Not sure it’s appropriate to give a review from only visiting once but I am just so eager to talk about it so here goes
. For a fun comparison, check out my post from 2016 when we went and fell in love with chef Jarett Steibers pop up Eat Me Speak Me.
The other night Nick and I visited the restaurant everyone has been talking about. Heralded for its delicious and interesting fusions on its ever-changing menu, Little Bear is nestled in the trending Summerhill neighborhood (if you are from Atlanta, walking past a hipster beer bar in Summerhill feels a bit ugh…), we hustled on over, masked and bundled to try the new hot thang.
We caught them during their fun Jewish/Chinese holiday menu. We ordered the ‘just fuck me up fam’ (this and Slutty Vegan man, Atl gets all giggley over a little dash of profanity), a 4 course prix fixe. They offer both a meat version and a version for vegetarians and first off want to say how m
uch I appreciate the consideration! So nice for a restaurant to make us vegheads feel more than just a resigned obligation. We ordered for one ($35) and it consisted of egg drop soup, brocollini, sunchoke tzimmes, apple cake with star anise, benne, caramel, whipped cream. We supplemented with a fried rice, mapo matzo balls, fernandos xxx spicy sauce, and cookies w/ whiskey milk (because there was no way I was going to resist that one).
How was it? It was a fun, flavor blast. A bright, bold, exciting variety. Licorice-y fennel, spicy hot chili, that great szechuan numb. A meal in which you can taste how much the chef loves food and just wants to play. I reckon he is a true saucier because that is where the food here shines. Sauces galore with lovely, complex flavor profiles.
To nitpick, a few of the dishes felt highly considered and inspired at birth but maybe lacked a certain finesse and refinement in the end as seen in a heavy handed application of seeds, a bit too much grease on the veg, or not quite enough of a seasoning to the soup. A little bit more time finishing here would go a long way. I can see it is possible, the cookies, the apple cake and the fried rice felt finished and perfect in their variety of texture and flavor. It was also a touch pricey for me. $50 bucks for the whole thing would have felt more fitting for those messy treatments but it was ~$80. Better prices in the old iteration, eat me speak me which felt like a steal, but it is a pandemic, this is a different game in a different world and I understand that.
I don’t know about you but sometimes it feels like as soon as one restaurant pops up with its favorite new it ingredient or dish, it pops off everywhere and soon you are drowning in the same damn salad. This is not Little Bear. Little Bear will trail-blaze, experiment, and do whatever it’s inspired to do and I just love that.
PS – def get the cookies and milk A+++
