OC Register – 3 Stars – Little Sparrow Soars

I can’t stop thinking about the pastrami at Little Sparrow.

At lunchtime, Little Sparrow in downtown Santa Ana serves mostly sandwiches, no entrees, which sounds boring. But the sandwiches are actually exciting.

The tri-tip pastrami is cured in-house. Fork-tender, the meat is crudely sliced and piled 2 inches high, with Swiss cheese oozing over the top, cradled between thick slices of charred rye bread that coats my fingers with butter. As I bite, the meat fills my sinuses with joy.

But it’s not just the sandwich I keep thinking about. It’s Little Sparrow itself. This might be one of the more important openings of the past couple of years. I didn’t see this coming. That’s mainly because in the ramp-up to its debut, there was never any mention of the chef. There was simply a declaration that this would be a neighborhood restaurant with quality-driven food and drink, something in the vein of Prune in New York. Except Prune is a chef-owned, chef-driven restaurant.

As it turns out, the entrepreneur behind Little Sparrow has smartly hired a talented chef in Eric Samaniego, who previously worked in Los Angeles at Comme Ça with David Myers, whom I view as one of the best chefs in California. This is Samaniego’s break-out moment. As I taste my way through his menu, I get the sense he’s been waiting for this, thinking about a menu like this, for some time.

Little Sparrow is a charming, modern American cafe with the soul of a vintage French bistro. At lunchtime, as sunlight streams through high windows, the tables are bare and the mood is light. Service is friendly but minimal, with guests placing orders at a counter.

In addition to that pastrami, there’s an incredible burger, a classic composition with cheddar and Swiss, heirloom tomatoes and bibb lettuce framing a humongous beef patty cooked perfectly medium-rare. There’s also a pork belly banh mi that really isn’t a banh mi, but never mind the linguistics. The pork is velvety and satisfying, and there’s loads of it squished into a ciabatta bun with pickled carrots, frisée and shaved jalapeños.

There’s also a fried chicken sandwich that isn’t so much a sandwich as a sculpture. The only way I can figure out how to make it fit into my mouth is to disassemble the whole thing and eat the components with a knife and fork.

Little Sparrow transforms into a completely different restaurant at night. The dining room is romantically lit with candles, the formerly bare tables softened with white cloths. The room bustles with full-service waiters who are intuitive and warm. The sandwiches are gone, replaced by seasonal bistro cuisine spoken in the language of a passionate chef.

Do not disregard the separate cocktail menu that’s presented alongside the dinner menu, because on the back of it is where you’ll find some of the best appetizers, which aren’t listed on the other menu.

The merguez-style lamb sausages are especially good. They are so loosely formed into little balls, it’s a wonder they hold together at all. They practically melt upon impact.

The bar menu is also where the burger hides at night, served after dark with some of the best fries in Orange County.

The charcuterie plate is one of the few items available at lunch and dinner. Any chef can buy an expensive log of salame from Fra’Mani or Creminelli and slap it onto a serving board, and even the most discerning foodies will be happy. But only a handful of truly inspired chefs get their kicks by buying whole hog heads and extracting every last ounce of cheek fat and snout drippings, transforming the melted face into something more ethereally delicious. That’s what’s going on here, and I find it very, very sexy. It is an obvious labor of love that results in pungent, cloudlike chicken-liver mousse, as well as decadent pork rillettes, pork and duck terrine, and even a sort of head cheese.

As foreshadowed by the charcuterie, the chef has a soft spot for offal. Veal sweetbreads are caramelized with bacon and served with a purée of spring peas. Beef marrow bones get sawed down the middle and roasted, their gelatinous insides meant to be spread across thick slices of toast. Oxtail braises into oblivion before being ladled atop creamy polenta. Lamb neck becomes as tender as loin, tangled with ribbons of house-made tagliatelle. Surprisingly, not even the most timid diner at my table balks at any of these things.

Samaniego’s cooking is at once familiar yet original, daring yet comforting. Chefs have been braising mussels in beer for eons, yet there’s something different, something fresh about these that I can’t put my finger on. Shrimp and grits is a classic combination, too, but this is the first time I’ve tasted these flavors with the bright, peppery twist of celery leaves.

My halibut one night is beautiful, albeit slightly overcooked, swimming in a sea of white beans, in the depths of which hide tiny pieces of chorizo fried to a crunch. On another night, the barramundi is cooked perfectly, to that elusive point where the flesh is just beginning to flake but hasn’t yet surrendered a speck of moisture.

I can’t make up my mind which I like better – a gorgeous pork chop straddling a bed of black lentils and kumquats or the 10-ounce New York strip with a schmear of Romesco sauce and grilled leeks. Both are gobbled up by the friends at my table before I can go in for a tie-breaking taste.

I’ve only had one dish I didn’t like, and that’s the ricotta agnolotti. Something about the tomatoes in this dish feels jarring and out of place. Fortunately, the opposite is true of the white corn risotto heaped with fresh crab, which tastes like pure poetry.

Desserts are consistently excellent and, like the rest of the menu, familiar yet always interesting.

The intensely dark chocolate tart has a gravitational pull that makes it impossible to resist. And the rhubarb cobbler makes me incredibly sad that spring doesn’t last forever. But with the onset of summer, I can only imagine what will become of the peaches.

 

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