For our sixth installment of little kids reviewing restaurants, Isla and I took four-year-old Evan Huelsbeck (favorite food: “a lot of stuff”; least favorite food: “salad”) to Animal in Los Angeles. Animal is a meat-centric restaurant (obviously) and an ideal spot for a miniature food critic who hates salad.
When we arrived, Evan confidently let everyone know that he couldn’t read the menu — because he can’t read. Still curious, he asked the manager, “Why is the menu so wiggly?” She informed him that it was “printed on wiggly paper.” TOUCHÉ! Satisfied with that answer, Evan moved swiftly to ordering. “Could I get some toast? What does your toast come with? Can I get some butter on some toast?” Maybe he can read, after all, because they do have toast on the menu. Instead, I asked for “the weirdest stuff you have,” feeling pretty confident that they could deliver.
Pig ear with red chili, lime, maple, farm egg
The first dish to come out was pig ear, which was confusing to Evan since he very specifically ordered toast.
“Hey, I didn’t get that. I got toast.” Evan’s an optimist, though, and said, “Well, it kind of looks like toast,” and picked up a fork.
Chicken liver toast
TOAST! FINALLY! Thank God. On the one hand, Evan was really excited that his toast had arrived. On the other, he really wanted to believe that there was butter on this toast — like, so badly. But at the end of the day, you can pretend chicken liver is butter only for so long.
“There’s some butter on them!” he said at a glance. He picked up some liver — I mean “butter” — with his finger and declared it “yummy butter.” “Wipe this off, please,” he requested about the “very top part.” But he just ended up flinging it onto the plate.
Japanese uni, heirloom cucumbers, za’atar, fried cheese, hard boiled egg
Things were off to a good start with the uni. “I like the smell of it. It smells like scent.”
Ah, yes, the classic “scent” smell. The best thing about kids reviewing food is all the incredibly specific descriptions they use.
At first, Evan was focused on popping every single fish egg on the plate. “There’s just gooey stuff inside. LOTS of gooey stuff. That’s what they’re full of.” After all the eggs were sufficiently investigated, he moved onto the dish, which, on second thought, reminded him of something.
Marrow bone, chimichurri, caramelized onions
“NOT THAT AGAIN!” he shouted as the next dish arrived. That “very top” part of the toast left him with some serious green-stuff-in-a-long-shape PTSD. Everything was totally fine once he realized there were two slices of toast behind the bone.
“I like to finish all the pieces of bread before I eat the other stuff.” Once he finished the bread, he moved onto the bone marrow, eating it in the traditional method of scraping out all the insides and toppings onto the plate/table, yelling at it, “Stay down there!” and then gnawing on the empty bone.
Veal brains, vadouvan, apricot puree, carrot
Considering that every past kid food critic has sobbed from pork belly, kudos to Evan for giving brains a chance.
Veal tongue, gherkin pickle, salmon roe, black mustard
“Oh, is that toast?” Ah, it can’t all be toast, buddy — one of life’s hard and early lessons. On the bright side, more roe to pop!
Bacon chocolate crunch bar, salt & pepper ice cream
Meat dessert!
After dessert, Evan didn’t want it to end. He asked his mom if Isla and I could “come sleep over,” explaining that she could drive us so that we could “sit on either side of his car seat,” which was just the cutest thing ever.
