What's Worth Waiting in Line for at NYC's Hottest New Sushi Spot

kazunori
Daniel Krieger
Daniel Krieger

Welcome to Best Thing We Ate This Week, where each week, we'll have a special guest or Thrillist staff member talk about a New York dish they recently tried and loved. This week, Angela Dimayuga, executive chef at Mission Chinese, sees what all the fuss is about at the new, line-inducing Flatiron outpost of KazuNori.

I love the fish and vegetable hand rolls at KazuNori -- the brand-new NYC outpost of the LA brand [from the team behind Sugarfish]. I make sure to grab power lunches at the LA locations on every trip, so I'm so happy it's finally here. The ordering style is genius: Everything happens upfront. From your seat at the counter, you scratch off tally marks on an ordering sheet for the number of rolls and beverages you want. Each hand roll is made to order, and the toro hand roll is the standout. Fresh rice is constantly steaming, making a perfect bed for tuna scraped off the bone. The hot rice homogenizes with the scraped toro, creating a super-soft, light, and moderately fatty contrast to the very crisp high-quality nori. A typical order is about five or six rolls, making the whole experience a quick but blissful 25 minutes (pay your bill at the cash register!), although I heard that the standing record is 23 pieces!

-- As told to Thrillist

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