675
Chef Jae Lee recently took over the kitchen at Black Emperor, and MAN is the food good. My wife and I tried everything on the menu, so buckle up and read on.
As you can see, the menu is a cross between American, Korean and Japanese food. The bar even serves up a nice Toki Highball.
The yuzu guac and rice cracker comes with a dollop of delicious home made chili oil. Really nice and refreshing.
The numbing cucumber pickles are a must try. I ripped through these babies, all the while wiping up that sesame yogurt at the bottom of the plate.
The blistered shishitos with black sesame caesar dressing are highly addictive, so if you order a plate, be prepared to want more and more.
The honey butter tater tots could use a bit more crisp on the outside so they stand up to the honey and butter lacquer, but the well balanced sweetness is a great way to cut some of the robust and highly savory flavors in the entrees to follow.
The ramen spice wings are the best things here. They’re triple fried, and coated in pulverized ramen noodles to give it an unrivaled crispy, crunchy batter. Totally unique. Ramen seasoning is actually used in the glaze.
The Washugyu double American cheeseburger with kimchi mayo is also a big winner here. Just big and savory enough to not need to eat anything other than this and maybe those tots on the side. A masterful stack.
What is Washugyu, you ask? It’s a name brand of beef that’s produced by breeding full blood wagyu cattle with Angus cattle.
The Pat LaFrieda dry-aged burger is a thick single patty, also with American cheese and kimchi mayo. There are only five of these available per night, so go early if you want to try it. I found that the Washyugyu meat played nicer with the toppings and condiments than the dry aged flavors. That dry aged meat by itself, though, is so delicious.
I really liked the food here, and I’ll be back for sure – definitely for the wings, cucumbers, and double burger. Those were my top three items here.
BLACK EMPEROR
197 2nd Ave
New York, NY 10003
I recently had a meal here when celebrating a friends birthday party. Here’s a quick rundown of everything I tried:
This chicken with peanuts dish was really tasty. Nicely fried morsels of dark meat.
These fried beef dumplings were better still. I could have eaten a dozen.
While I’m not a huge tofu guy, these fried cubes were pretty tasty. I’d eat them again, but definitely not over the other two apps above.
Next up, beef noodles. These were ultimately pretty middle-of-the-road. Nothing stand-out about them.
The star of the show, however, was this pork belly dish. So much nice quality belly, with some chiccharones and a great spicy bean curd dip to boot. Awesome.
The octopus was perfectly cooked and had a great crunchy texture on the outside, but there was just something about it that bugged me. It had a flavor that reminded me of the smell of dried fish food. Perhaps it was something added on top for seasoning.
Lastly, their pickles and kimchi items are superb here. Some of the best I’ve had.
I would definitely go back here again.
BARN JOO
35 Union Square W
New York, NY 10003
Brasserie Seoul is a Brooklyn French restaurant where Chef Park is using Korean ingredients to execute his dishes.
I hesitate to call this ppace fusion, since the menu is decidedly French. However I suppose the heavy use of Korean ingredients takes it comfortably into that category.
I came in with two other Instagrammers to shoot some photos of their popular dishes. Here’s what we had:
FIRST ROUND
Foie Gras Amuse: cherry puree and grilled grapes on brioche.
Oysters with Pork Belly: five spice pork belly and chopped kimchi dressing both east and west coast varietals.
Wagyu Beef Tartare: wasabi oil and Korean pear with pinenuts and quail egg.
That was really good. Probably my favorite dish of the night.
SECOND ROUND
Seafood Pancake: bay scallops, shrimp, squid and scallions with a ginger soy aioli.
Truffle Tteok & Cheese: rice cakes with three-cheese bechemel, white truffle oil, panko and gochugaru (a red pepper flake blend).
THIRD ROUND
Cod: jajang puree (black beans), gochugaru carrot reduction, wilted baby kale, and roasted sunchoke.
Kimchi Bouillabaisse: mussels, pollack, shrimp, baby octopus, fried tofu, rice cakes and cabbage kimchi.
FOURTH ROUND
Duck Trio: fried duck confit, breast, crispy skin and foie. More like duck four ways I guess. Blood orange gastrique with cherry puree and candied ginger.
Wagyu NY Strip Steak: black garlic, Korean sea salt, green chili puree and citrus cho ganjang (vinegar soy sauce). 7/10. This was a bit leaner than I expected from wagyu. The flavor was nice, but I’ve had much better prime strips at half the price (this will run you $80).
This steak came with roasted fingerling potatoes:
This place is pretty good. I’m not sure I’d hoof it all the way out to Brooklyn for a second visit, but the tartare, seafood pancake, tteok & cheese and duck dishes were all fantastic.
BRASSERIE SEOUL
300 Schermerhorn St
Brooklyn, NY 11217
I first became acquainted with The Crimson Sparrow when I hung out with chef-owner John McCarthy at a mutual friend’s party.
We traded social media info and kept up with each others’ food exploits online. I always thought his dishes looked so beautiful and sounded so delicious, but I wasn’t sure when I’d ever get to try them – John being up in Hudson, NY and me being NYC-based.
Well, it turns out that I was scheduled to go on a farm tour in Ghent, NY the weekend before the 4th of July. Upon checking out the map of where Ghent was, and planning how I was going to get there, I realized I would be passing through Hudson. I decided to make a small weekend trip out of this farm tour, and to bring my wife along.
It was a no-brainer, at that point, that I’d be visiting John at The Crimson Sparrow. We first went in for the tasting menu, late in the evening after we finished up that farm tour in Ghent.
I have to say… Chef John is doing some really amazing things here. He’s clearly inspired by Japanese cuisine; its preparation, its focus, its simplicity, its artistry. And while he does highlight a lot of Japanese ingredients, he’s also drawing inspiration from his local environs in the Hudson valley as well, and even dropping some overt hints of French technique and Korean flavors as well.
John has been all over the globe honing his cuisine. He used to be an attorney, but then ditched that for the culinary arts. He’s French trained, but he spent a significant amount of time in Japan absorbing all he could. He even did a 5-year stint with Wiley DuFresne at WD-50 in NYC before deciding it was time to press out on his own.
The Crimson Sparrow offers an a la carte menu, but the big draw for me was this multi-course tasting menu, priced at just $95.
I was eager to dig in when we arrived, just like how I’m eager to write about the meal now. I hope your mouth doesn’t water too much, because after I finish describing the tasting menu, you’ll have to stay tuned and read on for the incredible restaurant tour and daytime snack bites that I experienced the following day.
Course 1: Maitake Mushroom
This was crispy yet meaty, and had great flavors from the black truffle and lemon. The only thing I was hoping for here was maybe a flake of sea salt as a finishing item – maybe some nori smoke on that salt too.
Course 2: Yukon Potato
This Yukon Gold potato was shredded and fried to a crisp, topped with smoked egg yolk, cheddar and sea salt. This was essentially a creamy, smokey nest of potato chips. Awesome!
Course 3: Cucumber Crab
This dish reminded me of a really fucking delicious version of something like tuna salad, or crab salad, if you will. Really light and refreshing. I found myself wishing this was offered as a lunch sandwich on some nice, lightly toasted white bread with shiso leaf. I could eat that every day.
Course 4: Dashi with Purple Potato
The photo doesn’t do this dish justice. It was gorgeous. Purple potato, dashi broth, bonito flakes, and a nori aoli mix together to form a really refreshing cold soup. There were hints of miso and mustard flavors coming through as well. Nicely executed.
Course 5: Enoki Mushrooms
I love enoki mushrooms. These were treated simply and allowed to shine for what they are; cooked with binchotan (a kind of Japanese charcoal). They were dressed with soy and topped with shredded nori and sesame seeds. Perfect, really juicy, snappy like noodles, but textured and satiating like a meat protein.
Course 6: Soft Shell Crab
I had a bad experience with soft shell crab when I was younger. The crab I had was too far along after molting, and some parts of the shell were no longer soft. They were like shrimp shells, and it grossed me out. But lately I’ve been dabbling more into soft shell crabs, because I know they can be really good. Here at The Crimson Sparrow they are excellent. It’s lightly batter-fried and served with a mizuna corn kimchi sauce. There was a nice citrus and pepper-spice pop to this dish. Extremely soft shell, great fry batter.
Course 7: Abalone with Pine Nuts
This dish isn’t on the regular tasting menu. Chef John brought it out special for us. I’m so grateful that he did, because this fucking thing was one of the best dishes I’ve ever had in my entire life. I don’t say that lightly either.
Chef John first sous vides the abalone with pork belly and dashi. The pine nuts are pressure cooked with liquid from the bacon and abalone sous vide broth. Are you fucking kidding me? Then an abalone liver and squid ink emulsion is put on the bottom of the plate before serving (the black bits in the photo below).
This dish had such a nice buttery, savory, meaty flavor, and the pine nuts were like farro or barley in texture – like an “ancient grain” kind of starch, or beans. Truly amazing.
Course 8: Shrimp Dumplings
The broth/sauce here was killer: lemongrass, ginger and scallop. Really smooth and rich, and the dumplings were perfectly cooked, like excellent seafood ravioli.
Course 9: Hamachi
These slices of Hamachi exhibit simplicity and Chef John’s respect for the protein, while the cabbage, shiso, shiso oil, nori oil and yuzu broth demonstrates complexity of flavor and John’s extremely impressive skills as a chef. This dish represents exactly what he is doing here at The Crimson Sparrow: simplicity and complexity in the right balance.
Course 10: A5 Wagyu Picanha
Picanha is a Brazilian cut of beef, but it’s the same as “top sirloin cap” here in the states, only with the layer of fat left on that we Americans usually trim off.
This dish was not on the regular tasting menu either. The flavor was wild. It’s beef, but it tastes more like foie gras. It’s very rich in flavorful, oily fats. That large layer of fat can still be chewy, even on A5 Wagyu, but at times you can take it down because it gets so soft.
This beef hailed from the Miyazaki prefecture, which is known as one of the best in Japan for producing highly marbled beef. That little pile of magic dust on the side? Kalamata olive salt. So nice.
Course 11: Pork Belly Congee
This was really tasty. Congee is rice porridge. This one was made with porcini mushrooms and chili oil in the mix, aside from the delicious and tender pork belly. This is perfect “pick-me-up” comfort food right here.
Course 12: Aged Strip Loin
Obviously I loved this dish. It was served with ssamjang (Korean black bean sauce), dressed fresh soy beans and endive.
Here’s what the full plate looked like:
Palate Cleanser: Amazake
This amazake is a young sake made with fermented black and white rice and sweetened with ginger. It was creamy, sweet, slightly bubbly, and really delicious.
Dessert: “American Psycho” on a Plate (that’s my name for it)
This beautiful Jackson Pollock / Patrick Bateman mash-up of plating artistry is a sponge cake with blue- rasp- and mul- berries. There were notes of citrus or yuzu, and even avocado cream in the anglaise. Those beautiful red splatters were done with beet sauce.
Okay so that covers the tasting menu. The next day we came back when John was a little less busy to hang out with him a bit. He gave us a cool tour of the restaurant and kitchen.
Here’s the outside:
The bar is outfitted with some cool things that John salvaged from the property when he first purchased it. Part of the property used to be an old Packard auto shop, and another part was a bakery.
The main dining room is gorgeous. It’s outfitted with some antiques that John either found on the property (like the lamps), or items for which he bartered with local antique shop owners to obtain (like the wine cart).
This part of the property was actually a bakery at one point, and this room was the inside of the massive oven. The table was custom made to accommodate the 9 inch floor slope from one end of the room to the other.
A more private room for larger parties is also available to customers.
The kitchen is housed in the space where Packard used to wash and detail their cars. Those windows you see on the right are massive, and there’s a strip of cool bar stool seats where diners can sit and watch all the kitchen action.
John also showed me the Wagyu strip loin that he’s aging in the walk-in. I think this hunk of deliciousness has been going for over 100 days.
John has a rooftop herb garden as well.
That day we also tried some light snacks in the outdoor garden seating area – a gorgeous space.
This is a pork bun. Really nice flavors, and that pork was stewed to perfection.
These soy beans are similar to the beans on the tasting menu that came with the aged beef dish, but served on a giant shrimp chip.
Also, they serve crisp Orion beer for just $5. Great to sip while enjoying a sunny day on the patio.
I think that about does it. You guys need to check this place out if you’re ever in the area. I’m dead serious when I tell you that this was the best tasting menu omakase style meal I’ve ever had, and that abalone dish… Holy shit man. Ask for it when you go.
THE CRIMSON SPARROW
746 Warren St
Hudson, NY 12534
My wife scored a crazy flash deal for KBBQ here at Miss Korea. The regular price was $95 but with additional coupon codes, she paid something like $70 for this BBQ barrage. We went above and beyond, though, when we started with this bowl of makgeolli (slightly bubbly, unfiltered rice wine at about 6% alcohol that drinks as easily as soda). I love this stuff.
First was a simple salad to get the juices flowing.
Then a bowl of rice porridge with dried fruits and nuts. This was refreshing and light.
Next up was a trio of Modeum Jeon pancakes: corn, kimchi, spinach.
These were amazing. Usually they’re thin, greasy and too crowded with scallions. Not the case here. These were thick and light.
Holy shit this thing came out next… Tuna tartare. But look at how vibrant the color is on this!
It had a perfect sear on the outside, nice and peppery. I could eat this all day long.
Next up was this spicy Sinseollo hot pot that had chestnuts, soy beans, veggies, beef and fish mixed in.
Very soul-warming, satisfying, and totally unique.
Then came the onslaught of banchan: small dishes and bowls of pickled items (kimchi) and veggies.
These are used to dress up your lettuce wraps, in which you place the finished BBQ meat after its all grilled up nicely.
Then you wrap it up and eat it.
But wait.. I skipped the best part. The MEAT! Our meal came with a plate of four meats: thick cut pork belly, spicy pork bulgogi, boneless beef rib and beef short ribs. Look at this fucking short rib…
That marbling… Holy shit! I was so captivated that I didn’t bother shooting the other meats. Just perfect. My order of preference: short rib, belly, bulgogi, boneless rib.
We also had a braised salmon dish. This was a bit dry and overcooked for my liking. In fact we threw the salmon meat into the hot soup dish for the next course, but I really enjoyed the sauce and radish that came with it. It was topped with a slice of lotus root too.
Next course: noodles. I couldn’t believe we were each getting a bowl here. We picked Haemul Kalguksu: spicy seafood noodles (hot); and Mul Naengmyeon: green buckwheat noodles (cold). Both were tasty but we seriously had no more room left in our stomachs! We brought these home, but not before my wife lifted the noodles for an Instagram pic.
That cold soup (green noodles) had some sweetness to it from the shaved winter melon within.
And then there was dessert. Little puffy, sweet and soft logs of fried dough with a cup of cold and sweet rice juice.
Between tax, tip and drinks I dropped another $50 on this meal, but for an all-in grand total of $120 (including the $70 we paid for the flash deal), this was a steal. I highly recommend this joint.
MISS KOREA
10 W 32nd St
New York, NY 10001
