They say don't play with your food – but that's exactly what happens in chef Bjorn Shen's gastro-playground Small's. The last time he did a successful run of a pizza omakase, and this time carbs are once again the star of the show. The most recent run at Small's celebrates bread sushi. Confused? Well, it's exactly what it is: sushi but the main carbohydrate here is bread. And such good bread too – using high hydration, long-aged dough that is given different textures and tastes, from different cooking methods like high-temperature baking, low-temperature baking, binchotan grilling, deep-frying and steaming.
Creativity comes through in every dish of this multi-course meal (three snacks, up to 10 “bread-sushi”, one hotpot and two sweets). Some highlights include the akami where lean tuna, heart of palm (shoot of young coconut tree) and sambal matah (raw sambal of Balinese origin) is served on bread, the engawa course which is aburi engawa and green papaya strips stewed in lime juice, fish sauce and sugar. The course is served on your palm and then frozen ankimo (monkfish liver) is grated over the top. Bonus points for the hotpot course – Bjorn sometimes hides a "surprise" in someone's bowl. Spoiler: it's a thinly sliced, phallic-shaped daikon.
It's moments like these that makes dining at Small's feel a lot like an informal dinner in a friend's cool apartment. There are Borat posters on the wall, a tapestry of the movie Step Brothers in the corner, and plenty of pop culture references around. For the dessert, he ushers us to the 'living room' and serves a simple but delightful sweet snack which involves strawberries and Calpis – something you probably wished you invented.
