A Pinch Of Salt

Mari’s tasting menu begins with hansang (yellowtail, eggplant jeon, acorn jelly, oysters, and crispy egg rice), and the sundubu (tofu stew) with little neck clams, mussels, shrimp, and a charred scallion oil.

The menu then proceeds onto the eight hand rolls, which range from a pork belly version to one with snow crab. The hand rolls precede the final savory course: the labor-intensive guksu, a dish hailing from Jeju Island. A chicken, pork, and beef broth bubbles away for 36 hours and is served with slow-cooked pork belly, which is topped with Shim’s own chili oil with gochugaru and served with wheat noodles.

For dessert, Mari offers a reinterpretation of a Korean convenience store favorite: Choco pies. The dessert is not pre-packaged, rather here is presented as a chocolate sponge cake stuffed with black sesame marshmallow and strawberry jam.

Nura
Where: 46 Norman Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11222 | GreenPoint

It’s ok if your jaw drops a little the first time you walk into Nura. The soaring, striking home of Scott Hawley and Michelle Lobo-Hawley’s newish restaurant, located in a former auto body shop on the corner of Norman and Guernsey in Greenpoint, is easily one of the most immediately impressive spaces.

For lack of a sexier genre name, Nura’s cuisine is fusion: Indian, Mediterranean, Mexican,

Using what she (Executive Chef Carnesi) calls a “global pantry of ingredients,” Carnesi has done exactly that. There’s a sweet potato dish, for example, that slathers the mashed tuber in a nutty tahini, the whole thing brightened and sweetened with Meyer lemon honey, a topping of fried garlic giving it some bite. I’ve never eaten anything quite like it, and I can’t wait to have it again.