Book Club: Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture

For October the selected book subject for my online book club, The Kitchen Reader, was Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture by Dana Goodyear.
Anything That Moves: Renegade Chefs, Fearless Eaters, and the Making of a New American Food Culture by Dana Goodyear

I really enjoyed this book. First of all, it really worked out in terms of timing, as I cracked the book open in the airport. The first chapter, Scavenger, which was my favorite chapter of the book, highlights immigrant food and how interesting cuisine comes out of poverty and necessity eating. At the same time, the food of the poor people is now the food being seeked out by the New American gourmet for pleasure.

This chapter focuses a lot on Jonathan Gold (of the LA Times… their food section with their large gorgeous photos sadly has no comparison in Portland, despite all the foodiness we offer) and also Javier Cabral (of the blog The Glutster). Both Gold and Cabral food coverage stomping grounds are nooks and crannies of the very city my plane was heading towards as I read this book: one of the ultimate immigrant cities in the United States, Los Angeles.

I looked longingly out the window of the car after landing as we drove by Brooklyn Bagel Bakery (mentioned by Gold as the “single source of every good bagel in Los Angeles”) but reminded myself my sister DOES live here and I had time to visit again. In fact, while reading this book in LA, I ended up visiting two of Gold’s 101 Best Restaurants during my stay, Newport Seafood (a family favorite that I previously showed off their famous house lobster) and also Son of a Gun Restaurant (in this post here).

The San Gabriel Valley area of LA, referred to casually as SGV often in the book, is covered extensively in this same chapter of the book, highlighting the specialized Asian food in the area because regional cuisines remain intact, traceable almost to the villages of origin of the restaurant owners. The SGV is also referred to in other chapters of the book. Other Asian foods, particularly the wonder of Thai Town and all it has to offer, are also mentioned in this chapter and I enjoyed hearing the love for this authentic home-cooking.

Stewed Pork Hocks: I love it, and very common in Thai food. Would you eat it? Next, Kai Jiew Kai Mod – A Thai dish of egg omelette with ant eggs. Would you eat it?
Kai Jiew Kai Mod - a Thai dish of egg omelette with ant eggs at Sticky Rice, Chicago. Would you eat it?

I’m not actually that much a fan of LA as the traffic scares me and everything is so spread out, but the food, oh the food… It is worth coming to LA for a food vacation alone, despite the distance and traffic. Gold, who the book reports drives twenty thousand miles a year in search of food, himself admits it in the book: “I go into a fugue state, like the Aboriginal dreamtime, when you go on long aimless walks in the outback,” he says, “That’s how I feel driving on the endless streets of Los Angeles County.”

I took some notes on my phone as I was reading the book of places I might check out in the future. You might find yourself doing the same thing.

In so many ways, this book really is a love letter to the food in LA, which is refreshing since so often the focus ends up in New York City. The book does cover New York (in the second chapter, Grub, about purveyors of specialty food in the gourmet industry, particularly exotic animals and insects), and also Las Vegas (in chapter 3, Backdoor Men, about the suppliers of the outrageous and obscure ingredients from truffles to caviar to foie gras and the storytelling or conning that may be involved).

Inevitably though, the book always returns to LA and California (and also Gold, who is mentioned often in the book).

Foie Gras and Caviar and Truffles, oh my
Poutine foie gras from Au Pied de Cochon Tru's famous caviar staircase/ In the caviar staircase, only four of the steps were actually caviar, the rest are accompaniants like egg whites, egg yolk, capers, and chopped onion. My brioche toast had a little bowl of crème fraîche along with. French Laundry- Carnaroli Risotto Biologico, with Castelmagno cheese and shaved white truffles from Alba. The foam you see around the risotto is truffle oil, and after the white truffle was added it was finished with melted Vermont butter.

The book also presents interesting political and ethical questions. Chapter 4 (The Rawesome Three, covering those who want raw unprocessed food, particularly dairy) and Chapter 5 (Double Dare, questioning the FDA and food regulation and how that creates conformity, and the role of corporate farms in the need for rules and regulation versus small farms) makes book readers to think about the line of government’s need to protect versus consumer freedom of choice.

There are also questions about our cultural sensibilities and environmental and animal rights stands of what is ok to eat. Chapter 7, Guts, centers around offal and the many parts of animal that are wasted in the American meat industry, including profiling one the Offal Prince himself, Chef Chris Cosentino.

Sweetbreads with Glazed Bacon/White Polenta/Shiitake Mushrooms / PDC, or Fried Pig’s Foot (Pied Cochon) with vegetables, mashed potatoes, stuffed with foie gras inside after deboning and then topped with foie gras. Would you eat these?
Sweetbreads with Glazed Bacon/White Polenta/Shiitake Mushrooms Au Pied De Cochon -  PDC, The namesake dish of the restaurant, fried pig’s foot (Pied Cochon), vegetables, mashed potatoes, stuffed with foie gras inside after deboning and then topped with foie gras

On one hand, I side with this mission to honor the sacrifice of life and use whole animal. On the other hand, this chapter is where I was disgusted at some of the extreme food concoctions that clearly are challenges for a dining as sport and bragging rights. I can admire pig snout with escargot and watercress because pigs in nature like to eat snails and vegetation near streams. But, raw venison heart on a brioche made with pig skin, and mention of a goose intestine soup Consentino called “anal-tini” is a culinary dare that crosses to way too much for me.

The much more tame meat plate of Ox‘s Asado Argentino for 2 includes Grilled Short Rib, House Chorizo & Morcilla Sausages, Skirt Steak, Sweetbreads, or Roasted Marrow Bones appetizer at Little Bird Bistro
The much more tame meat plate of Ox's Asado Argentino for 2: includes Grilled Short Rib, House Chorizo & Morcilla Sausages, Skirt Steak, Sweetbreads Roasted Marrow Bones at Little Bird Bistro

Chapter 8, Off Menu, continues that line of thought of what is ok to eat and what is not, and what defines that line, as it tells the tale of investigating a restaurant serving whale meat and horse meat.  This was the most off putting chapter for me. Also mentioned in the book is eating dog, or live octopus. But, it did make me think about how casually, particularly in Portland, we eat pork… pigs are smart animals too. There are people who keep pigs as pet. Why is it acceptable to still eat them? I have to admit sometimes that line can be arbitrary… but at the same time, I can’t shake that line.

Meanwhile, Chapter 6, Haute Cuisine, is just wicked fun (and my second favorite chapter in the book) as it covers the wild wild west feel of food culture in exploring modernist cuisine and experimenting with food utilizing marijuana as an ingredient (with several hilarious tidbits and tales). Author Dana Goodyear observes, “Food, in the foodie movement, is often treated like a controlled substance”.

No, I have no photo of any food with pot in it. All I have is this playful dish by Homaru Cantu of “Roadkill of Fowl” which is a braised duck with beets. Notice the yellow dotted lines of the road and rice krispy maggots… Actually this was a really tasty dish.
Homaru Cantu dish of Roadkill of Fowl which is a braised duck with beets. Notice the yellow dotted lines of the road and rice krispy maggots Homaru Cantu dish of Roadkill of Fowl which is a braised duck with beets. Notice the yellow dotted lines of the road and rice krispy maggots

Overall, author Dana Goodyear has a very engaging voice and keen eye. In bringing her research/observational ride-alongs throughout the book, she describes the way people look and act in a way that succinctly embodies them. She tells specific side stories and uses metaphors and similes to really bring any subject or the way food looks and smells and feels to life in a way the reader can understand.

I already liked her when in the introduction, she described herself with this short story while simultaneously providing the credentials of why she was the right writer for this book: “My relationship to food is that of an acrophobe to a bridge: unease masks a desire to jump. A well-fed child with the imagination of a scrounger, I remember holing up in the back of the station wagon eating the dog’s Milk-Bones, which were tastier than you might expect.”

Dana’s writing includes profiles of  everyone,  both big and small in this adventurous eating world. The critics, the famous chefs and staff of famous restaurants or local pop-ups, the food suppliers both grand and small (from those in suits with exquisite butters and saffron to the tweakers who may forage your mushrooms), the food bloggers, other dining guest foodies eating with her, federal investigators… all are included in her scope of view.

Because of that diverse scope of anyone in the food scene is part of the story, the food culture that Dana depicts is rich with so many real characters that as a reader, you feel that the food world described seems very accurate in parting the curtain that a normal consumer does not know.

In observing the food scene, in particular some of the more extreme food combinations, Dana functions as our eyes and ears and grounds everything more in reality. She will admit when she leaves a pop-up still hungry and need to stop to get a hot dog, or that she’s impressed, or alternately that she is afraid for her health because of a dish.

In one example in the book, she explains “that dish –  quiver on quiver on quiver – epitomized the convergence of the disgusting and the sublime typical of so much foodie food. It was almost impossible to swallow it, thinking ruined it, and submission to its alien texture rewarded you with a bracing, briny, primal rush”

I waited 2.5 hours to eat at Sushi Dai in Tokyo. The one to the right, the clam, was still moving when the chef put it down.
Sushi Dai sashimi, Sushi Dai, Tokyo, Japan, Tsukiji Fish Market Sushi Dai

I shared a lot of photos of various foods that I thought tried to illustrate some of what was talked about in the book… are there any that you would eat?

Have you visited the food scene of LA, and did you know that the San Gabriel Valley of CA was such a hotspot for food?

What do you think of how Jonathan Gold, as noted in the book, subscribes to the following translation of the county health inspection ratings which are posted by law in every restaurant: “A stands for American Chinese, B is for Better Chinese, and C is for Chinese food for Chinese”?

And if insects were presented in some of the ways written in the book from the cooking competition at the Natural History’s Museums annual bug fair (most of the judges are children because of their openness to new foods):

  • bee patties for Bee L T sandwiches,
  • tailless whip scorpions in a tempura with spicy mayo,
  • fried wild caught dragonflies with sauteed mushrooms with Dijon soy butter,
  • Ugandan katydid and grilled cheese sandwiches,
  • a spider roll with rose haired tarantula (hair burned off, don’t worry – usually spider rolls are made with bottom feeding crab while spiders eat crickets that only eat grass- one young girl declared “It’s sushi. With spiders. It’s awesome”)

would you try it?

And, because I can’t think of any other time I could use these photos (which come from an exhibit on insects at the Seattle Pacific Science Center called Insect Village)… ha. The eating cookies with insects isn’t as far-fetched as you think. In my local paper, they just ran an article about kids pondering a mealworm chocolate chip.
Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Insect Village exhibit

I hope this has been an interesting recap/review of the book for you. For next month, the November book for the book club is Born Round: A Story of Family, Food and a Ferocious Appetite by Frank Bruni.

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Little Bird Bistro review (including their burger for May’s Burger Month)

Ok, catching up to the last burger I had in May.

I really wanted to like Little Bird Bistro, the newest restaurant by James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef of the Year 2011 chef/owner Gabriel Rucker. The menu sounds promising, and it seems to be geared specifically towards being more accessible then Le Pigeon but with the same affection for spotlighting the savory depths of being a carnivore. The downtown area now has a bistro to compliment its offerings of American and ethnic foods (ethnic greatly bolstered by the various cart pods), so for its great location and namesake, and as it is riding the current trend of French bistro in the restaurant scene (St Jack’s, Brasserie Montmartre reconcept, Cocotte Bar and Bistro, probably more recent other buds I don’t know about), Little Bird will be probably successful.

But for my first visit we walked away with the taste of the bad experience from the service rather than the food. For my other visits, the bartender offered the kind of bar care to mend over the initial roughness in my memory, and the waitress was cordial and attentive enough- but the food didn’t consistently rise to what I had been hoping for. For the price, there are other restaurant choices whose food is just as good or better just north on Burnside… though admittedly just not French (I have not been to Brasserie Montmartre yet). I have to admit their definitely steps it up- and that difference is appreciated and noted- but it just didn’t always come all together for me as a whole experience.

For my first time, our group of 12 couldn’t reserve a table until 8:30 as the restaurant doesn’t want large parties to hold up the tables (you can get a table earlier but you put down a $1000 guarantee deposit, as I understand it from our dinner organizer). We were seated in the upstairs section and then joined by all but one late guest and so we sat, with our menu and little juice-glass size glasses of water… and sat, and sat.

Some of us had put in drink orders within the first 10 minutes of being seated, but we before our drinks arrived it was another 15-20: so 30 minutes after our reservation, the first thing besides water appears. Whenever anyone ordered a drink throughout the meal, it seemed to take an inordinate amount of time- such as ordering it when a course arrives and then the drink not appearing until halfway or more through the dish being eaten. Maybe it’s the fact that our table was upstairs and those narrow slightly steep stairs are a pain to go up and down. I wouldn’t sit up there again, despite the view overlooking the rest of the restaurant and the street.

I had a long time while waiting for my meal to start to look at the restaurant and decide my favorite bird motif in decor was this little red guy on antlers that hang over the opening to the kitchen, which essentially takes up the space next door.

About 40 minutes in, despite the interesting conversation our stomachs were empty and we asked if we could order appetizers at least. We were told that since one of the ten of us were missing (car trouble), we had to wait as they couldn’t put any of our order in until everyone was there in order to time everything correctly, and that appetizers and mains go together, period. All she could do was walk around the table answering questions on the menu- not even to pre-emptively write orders down.

This created a lot of unnecessary drama. I understand the desire to time all the plates, but it was one person, not half the table missing and we even said we were willing to let her dish be off timing if the majority could please please be served. Why the waitress couldn’t take that statement gracefully by saying “hm, let me ask the chef or manager” instead of instantly shooting it down verbally right then or there just aggravated the situation. I thought that maybe I was misreading the whole concept intended with Little Bird Bistro- maybe they are taking it all the way to include a side of just slight disdain because they know more about food then you to go with your polite service and your pleasant but eventually overwhelming heavy dishes to really give you that French experience.

Overall, the lack of smooth communication and the actions they took to serve us gave a very mixed feeling of thoughtfulness and thoughtlessness.

  • She continually filled our little water glasses for us, but it was not until her trip up for taking our order that she thought to bring bread for the table- which was all devoured in 5 minutes since everyone had already been drinking on an empty stomach.
  • When one guest gave feedback to the manager that one of the dishes was salty, she said that the dish was supposed to be salty and that’s the way it was done, so there you go. Meanwhile, another guest who only ate a third of his gnocchi was asked what was wrong with it and if it was anything they could do about it (he had never had gnocchi before) and was apologized to multiple times (we did not ask for anything either time btw).
  • It was very long to be waiting to finally be allowed to order- but the check came quickly and were done individually… with a 20% automatic gratuity (more typically for groups there is automatic 18 with the additional tip write in line).

But onto the food. If it has been incredibly wonderful, maybe we could have still left the table with a good feeling- Screendoor‘s long wait is all forgotten when you first start biting into your food, same with the wait at the Bellagio buffet… Not so much here with Little Bird. It’s not bad, and it’s a definite positive to have this French option in the downtown area and so conveniently located. But it’s also not so overwhelming or consistingly good that your mind can just be swept away by the food and ignore the “by the rule book no exceptions” service or an encounter with some who embodied the slight disdaining but polite French waitstaff stereotype.

My appetizer at of Escargot, garlic cream, lightly fried gougères was my favorite dish of the 3 I had that initial dinner. The sauce was much lighter then what you find in normal butter bathing escargot, but did the job, and a I appreciated this take on escargot in terms of the snail and sauce and gougeres. The dish came with a small topping of salad with vinaigrette to try to counter the richness of the rest of the dish- but it was over the top with vinegar, and it distracted from the otherwise wonderful dish. Also, the thoughtful gesture with serving escargot- that’s always the time to refill the bread basket, so the guest can dip the bread in and wipe up all the delectable sauce from the plate. The gougeres were nice on their own, I wasn’t going to make them sponges and cover up the point of the gougeres which is the cheese inside. This is a good dish if you carefully spread out the acid of the salad, though not necessarily a good value.

Entree at this outing was the famously raved Duck Confit with little potatoes, asparagus, orange glaze. The crackly skin was the best part, the dark meat underneath was a wee bit overdone but not dry (though approaching that state at certain parts) and overall a little salty but not inedibily so- though another person said hers was like licking pockets of salt at times. At least all the meat was able to come off the bone… since they never gave anyone at the table any knives besides the butter ones that were at the original place setting. I wish it had come with more side vegetables to balance the dish. The duck at Burnside Brewing was better in flavor (though not in skin texture) and priced lower, so I didn’t understand the fawning over the duck confits in other reviews, based on this experience. It looked so promising, and so were the first bites, but not after you get under the skin and into the real meat. That seems to be appropriate given how this night’s dining experience went.

My side of Potato, bacon, morbier cheese, didn’t appear at first… just like with two other guests who had ordered sides and had to ask what happened to them. They appeared after we asked- individually, so it entailed three separate trips down the stairs because as soon as one guest mentioned the lack of side, the server was on their way down before checking the whole table so that us other two could mention our needs as well. As a side, it wasn’t bad, but nothing special either. The side dish was priced pretty dear- I think steakhouses are more generous with a side at that price- this is barely enough to share, but so rich you only want to eat so much of it yourself.

I want to believe it was just an unfortunate case of an off-putting experience because of a bad service night (the reviews on yelp also seem to plead this case- at times service is pointed at being inconsistent and timing being off, but others didn’t notice). I would never recommend a group here.

I have been to Little Bistro a few other times thanks to its proximity to my regular bar- all of those visits all were for weekday happy hour time/right at the start of dinner time, and besides one booth visit I also sat at the bar where Tom took care of me and was the attentive barman in terms of service. Each visit he cheerfully described my drink options, letting me know about the Happy Hour prices right away, and put food into the system as soon as he turned away with my order. On both visits, when another group appeared close to end of happy hour/beginning of dinner service, he told them so while presenting them with both menus and asked if they wanted to order off that HH menu really fast. As soon as a drink was poured he offered bread with butter- and even when I refused him at first during one visit as I was waiting to be joined by another, he still asked multiple other times to make sure I wasn’t starving while I enjoyed waiting with two drinks.

I first came back for the roasted marrow bones, which were fun though extremely rich, even for me. They come in an intimidating plate of two giant bones in a size that you would normally see in plastic bag to feed a large dog or maybe the Flintstones. It’s definitely a conversation piece. They come with a little bit of tart bright orange marmalade to counter the heaviness and a few pieces of overly toasted bread carefully allocated on the plate as well (on a later visit I saw they had switched this to mushroom and balsalmic vinegar instead). You use the spoon to pull the fattyness out and plop on the bread (mine was not going to spread), maybe put in a tip of orange marmalade- not too much because it will overwhelm the marrow and you only want the teensiest smidge as it is very strong in flavor profile. I think one bone would have been enough for me- this is a dish to share since it’s so rich. Value-wise for the price, only the “early/late” price of 25% off seemed to make sense to me for what this dish offers. Normally, this is the same price as the Le Pigeon Burger you will see later in the review…

Meanwhile, the salad of “Field Greens, banyuls vinaigrett​e, Le Chevrot” were nothing special, nor were the fennel au gratin or ham sandwich of “Baguette, Jambon de Paris, gruyere, dijon, green” which greasy rather then rich- it was better as a leftover cold the next day. I would prefer a baguette sandwich from Best Baguette over ordering this sandwich again, I suppose I had been hoping for something a bit more like a Croque Monsieur and this was twice as heavy. Everything was decent but not memorable.

The famous Le Pigeon burger was a really decent burger. The burger is named for the original restaurant, “Le Pigeon” which offered limited quantities of this burger (they only serve five a night at the original)- but here at Little Bird it is a normally available menu item. When it arrives at the table, it does look amazing, coming with a knife solidly speared through the middle because honestly, you’re going to need that knife to eat this. The fries stayed crisp but didn’t have much flavor that took it anywhere special, and even were overly salty in one certain corner- that was one of the two detriments of the dish. I really was disappointed by the fries.

The meat patty is a housemade thick and a great combination of juicy Cascade beef without being greasy. I really really liked the treatment of the lettuce into slaw of being cut and dressed because it made sure it was a crispy counterpoint to the richness, even if it made the entire experience extremely messy. The burger is topped with Tillamook aged white cheddar which is needed to stand up beside that beef and slaw. The grilled pickled onion was sweet but in a huge chunk instead of more spread across the entire burger so with one bite I would get no sweetness, and other bites I would get more onion then beef- the other detriment of this dish when I had it- I hope this just was an execution mis-step. The grilled ciabatta bun is solid enough that it holds everything in with its thick crusty outside and doughy inside but is also very filling. I wasn’t surprised to see other burger eaters taking off the top and just eating the insides like a steak with extra toppings- which actually is quite a compliment to their burger.

The favorite dish I had from the menu was the Gnocchi Parisienne with peas, roasted portobello and pistou. The gnocchi were light and pillowy and melted on my mouth while also having a bit of crunch from a slight sear, and the peas and portobello offered good chewy texture and bursts of flavor. A pistou is a simple sauce made of just garlic, fresh basil, and olive oil, and it tasted very fresh and like they were great quality base ingredients.

During my visit at a table for early dinner, the service was blazingly fast- I only ordered a drink and an entree, so pretty straightforward order. The bread with salted butter arrived at the same time of my drink, and I was still on the last piece of bread when the entree appeared only 10 minutes after I ordered it and overall I was in and out within 30 minutes or so. That kitchen’s ability to execute is nimble. But, I never felt rushed during my meal- though I definitely felt their bustling from all on the first floor to serve which is at the expense of helping guests feel relaxed and that little service illusion that they enjoy tending to us as guests and having us experience their restaurant.

The check always comes with a complimentary mini macaroon. Each time I went, the flavors varied- this one was a banana nut one. You would think that this touch at the end of every meal would make me feel pampered and be a gesture of small care. Yet each time the way it was presented, instead of coming from a desire of Little Bird to ensure the meal ended with just a touch of sweetness, it was just a box to be checked off for “mignardise” like part of the formula for fulfilling the concept.

It’s a small restaurant, and when you enter, it seems to bring up a bistro air immediately- loud but cozy, the little decorative touches of a small bird here or there and the shiny tin ceiling, the chalkboard of specials looked beautiful with art carefully drawn on the borders. The atmosphere is charming. The space has been put together well to feel elegant but not stuffy.

Me, I take the word Bistro in the name to mean food probably with too much butter but also a comforting local part of the neighborhood that has some continental classiness going for it to make me feel a bit fancy and I can have escapist fantasies about having once spent a nostalgic semester in a romantic Paris.  Little Bird just isn’t generous enough to fulfill that as every dish is rich but not every dish is comforting or makes you feel cared for. It looks appealing and finds that line between luxury and homey charm, but then isn’t inviting enough to feel casual and local like a neighborhood friend. But it can have its moments if you choose carefully, and don’t come in a large party, and aren’t looking for your bistro to become personal. It definitely offers French food that aspires to be extra decadant, but just not the nourishment I was hoping for.

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