The menu at Little Bird Bistro, the new French restaurant opened in December by Le Pigeon chef Gabe Rucker, takes a page from
Larousse Gastronomique,
the authoritative encyclopedia of Gallic eating. I mean that literally:
The dinner menu has, printed on its backside, a photocopy of page 662
(beef offal, oxtail
en hochepot to tripe), as if to proclaim, “Ere, we do singz by ze book!”
This is not entirely
the case. Little Bird, with its faux tin-tile ceiling, copper bar, red
leather booths and clichéd tourist-food offerings—escargot, frog legs,
coq au vin—is a sort of Frenchy theme restaurant, heavy on liver and
butter, with antlers and dead birds here and there to remind us where
we’re eating. (Portland, city of taxidermy!) But the cuisine is hardly
textbook fare.
The restaurant opens
at 11:30 am, and it’s already the hottest power lunch downtown. The
clubby decor suits the bankers and lawyers who fill the place the moment
the doors are unlocked, but the suits swarm down from Big Pink less for
atmosphere than for cheap foie gras ($11), $4 half-martinis and
Rucker’s wonderful mess of a burger. Coveted by customers of Le Pigeon,
which serves only five a night, the 7-ounce patty is slathered in slaw
and grilled onions and stuffed into a ciabatta roll from Ken’s Artisan
Bakery. It is an exceptional wad of beef, and, at $12, not a bad deal.
While
the burger will hog the spotlight, it’s not the best sandwich on the
lunch menu. That honor goes to the fried cod sandwich ($12), which hides
crisp, moist chunks of fish under a slaw of celery root, carrot and
mayonnaise. If the slaw were available on its own, I would order it as
an entree.
Lunchtime’s
boisterous bonhomie gives way to a less congenial atmosphere at dinner.
The tables are a little too wide and the banquettes a little too deep
for intimate conversation, and the dining room’s tables are jammed so
close together that elbowing one’s neighbors is a real risk. The
two-story space and hard ceiling add up to a lot of noise, forcing
servers to shout. I felt badgered. Chef de cuisine Erik Van Kley’s
absolutely perfect duck confit ($20) goes a long way toward making up
for the discomfort—as with Peking duck, the skin pulls away from the
moist flesh, becoming crisp as a potato chip. It’s almost too rich and
salty to finish on one’s own, but is saved by a bed of lentils, with
parsley and charred green onion, which offers a bitter contrast to the
duck.
The coq au vin ($17),
served with big chunks of bacon and capped with a generous smear of
chicken liver on toast, is also excellent. It’s so juicy as to be almost
creamy, a chickeny perfume practically gusting off the plate. Other
hits include the mussels ($13) in a saffron-scented broth, the “crispy
beef tongue” ($10)—essentially a beef McNugget with the texture of a 3
Musketeers and the flavor of a top-notch pot roast—and all of the sides.
The potato puree with truffles and chives ($6) is a hedonist’s take on
mashed potatoes, and the fennel au gratin ($9) tastes like a greasy
onion pizza in the best possible way.
While
the kitchen’s hits are flawless, the menu has its share of misses: the
gnocchi parisienne is disappointingly chewy and overwhelmingly buttery,
dotted with winey mushrooms and white cheese that add richness but not
interest. The escargot ($12) are served with very good savory gougères—eggy
pastry puffs—in a garlic cream sauce, with a coiffure of frisée in a
spicy vinaigrette, but the snails themselves seem like a bland
afterthought, and the dish does not make a coherent whole. Even more
confusing are the frog legs ($11), breaded, fried and served along
orange segments in a sweet-and-sour sauce like an amphibious version of
General Tso. Even fried, they do not taste good, and their inclusion on
the menu seems like a stunt.
It
is possible to have an entirely satisfying dinner for two at Little
Bird. Sit at the bar, which is quieter than the dining room, and order
modestly: split the duck confit, the mussels and two or three sides.
Have a couple of glasses of wine (there are several choices, most of
them reasonably priced). Then go completely berserk on two, or maybe
even three desserts. Pastry chef Lauren Fortgang, formerly of Paley’s
Place, has avoided the missteps of the dinner menu. The hazelnut-milk
chocolate financier (essentially a large hazelnut chocolate-chip cookie
with praline ice cream and candied kumquats, $8), croquant marmelade (alternately
crisp and foamy layers of chocolate and caramel, served with bits of
preserved orange, $8) and coconut cake with passionfruit sorbet (a
winning combination of moist cake and shockingly bright fruit, $7) are
all impressive enough to abruptly end conversation until the plates are
clean. Forget Larousse; at Little Bird, Fortgang gets the last word.
- Order this: The heavenly duck confit, $20.
- Best deal: The enormous Le Pigeon burger, $12.
- I’ll pass: Sorry, vegetarians—your only entree is gnocchi, and it’s not good.
EAT: Little Bird, 219 SW 6th Ave., 688-5952,
littlebirdbistro.com. Lunch and dinner 11:30 am-midnight Monday-Friday,
dinner 5 pm-midnight Saturday-Sunday. $$-$$$ Moderate-expensive.
"the dining room’s tables are jammed so close together that elbowing one’s neighbors is a real risk."
I'm a PDX resident living in Paris for a few months and this is not abnormal here. They often slide tables around just so people can get seated. So maybe a bit of the French atmosphere to go with the food. :)
Whoa...this is certainly a lot different than our 10 visits to Little Bird. To consider the dishes as cliched tourist-food offerings is truly off the mark. Gabe and team do not do "textbook fare" because their creativity with flavor and ingredient profiles is way beyond that snarky comment. Never had a problem with the tables; banquettes plenty comfortable. Too bad there was no mention of the killer pork dish, PDX's best soup a l'oignon gratinee, or the crab and celery root remoulade salad, Lauren's housemade bonbon plate for dessert, and the incredible mixed drinks made by Jonny Ericsen.
I've had some very good meals at Little Bird (as with Le Pigeon), but I'd agree that with few exceptions, it's fairly straightforward bistro fare. Not that that's a bad thing, necessarily. I'd wager that the minor missteps of the young restaurant will be resolved shortly. Rucker has a knack for taking advantage of certain challenges. I only wish you hadn't mentioned the bar. That's my spot.
don't worry veg heads, the gnocchi is absolutely divine. best i ever 'ad!
There are some good things and some bad things - but a meal is a concert and all the parts should play nicely together otherwise the good points get buried and lost beneath the bad ones.
First - they really don't like large groups (we were a group of 10) - you can't reserve a table until after 8:30 p.m. on a weekend unless you want to personally guarantee them $1000.00. OK - so we came at 8:30. One person in our party had car trouble and hadn’t arrived. We were able to get cocktails but when we told them we were ready to order and were not going to wait for the late person they told us that they won't put our orders in until the other person arrives! We had way too much time of nothing but our cocktails and bread.
Finally, an hour or more after we are seated, our food comes out - but no pacing. My two appetizers are plopped in front of me at the same time. My cocktail (the Van Cleef very yummy but powerful) had long ago been finished. I was ready for a nice glass of wine to compliment my now cooling appetizers. The waitress did suggest and let me sample two nice red wines - I picked one and thought, OK now the great meal will finally get off the ground.
Fighting waves of hunger (it was probably 10 pm by then) and trying to nibble the appetizers, I waited for the wine, and waited, and waited, and then it finally materialized - I was almost finished with my appetizers and I had only slowly picked at them! The wine, Crozes Hermitage, Esquisse, was divine, but not having it to enjoy with my appetizers just ruined the whole experience for me.
The lamb belly appetizer was truly an amazing contrast of strong flavors and textures. My other appetizer, the foie gras torchon, might have been wonderful if served on its own with time to savor its delicate flavor and with the aforementioned wine to slowly sip between bites. But thrown at me with the other robust flavored appetizer with no wine to nurture my palate converted it to a bland heap of something soft to spread on toast - neither memorable nor intriguing.
Before I finished my two appetizers, my entree, the duck confit, showed up. So now I have three plates in front of me. The duck confit - yes there was a crunchy skin and moist meat - but my serving also had pockets of salt, and more salt, and more salt. It was like licking pure salt at times. My dinner companions did not report the extreme saltiness that my plate had. So maybe someone just over salted mine. I reported it to the manager and all that yielded was the comment "yes our version of duck confit is salty and some people complain but that is how we do it.” I was flabbergasted. There was no effort to correct an obviously poorly prepared dish.
(Two people in our group had the gnocchi and neither liked it).
Treat this place like a bar with food. Stop in with maybe one friend and have a drink (the cocktails are really good) and maybe try one or two dishes, avoiding the ones that are poorly reviewed, but a special dinner - forget it! (FYI tried burger on prior visit - good, very moist and cooked to order, definitely a gourmet version of a burger, but not worth a special trip just to try it. It is still just a burger.)
I am giving this place only one star because like I said in the beginning - a memorable dinner has to be well paced so that you actually enjoy the separate dishes and beverages in a well orchestrated progression like the separate movements of a concerto. I can overlook one bad dish or some spotty service - but I can't excuse the combination of bad pacing, some bad dishes, and a bad attitude towards the customers. (PS I think the individual server did her personal best but was limited by other restaurant issues.)
I saw this on Urbanspoon too, It sounds to me like you and your party were being dramatic and demanding, the staff have lives and are expected to manage and run the resturaunt in an effective manner, anyone who's worked a job like this understands the frustration of trying to attentively and patiently serve a large, unexpected, and unorganized group AND everyone else who didn't bring ten people by unplanned and who also deserve attention. Next time plan better, call ahead and be patient. No resturant is going to be able to preform a 'symphony' for a party of ten annoying jerks.