Big King: A Tiny Place with Big Ambition

The post-holiday return to the real world that descends every January is both glorious and draining. It’s glorious thanks to the promise of resolutions, of getting organized and getting healthy and on track. But it’s draining because suddenly you’re living the monotony of a gray and endless winter with nothing but a chore list to get you through each week.

Last week, we realized we needed a break from our post-holiday break.

So last weekend, we hastily arranged dog coverage from some wonderful friends and skipped down to Providence for a night. I’ll extol the virtues of Providence as the ideal New England weekend getaway in another post. This particular weekend, we wanted a dinner destination that was unique, interesting, and delicious, and a lucky Google search led me to a recent Boston Globe article on where to dine. I hopped onto their website and was greeted with this:

“small weird restaurant at 3 luongo square in providence rhode island”

So I navigated to their menu, which started with this:

“we handwrite our menus everyday, using produce, fish, shellfish, and poultry that comes from people that we know.”

And ended with this:

“depending on who is writing it, some menus are easier to read than others. we're working on our penmanship, promise.”

Perfect.

We arrived right on time for our 8:30pm reservation (Note: Reservations require a $5 deposit per person to discourage no-shows, which is incredibly important for this kind of restaurant, as you’ll see). We took our seats at the Chef’s Counter and were handed the menu.

*The handwritten menu for Friday night at Big King*

We skimmed the menu quickly, but we had no interest in a la carte-ing it. We wanted the full, chef-created experience. And we wanted sake. So we went with Set B with the Sake pairing.

Food came quickly, and our first dish was the Raw Sea Bream. What is Bream? Great question. To make a very long and complicated story short, Sea Bream is a popular fish that describes many species and is quite popular for its light, delicate flavor (check out this great article from Andy Wang at Food & Wine about the sensitivity tied to how restaurants name their fish on menus). The fish was light, and the shitake gel perfectly complimented the dish without overpowering the clean, lightly fishy taste.

*First course: The Raw Sea Bream with shitake gel and lemon*

The dish was complimented by the first in our journey into good Sake.

ASIDE - As Phil told the Big King Staff several times that night, we quickly realized we had never had good sake. We spent the mid-2000s drinking from cheap sushi bars that didn’t ID students, like Maluken in Kenmore Square, which is long since closed; in fact, the only article I could find about Maluken was from a 1995 archive from MIT (we. are. so. old.). Turns out that drinks at Maluken and the sake bombs of our youth were not indicative of the broader world of quality sake.

bigkingkikumasamune — *Kiku-Masamune, the first of many glasses of Sake at Big King*

The Kiku-Masamune sake is dry and fruity. Its crisp, clean finish was delightful to me as a fan of ultra-dry white wines, and Big King was right that it paired perfectly with the sea bream. According to their website, Kiku-Masamune is one of the most popular sake choices in both Osaka and Tokyo, which is not surprising based on its breezy accessibility. It was the perfect intro to our meal.

Our next courses were the custard and the tempura. The custard was a savory egg custard, moist and firm and light.

*Custard from Big King - Savory, light, and delicious.*

*Squash tempura with dried, smoked tuna flakes on top.*

This was a big meal overall, so these dishes were very well-timed because they were big on flavor but not too filling. Each was punctuated with more sake - seriously, so much great sake.

I’d tell you more about the tempura, the sake, the custard, but I desperately want to tell you about my favorite dish: the pork skewers. The grilled pork was just greasy enough and perfectly salty. The meat had a bit of crisp on the outside, and I couldn’t get enough. Seriously, I liked the half-plate on which it was served.

The only complaint or critique I have about the meal was that the final course, the monkfish, was more food than we needed. The monkfish was a large serving that included rice, greens, pickled vegetables, and of course, the fish. At that point in the meal, we were pleasantly buzzed and pretty full, and it was too much food. Great food, but too much.

*Monkfish - the final course. I never thought I would see it, but it was maybe too much of a good thing!*

PHAIT’S RATINGS: Big King

Food: 8/10 - Delicious, unique, but uneven pacing across so many courses made it tough to finish the last couple of dishes
Ambience: 9/10 - Not for everyone (small, feels kind of crowded), but you get to see the food being prepped and various chefs bring you each dish, and the intimate setting is great for a couple to enjoy great food and great conversation
Value: 7/10 - While not outrageous, the six course “Set B” meal with the sake pairing ran us well over $150.00 after tip,.
Repeatability: 5/10 - We like our comfortable, old stand-bys, so the ability to go back to a restaurant again is big for us. The niche food options and the price tag bring the score down…but the fact that the handwritten menu changes every day boosts that score right back up.
Je ne sais quoi: 9/10: Overnight Providence visit, a menu like we’d never experienced, and our first Phait on Food post in years? Hell yeah.
OVERALL RATING: 76%