It’s been almost 2 years since I had the most elusive of sea creatures (at least in my current home of Israel). When I saw these perched on a bed of ice at the San Miguel Market in Madrid, I happily turned over the €30. I probably would have paid double for them because it had just been so long.
The only way to eat warm uni is in pasta - add them to a nice, rich, cream sauce and then lay those perfect, beautiful tongues upon a bed of spaghetti with some bottarga and seaweed and eat that whole dish without coming up for air on a miserably cold NY winter day.
Dr Clark in Chinatown (NY) does it sooooo well for $25. Can totally fill one person up no prob.
No one expects take out sushi to be really good, let alone memorable, but Ani Sushi Restaurant on Montague Street, in Brooklyn Heights, is just that. For a neighborhood sushi place, they have several interesting and creative offerings. Goes without saying that when I saw I could order Toro Uni Sushi as a seasonal special ($7), I had to try it.
Fatty tuna is an excellent accompaniment to the briny urchin. I do wonder if it really is toro as it didn’t have those delicious oily white veins of the toro I’ve seen. Nevertheless, a really good piece of tuna and perfect for satisfying a quick uni craving.
Having just eaten Korean food in the more lax setting of Koreatown, it was a unique experience for us at the 2 Michelin star Jungsik.
The tasting menu was the only was to go ($180 for 8 courses - not including the 5 amuse bouche bites and the little dessert snacks after the dessert) but since we noticed an urchin dish on the a la carte menu, we asked for an extra course so that we could try it out.
Below is the beautiful and delicious urchin cone that came as one of several innovative and tasty amuse bouches.
Below is the additional Urchin course we added to our tasting - was just an additional $15 each as opposed to paying $25 to just share the dish. I really enjoyed the
Every winter from about mid-January through mid-March, the small town of Palafrugell, in the Catalonia region of Spain, celebrates the sea urchin with a foodie festival, “La Garoinada.” Several hotels and restaurants offer packages and set menus for those wanting to experience the garoines (Catalan for “sea urchin”) during the height of its season.
Last year we made the excursion to Spain’s northeast coast to taste and appreciate this long-time delicacy at one of La Garoinada’s participating restaurants, Xadó. Like all restaurants, Xadó had a set menu that featured an aperitif, a dozen garoines, a main course native to the region and a dessert. The complete meal was €35 and was right in line with the other restaurants that charged anywhere from €35 to €40.
Xadó was a quaint restaurant tucked inside a small shopping center. It was lunchtime and relatively quiet. While the dining room had ample room, only about three other tables were filled and we were the only ones ordering off the La Garoinada menu.
The sea urchins native to the region are commonly known as the purple sea urchin. The tongues are quite smaller than varieties from Maine, California and Japan and had a milder and less briny taste. While not my favorite, it was still an amazing experience to get a dozen urchins, straight-up, like how you might order a dozen oysters.
Getting there:
Palafrugell is about a 1.5 hour drive from Barcelona without traffic.
We came from Girona (a really awesome nearby city with excellent food), which was about an hour drive (there are mountains all over this region making driving a bit slower).
Read more about La Garoinada from Palafrugell’s tourism board.
We don’t typically go out on New Year’s Eve but since this was a special one - the first with our new babe, we wanted to go all out with a multi-course uni tasting. The carefully crafted menu took inspiration from traditional Japanese uni, mixed raw fish bowls and comfort foods with a twist. Uni trays were sourced from the Lobster Place in Chelsea Market and we bought not one, but two trays of California uni.
Here is the before pic with all the ingredients:
New Year’s Eve Dinner Menu
- Course 1 - Not your average blini
- Course 2 - New age surf ‘n turf
- Course 3 - Mega uni, sake, maguro don
New Year’s Day Brunch Menu
- Course 1 - Uni breakfast taters
- Course 2 - Sunny side uni
- Course 3 - Triple egg scramble
Dinner Menu
My take on caviar blinis consists of your standard Russian pancake, creme fraiche, shallots and caviar… but we amped up the flavor of the sea with ponzu-soaked uni.
Ingredients:
sea urchin
blinis
creme fraiche
shallots
ponzu drops
sturgeon caviar
Roasted bone marrow fans are down with sopping spoonfuls of greasy lard. For me, it’s a hard to eat too much of it so we cut that fat by adding an earthy citrus sauce - instantly creating a more palatable version.
Ingredients:
sea urchin
bone marrow
parsley
capers
shallots
extra virgin olive oil
juice of half a lemon
sea salt
I’ve been waiting to have a New Year’s uni don celebration ever since I first laid eyes on this post and blogged about it here. With the addition of salmon, tuna and some fried seaweed, I present, the Mega Don!!!
Ingredients:
sea urchin
sushi grade tuna
sushi grade salmon
salmon roe
seaweed
wasabi
rice
rice wine vinegar
Brunch Menu
This is a take on the classic eggs benedict, with a couple of swaps. A bed of tater tots replaces the traditional english muffin base and, instead of hollandaise, we drenched the poached egg in soy sauce. For fun, we threw in a slice of burrata and also added radishes for a bright veggie crunch.
Ingredients:
sea urchin
tater tots
poached egg
burrata
radishes
soy sauce
chives
Very simple egg dish - fried sunny side up quail egg, roe and a chive garnish, over a couple pieces of uni.
Ingredients:
sea urchin
sunny side up quail egg
salmon roe
chives
sea salt
I like to use the last pieces of uni in the tray for a good ol’ scramble. By now the uni tongues are not as fresh, and don’t look as pretty, so they’re better off in sauces or mixed with other ingredients. This is also a great way to get rid of any extra salmon roe left in your fridge.
Ingredients:
sea urchin
scrambled eggs
salmon roe
After a long hiatus (been cooking a future little uni lover the majority of this year), Urchin Surchin is back!
To kick off my return to the world of our favorite sea creature, I asked that my ‘push present’ be a fine dining experience I could share with my husband and that’s what I got, at one of the world’s best restaurants!
Le Bernardin specializes in seafood and has numerous tasting menus. We decided to go for the longest one and, when I noticed there wasn’t any urchin on that menu, we asked if we could substitute one of the dishes for the Langoustine - Sea Urchin dish found on a small tasting menu. Our wish was granted.
Featuring super thin slivers of barely-touched langoustine lay three pieces of Californian uni. Our waiter then doused the dish with moist, citrusy seaweed vinaigrette. All I could think was how perfectly balanced every bite was. Simple and elegant as you would expect from a 3 Michelin star restaurant.
I can’t wait for all the uni meals awaiting me in 2016
As if Samurai were not badass enough, imagine the guy wearing this armored face mask topped off with spiky sea urchins. See this artifact along with many more are on view through January 3, 2016 at Yale University’s Natural History Museum, Art Gallery and other locales around campus.
Photo by W Guth.
One night in December, my hubs surprised me with my very own uni tray(!)
Santa Barbara Uni Tray from The Lobster Place ~$65
Getting my very own tray of uni was something I’ve been dreaming of. The fact that one just showed up one night in my home was all the inspiration I needed to create some of my own uni dishes.
First up, my uni appetizer of toasted white bread amply shmeared with salted butter and topped with a nice hunk of sea urchin, finished with a sliver of jalapeño.
Some of my favorite uni experiences have paired the richness of uni with some crunch and heat. This toast was my attempt at creating something with those elements.
Moving away from my fusion toast, I went with a more classic Japanese main course for the night.
I prepared the soba by the directions on the package and thoroughly coated the noodles in a soy and sesame sauce mix. Next, I tossed in sheets of wakame to add additional silky textures. Then, I wipped out my uni tray(!) and layered in a whole urchin full of uni (5 tongues). Atop all of that, came a spoonful of red lumpfish roe. Next time around, I would grate some horseradish over the top for extra heat and maybe add some panko breadcrumbs.
For my breakfast uni, there was no question that these ‘nads were going to find themselves in a big ol bowl of scrambled eggs!
There is no egg dish on this planet that is richer or more satisfying than heaps of sea urchin roe folded into scrambled eggs and served with an avalanche of salmon roe. This combination of ingredients might be the one exception I have to needing crunchy/hot additions to an uni course. All those soft and sexy tastes and textures need no help in my book.
Our latest uni outing brought us to Wasan. I did some research and saw they had something called an “Uni Lover” on the menu. I was hoping to find other uni dishes and we lucked out!
Our first uni course was the Uni Lover - Maine uni, avocado, homemade uni chips, garlic-peanut oil ($6.50 per piece - minimum 2)
This course has all the right components - a strong peanut sauce, dredged over ample mounds of Maine uni, gave the uni an interesting new flavor. The avocado wedged between the uni and the dried, crunchy uni chip added even more creaminess to the already perfect appetizer.
When I saw this my eyes popped out of my head. It was one of several specials for the evening and, as a HUGE fan of mac and cheese, I had to get it and see how two of my favorite things would work in the same dish.
For everyone who might think this was a stretch, all i can say is that it worked… and then some. Every bite was filled with that oozy, gooey, cheesy macaroni that makes this original a comfort food staple. The addition of the uni pieces found throughout just elevated the coziness. For me, more richness equals more delicious.
Sea urchin rice bowl ($14.50 for a small or $27 for a large)
A good classic choice for straight up uni without any bells or whistles. Just as good as any uni bowl you’re likely to find in NYC.
Will definitely be coming back!
My Thanksgiving meal ended up being local and we shared a really nice tasting menu at Louro. Amongst the first course options was a dish with uni(!) Other options didn’t have a chance.
Roasted kabocha squash, crispy sweetbreads and basil pistou (part of a 3 course tasting menu)
Sweetbreads definitely taste a lot better in my book when paired with briny, salty pieces of uni and squash. The differences in textures were nice but I felt the battered sweetbreads overpowered the otherwise milder flavors. Safe to say, I’d pick any uni course over a traditional turkey course every time.
It appears Dalí might be the sea urchins’ greatest fan. His romance with urchins started early on when he would collect the delicacy with his father along the Catalan coast of Spain. It turns out urchin wasn’t just one of Dalí’s favorite things to eat, he was also fascinated by its exoskeletons' perfectly symmetrical shape.
The sea urchin seems to have left a lasting impression on the great surrealist as it’s made appearances in several of his works of art.
In The Madonna of Port Lligat, you’ll notice a sea urchin next to the side of the altar.
Another urchin is positioned at the foreground of The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus
While the above Dalí works are housed in museums, these next two are not – and are currently on sale at Art-Surréaliste
For 3,800€ ($5K+) you can own Don Quichotte and the Uni
For 2200.00€ (~$3K), feast your eyes on Sea-Urchin
There are some uni meals that leave a lasting impression on a foodie’s soul. At EN Brasserie, I finally had my long awaited uni don experience (been looking to make and/or eat this dish since New Year’s). While I never have been able to make it at home, when I found out EN Brasserie had this on the menu, I tricked shwirtz into yet another uni adventure.
Uni Don - rice with a generous portion of Santa Barbara, CA sea urchin, mountain yam, mekabu and salmon roe ($29)
All I can say about the Uni Don here is WOW. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Urchin + roe (especially salmon roe) = good times, party in my mouth, no care in the world. The little pops of fishy liquid salt oozing and mixing with the creamy urchin is the bees knees. I could easily eat this once a week and need not eat another uni variation ever. AND, they were not kidding about the generous portion. There was A TON of uni and I think they could easily charge more than 30 bucks for this.
Uni roll of sweet shrimp, cucumber and shiso topped with Santa Barbara, CA sea urchin ($29)
For my first uni roll, this probably wasn’t a bad choice. The urchin was creamy and spot on and worked well with the crunch of the cucumber. The shiso was a welcoming bitter addition that balanced the richness. When it comes to the shrimp, I honestly would never have known it was there if it wasn’t on the menu. It had no taste and acted more like a filler to the roll. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed every piece but the shrimp was completely overpowered by uni and they could have just stuffed in anything.