Tempered richness
Yakiniku Great, Son del North, Semma, Aida Bicaj, Eight Sleep, best Manhattan margaritas, MORE
Did you catch Friday’s debut of The FOUND 45, our definitive list of favorite restaurants in New York? Paid subscribers also have access to The FOUND 45s from other FOUND cities. Here’s the full set:
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First, a couple of subscriber recs to our call for building management companies:
ERPM is an excellent property management company. And I have experience with quite a few.
Long-time listener, first-time responder. If you need a boutique management company, Matthew Maggipinto at Empire State is great.
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THE NINES • FOUND Sponsor
Zest, hidden gems
Our partners at Zest, a new app that lets you see where your friends actually eat, share their favorite hidden gems across NYC. Because Zest is built on real dining history instead of reviews, these are the under-the-radar spots people keep coming back to, not the names with the biggest buzz. Check out the best dishes, get insider tips, and save your favorites in Zest.
Miss Ada (Fort Greene, above), chef Tomer Blechman’s modern Israeli cooking, from lamb-shawarma hummus to house-made pita, in a Fort Greene townhouse with a backyard garden. Reservations go fast, so aim for the bar
Woorijip (Koreatown), grab-and-go Korean the way K-town regulars do it: shelves of homestyle dishes packed fresh daily, kimbap and japchae to bulgogi and fried chicken. Most under $10, open late
Little Alley (Murray Hill), Shanghainese cooking in a nostalgic longtang setting. The crab-and-pork soup dumplings are the draw (mind the hot broth), backed by a Michelin Bib Gourmand seven years running. Reserve ahead
Leo’s Bagels (Financial District), the sleeper move for a properly gooey, chewy bagel downtown, where the FiDi crowd lines up. Get the egg-and-cheese, or the Hanover Hangover with its sun-dried-tomato-and-roasted-garlic spread
Hibino (Long Island City), Kyoto-style obanzai (small plates that rotate daily on the chalkboard), fresh house-made tofu, and pressed hako sushi, all at prices that feel like a mistake. Come hungry
Downtown Burritos (East Village), a tiny cash-only counter, family-run on 1st Ave since 1990, and an Infatuation best-burritos pick. Get the chorizo-and-potato breakfast burrito or the chicken mole, best eaten in Tompkins Square
The Clonard (Williamsburg), a proper Irish pub named for the owner’s Belfast roots, known for its Guinness. Come for curry chips and the Clonard Burger, stay for trivia and matches on the TVs
Solid State Coffee (Upper West Side), a small-batch roaster that quietly outclasses its block, a UWS neighborhood favorite since 2020. Come for one of the city’s better flat whites, stay for a plate of syrniki
Kam Hing (Chinatown), a cash-only Chinatown institution since 1984, tucked into an office lobby off Baxter. The draw: $1 sponge cakes, light as clouds, in 30-odd flavors from ube to durian
YOUR BRAND HERE: 93% of FOUND subscribers recommend products, services, and/or experiences to friends and family. Hit reply or email sales@itsfound.com, and we’ll get to work on your next great sponsorship campaign.
RESTAURANTS • First Word
A cut above
The Skinny: Japanese export Yakiniku Great made its US debut in Union Square last month, bringing an omakase-style take on Japanese barbecue. Inside a sleek dining room, six- and eight-course tasting menus ($130 and $175 per) feature rare cuts of Japanese A5 wagyu, with each portion grilled tableside.
The Vibe: Serene and unadorned. The restaurant is defined by clean lines and a monochromatic palette of black and gray. Four generously-sized booths anchor the front of the dining room, while an illuminated, 14-seat, L-shaped counter occupies the rear. Every table and each pair of counter seats is outfitted with a built-in gas grill, where staff cook cuts tableside.
The Food: Yakiniku Great’s menu is devoted almost entirely to beef. The restaurant’s signature chateaubriand, served over rice and topped with chilled Hokkaido uni, is available as a worthwhile $70 supplement to the tasting menus (arrive early: only 10 portions are served each day). Even as someone who typically finds wagyu too rich to eat in large quantities, I had no trouble finishing the seven-course menu. That’s because most of the beef is sliced paper-thin, grilled for just a few seconds per side, and paired with bright, acidic marinades and accompaniments that temper its richness. One early course pairs a finely chopped wagyu tartare rice ball with a few drops of house-made soy sauce, served alongside coarsely grated daikon dosed with soy and sake. In another course, an unmarinated togarashi (shoulder) cut is delicately folded over a ponzu-like sauce.
All of the beef is Japanese A5 wagyu (the highest grade), with a beef marbling score (BMS) of 10 to 12, though most fall between 10 and 11, since a perfect 12 can be excessively fatty, according to the restaurant. A few non-beef bites, like a butter-topped candy-sweet sweet potato, come as accompaniments. To break up the beef, I’d also suggest add-ons like shiitake mushrooms and a green lettuce-cucumber salad studded with bits of toasted walnuts. The mini bowl of diced avocado with shio kombu is delicious, too.
As opposed to the intensely marbled steaks most diners associate with wagyu, Yakiniku Great apart emphasizes rare, leaner cuts, such as uwamisuji, an exceptionally tender area from the upper shoulder, just above the top blade, and shakushi, a cut near the shoulder blade. Founder Shoji Tsugawa flies the restaurant’s beef in from various prefectures — chilled, never frozen.
The meal winds down with a bowl of somen noodles in a silky, umami-rich kombu broth, and a mini creme caramel-like steamed pudding crowned with whipped cream.
The Drinks: The beverage selection highlights Japan, with sake (sparkling, cloudy, and still), shochu, umeshu, beer, whisky, and tea. A sake pairing is available in three ($48) or five ($80) pours.
The Verdict: While the menu is built around one of the world’s most coveted ingredients, one regularly seen in fine dining environs, Yakiniku Great’s tableside grilling and relaxed vibe make the experience feel very approachable. –Kat Odell
→ Yakiniku Great (Union Square) • 12 W. 17th St • Tue-Sat 6-11p, Sun 6-830p • Reserve.
NYC RESTAURANT LINKS: Tartine legend Chad Robertson readying his first NY bakery, Altbau, to open in Williamsburg • Lured by free rent, Polo Bar plans to relocate to office tower 625 Madison Ave. circa 2029 • Longtime West 44th St. spot The Lambs Club shuttered over the weekend • Renderings revealed for Market Food Hall in Hudson Yards • Where have all the buybacks gone?
WORK • Tuesday Routine
Well-rested
ALEXANDRA ZATARAIN • co-founder & VP of Brand and Marketing • Eight Sleep
Neighborhood you work in: Flatiron
It’s Tuesday morning. What’s the scene at your workplace?
I’m at Eight Sleep’s New York office, usually by 9a. The brand, growth, and digital product teams are primarily based here, while much of our hardware and engineering work happens in San Francisco, so my mornings tend to begin with the East Coast team before turning into a long sequence of calls west.
The office never looks particularly pristine, which I like. There are Pods being tested, pieces of packaging, fabric samples, prototypes that are not supposed to be photographed, and marked-up creative work everywhere. Someone is inevitably lying on a bed for a perfectly legitimate business reason. I normally start with a coffee from Eataly (RIP Ralph’s Coffee Flatiron location!), look at how the business performed overnight, and then walk around chatting with the team rather than immediately disappearing into a conference room. You learn much more from 10 minutes of unplanned conversation than from another scheduled status meeting.
Any restaurant plans today, tonight, this weekend?
A recent discovery I’m very excited about is Son del North. They make Tijuana-style burritos, which immediately felt personal to me because Tijuana is where I grew up in Mexico. These aren’t the oversized, overloaded burritos most people associate with Mexican food in the US. They’re simpler, more precise, and completely dependent on the quality of the tortilla, meat, and a few very good ingredients. Son del North gets that exactly right.
I also love Semma. The food is exceptional, but what I appreciate most is how specific and confident it is. It doesn’t dilute the flavors or try to make the experience overly accessible.
How about a little leisure or culture this week?
I travel so much that, when I’m in New York, my idea of leisure is often simply experiencing the city without an agenda. I love walking the West Side Highway early in the morning, particularly before the city becomes loud. I don’t listen to a podcast or try to make the walk productive. That is the point.
I had really wanted to see ABT’s performance of Don Quixote at the Met in early July, but I couldn’t be in New York on the dates it was running. It’s a ballet that’s so joyful and so technically demanding at the same time. The music is vivid, the staging is full of color and movement, and the choreography has a kind of confidence and theatricality that makes it immediately engaging, even if you do not regularly go to the ballet.
What’s a recent big-ticket purchase you love?
A Pilates reformer for my home. I travel more than 200 days in some years, and I finally realized that making exercise dependent on a class schedule was an unnecessary source of friction. Pilates is one of the few things I have done consistently for years, so having a reformer at home means I can fit in 30 or 40 minutes even on a day full of calls. It was expensive and takes up an absurd amount of space, but I use it constantly.
What NYC store or service do you love to recommend?
Facials at Aida Bicaj in Tribeca. I’ve tried treatments in many places around the world, but this is the only place I trust for deeper, more intensive facials. They’re extremely knowledgeable, never overly aggressive, and tailor every treatment to what my skin actually needs rather than following a standard routine. I also buy essentially all of my skincare from them.
WORK LINKS: 460 Park Ave. getting Skidmore, Owings & Merrill glow up • The cracks in the office-conversion boom • Don’t fix the BQE, remove it.
RESTAURANTS & BARS • The Nines
Margaritas, Manhattan
The Nines are FOUND’s distilled lists of the best in NY and surrounds. Paid subscribers access the complete Nines archive.
El Mitote (Upper West Side), neighborhood institution serving Guadalajara-style tacos and refreshing margaritas w/ expansive sidewalk seating, walk-ins only