Little Bird

I would go to Portland, Oregon, at least once a year even if we didn’t have good friends who live there. I would go there just to eat. Each year I discover a new (to me) restaurant that is unlike anything I know of back home in Baltimore. It isn’t that we don’t have a handful of excellent eateries in Maryland, it’s just that the food scene in Portland is so vibrant, diverse, imaginative and professionally executed that people who care about such things can live there year round (as our friends do) and constantly discover places to eat that excite the soul as well as the taste buds.

Take Little Bird for example. We had dinner a week ago last week at this informal but classy little place, with its stainless steel ceiling and works of avian-themed art on the walls (a sister restaurant, La Pigeon, is also owned by chef Gabriel Rucker). We were slightly miffed at having to wait twenty minutes or so for our reserved table, but a round of skillfully mixed Negroni cocktails quickly eased our tetchiness.

As soon as we were seated we ordered a selection of Pacific Northwest oysters (Netarts from Oregon and Shigokus from Washington), and since Little Bird’s wine list tilts beguilingly towards France we went for white Burgundy to accompany them. Pernand-Vergelesses Domaine Coste-Caumartin 2007 hit just the right note with the tiny, briny little bivalves, which were succulent on their own, superlative with the wine.

With six of us at the table we needed a couple of reds to go with the various main course dishes we ordered, which ranged from duck confit to sautéed Sockeye salmon. So many choices, so little time! Our ultimate selections proved judicious: Moulin-a-Vent, Fines Graves, J. Janodet 2009 was wonderfully versatile, and Saint Joseph, Pierre Gonon, 2008 was likewise adaptable, and was a particularly peerless partner for lamb shoulder (delectably crispy on the outside but moist and tender on the inside, this was a dish born for red wine).

By the time we got to the sweet indulgences my note-taking had fallen by the wayside. I can remember only individual tarts with impossibly thin and flaky crusts, and an enchanting chocolate-caramel confection of some sort. Some three hours after we’d arrived at Little Bird we pushed ourselves away from the table and floated out into the night on the cloud of pleasure which only that special triad of excellent food, fine wine and good friendship can convey.