I won’t be surprised if I’m on the younger end of the age spectrum of this forum. We basically only went to the hotel to change and sleep; we made it a point to be out most of the day to maximize our time. But we didn’t get to go everywhere we wanted, because of the Memorial Day schedule and meeting with friends ran longer than I thought - we missed eating Chinese in Flushing, Fette Sau in Williamsburg, pre-dinner snacks at Aldea, and Cuban food in Loisaida. We were debating about 4 Charles Prime Rib and Gunter Seeger - in retrospect, probably would’ve done those instead of The Beatrice Inn and Le Bernardin, respectively.
I posted the following on Hungryonion in response to a question, and thought I’d post it here:
This plate was the otsumami course at Satsuki by Suzuki.
On the left is skewered baigai (Japanese conch), steamed and served with a 1-year old nitsume sauce (also used on the anago, saltwater eel, which would appear at the end of the meal).
On top of the conch shell is umibudo (sea grapes), which had a refreshing crunch which mirrored that of the kazunoko (herring roe), sitting to its left, on the righthand side of the picture. The kazuknoko was kelp-dried and topped with a wasabi stem kasuzuke, aged for 1 month.
In back is hotaru-ika (firefly squid), dressed with the customary garnish: su-miso (vinegar miso sauce). There were also ultra-thin cucumbers and some fairly thick wakame (kelp).
This plate was all about contrasts with Spring’s ingredients. The crunch of the kazunoko and umibodu vs. the dense chew of the baigai and slippery, chewy hotaru-ika. The thin and crunchy cucumbers vs. the thick and toothsome wakame. The mildly sharp su-miso and wasabi-stem vs. the slight offal taste of the hotaru-ika and kasuzuke.
This plate really got our attention, and Satsuki ended up being very high level overall. The sushi was very good, but this plate displayed a lot of thought with ingredient pairings.
Otsukuri (sashimi) plate: (shown clockwise in picture) Hata (grouper), Chutoro (medium-fatty tuna), and Aji (horse mackerel) with negi (green onion) and myoga (young ginger). Fresh wasabi from Shizuoka. This was brimming with nice textures.
Served respectively with ponzu, bonito-soy, ginger-soy
Kohada (gizzard shad) with pickled kelp
Thank you @ipsedixit for the recommendation about Satsuki (and Jungsik - more on that later).
