ABC Cocina

Here is the final post from my NYC trip this fall, written again by my friend Pateel. Enjoy!

When Nicole and I were trying to plan out our NY dinners, we knew we wanted to try one of the ABC farm-to-table restaurants--ABC Kitchen & ABC Cocina. The sister restaurants by Jean George literally neighbor each other (and Carpet & Home, a home decor store in between), with ABC Kitchen being the original, big sister, and ABC Cocina being the younger, more contemporary & international sister. After some back and forth, we decided to go with ABC Cocina.

The space is open and glamorous and loud - a place you get excited just walking into. The menu had so many great options, making it hard to narrow down our choices, but we were ready to feast! First up, we ordered the lentil salad, with chorizo, chilies, and chives. If this dish was any indication of the rest of our meal, we were totally into it. We ate every bite.

Lentil Salad

Next, the mezcal-cured salmon with cucumber-yogurt relish and golden potato flakes. Fish and dairy are not often paired, but these two made for a super refreshing dish. The potato flakes made for a perfectly textured bite!

Mezcal-cured smoked salmon

The octopus dish was served with smoked paprika creme fraiche and guajillo vinaigrette. The octopus was chopped up into bite-sized pieces. It had a nicely charred skin on the outside, but super tender on the inside. 

Octopus

We also snacked on an order of guacamole (or two), beet salad, and a perfect chorizo sausage.

Chorizo

Roasted Beet and Citrus Salad

Guacamole (with the orange hot sauce in the middle)

Our last few dishes were tacos! We narrowed our choices down to sauteed mushroom tacos with cashews, mole, kale, and lime; griddled fish tacos with aioli and cabbage-chile pickle; and savory glazed short rib tacos, habanero relish, and frizzled onion. Surprisingly, the mushroom taco was the unanimous favorite, while the short rib was fairly heavy and disappointing.

Mushroom tacos

Fish Tacos

Short Rib Tacos (with and without crispy onions)

Since we didn't want to end dinner on that note, we had to get some dessert! Tres leches cake and flan are two fairly popular Latin American desserts, but ABC Cocina served them with a twist. The tres leches cake was served with a cranberry pear compote, while the flan was a salted caramel flan. The flan was pretty boring, but the tres leches made up for that and more! We couldn't stop eating it, even though we were stuffed. Overall, ABC Cocina lived up to its hype--I'd definitely go back (especially for their hot sauce - see below!).

Their amazing hot sauce

Salted Caramel Flan

Tres Leches Cake