Indulge Your Urge For Urchin at Greenpoint’s Bar Uni
Bar food has sure come a long way beyond buffalo wings and burgers. Especially when you consider Bar Uni, whose fare of choice is sea urchin.
That said, the Greenpoint newcomer is hardly styled as a Coors-dispensing dive—rather, it’s an homage to Japanese drinking culture, craftsmanship and hospitality.
Suntory Whisky ads from the 70s overlook the handsome, bespoke bar, itself stocked with spirits such as Hibiki Harmony and Ichiro’s Malt & Grain, as well as sake bottles and draft lines filled with Hitachino White Nest Ale.
And an enticing cocktail program offers elegant, Asian-inflected interpretations of classic libations: think Yuzu Koshu Gimlets, Shiso Mojitos, Okinawa Old Fashioned’s with kuromitsu black sugar syrup, and Sochu Moscow Mules featuring housemade ginger beer.
Then there’s the selection of seafood-centric bites (ideally enjoyed in the neighborhood’s biggest backyard) which include raw bar options like Kumamoto oysters and sambal-dusted crab claws, as well as smoky baby octopus tendrils teamed with potatoes and cilantro romesco, and lush, rosy ribbons of wild salmon, atop thick-cut toast smeared with horseradish cream.
As for that glorious Hokkaido uni, it pops up time and again — seven lobes ring a quail egg “sun” in a miniature bowl of donburi, and urchin dwells in the bottom of a shooter glass, topped with pellets of ikura and sake.
If it sounds impossibly posh for bar food, know that most items dwell in the $5-9 range, and take a further dip during happy hour.
Sure beats the pants off of PBR and Cheetos at your average dingy dive.
674 Manhattan Ave, (646) 833-8564