MAGAZINE
MAGAZINE
B’klyn Burro’s Chile Relleno Burrito: We may be hot on Cali’s tail when it comes to tacos, but they’ve still got us beat on burritos, mostly. Opened by a San Fran expat, B’klyn Burro currently serves the best damned tortilla cylinders this side of the Mission, densely packed with stuffed and fried-to order chilies rellenos, as well as rice, beans, pico de gallo and fresh avocado slices in lieu of guac, all of which are evenly distributed throughout.
Hail Mary’s Hot Fried Sasso Chicken: It’s not so much a question of whether you can handle the heat of this finer diner’s fried chicken (although it’s plenty potent, being brined in gochujang, dry-rubbed with bird chilies and Szechuan peppercorns, and then finished with lashings of chile-infused oil). It’s if you can stomach the presentation—as the poultry pieces arrive with fingernailed talon still attached. We say grin and bear it, because in a food year so thoroughly glutted with endless permutations of hot chicken, Hail Mary produced one of the very best birds.
LaRina Pastificio & Vino’s Lemon Gigli: Another substantial sign that the pendulum swung firmly back in flavor of gluten this year was this pasta-fixated restaurant, offering 10-odd noodle options like lemon-imbued, rosebud-shaped gigli, whose conical centers prove ideal for sucking up lush duck ragu mopped with pecorino di fossa and thyme.
Sunken Hundred’s Seaweed Cheetos: Not to take anything away from this Welsh boite’s eloquent, beyond-rarebit menu of lamb jus-sauced razor clams and laver-roasted hake, but it’s hard to top the drama of their brilliant gratis bar snack — free-form squiggles of warm, fried sourdough puffs, naturally salted with the coast-lined country’s most naturally abundant ingredient: seaweed.
Hart’s Lamb Burger: We were tickled by the eccentric interpretation of surf-and-turf at the Mediterranean-surveying Hart’s, namely, a lean and grassy lamb burger, wainscoted with a piquant row of marinated white anchovies (which bleed their brackish oils into the meat with every bite).
Cheeseboat’s Cheeseboat: Consider this Georgian newcomer a full-on assault on carb counting, as it’s wholly devoted to hyper-regional breads, from Ossetia’s potato-padded khabizgina, to Svaneti’s crumbly, corn-based chvishtari, to the infamous Acharuli khachapuri—i.e., cheeseboat—a tapered dough cauldron brimming with molten dairy, truffle oil and sunbursts of raw egg.
f.o.b.’s Chicken Adobo: While this eatery’s unusual conceit is Filipino bbq (favoring grilled skewers over saucy, long-simmered stews) no self-respecting Pinoy restaurant would eschew chicken adobo. So thank chef Armando Litiatco’s dad for f.o.b.’s succulent dark-meat version: vinegar-soaked segments cooked to completion the day before.
Sally Roots’ Ackee and Salt Fish: Granted, everything tastes better after a shot of “all the rums.” But you don’t need to be two sheets to appreciate Sally Roots’ johnny cakes, swollen with a sauté of reconstituted cod and pods of Jamaica’s beloved national fruit.
Peaches Shrimp & Crab’s Shrimp with Comeback Sauce: This Marietta makeover handily won us over with lavish plateaus of seafood, but the kitchen can take more credit for fabulously snappy fried shrimp liberally cloaked in comeback sauce (a bewitching chili-mayo amalgam favored in Mississippi).
Black Walnut’s Shishito Salad: When defined as a mixture of vegetables tossed in dressing, this dish could loosely qualify as salad. Yet it’s the furthest cry possible from rabbit food, considering the roughage portion includes blistered shishito peppers and crushed, fried sunchoke puffs, and the sauce is essentially a basil-enlivened mayonnaise.
Cape House’s Celery Root Patty Melt, Guadalupe Inn’s Trompito al Pastor, Ichiran’s Tonkotsu: Since you’ll find three of our favorite dishes in the span of a single block, we thought we’d save a bit of roundup real estate (thus making room for even more distinguished 2016 eats!) by rolling them up into one. Though Bushwick’s Cape House specializes in belly clams (our preferred bivalve) they also happen to serve the borough’s most persuasive new veggie burger, sculpted not from portobellos or grain patties but gruyere and caramelized onion-spackled celery root. Across the street, Guadalupe Inn’s carve-it-yourself cone of al pastor is our idea of a share plate, but if you’re out with pals, you’ll need to part ways after joining the lines at Japanese import, Ichiran, so you can effectively commune in your concentration room with a bone-rich bowl of tonkotsu.
Emmy Squared’s Emmy Pizza, The Chinese Club’s Manchurian Vegetable, Bar Omar’s Seven Vegetable Couscous: Since we’ve already played fast and loose with our “20 Best” rules, might as well double down with this trio of notables, mere steps away from each other on Grand Street. Emmy proved its hip to be square with their Detroit-style, frico-crusted pies (go with the namesake, a late-night booze buttress of mozzarella, banana peppers and ranch). The Chinese Club’s uniquely Indo-Chinese Manchurian vegetable (a trio of carrot-freckled orbs in a sea of ginger-forward brown gravy) may not have been the year’s prettiest dish, but we were happy to abandon our camera phone for an extra-large spoon. And French expat, Bar Omar, translated beautifully to Williamsburg—Brooklyn’s own little Paris—especially since founder Omar Guerda schooled the kitchen on the execution of his famous couscous, sand-fine pebbles of semolina draped in an Algerian stew of chickpeas, tomatoes and squash.
