The Detroit Restaurant That Makes Me Miss L.A.
Indian fried chicken, curry noodles, and prime rib baguette ooooh wee.
Heyoooooo.
Your ol’ pal DP here with some unfortunate news: I’m on Covid.
That’s right, on Covid. I figure saying “I’m on Covid” sounds a lot cooler than “I have Covid.” I have Covid sounds like I’m some sort of sick dumbass. On Covid sounds like I like to party!
I somehow managed to go all this time without getting Covid once. And then finally, last week, it got me. It’s interesting to be a food writer who can’t experience flavor. Everything tastes faint, bland, or metallic. How on earth am I supposed to do this job??? It’s like being a blind piano player, or a baseball player with only one hand. One thing I know for sure: You can’t throw a no hitter with one hand. It’s impossible!!
Currently, my appetite isn’t too high because nothing is appetizing. I’ve tried eating a few really briny, nasty things just to jump-start my enthusiasm for food again—anchovies, olives, and the like. Everything feels dampened, though. Some egg drop soup from the Chinese restaurant down the street has soothed me, but for the most part, only one food as really made my taste buds pop:
Concord grapes.
Thank god for these gelatinous, brightly tangy little marbles. My eyes just haven’t lit up tasting anything all week, but these grapes have provided some hope. The congealed, meat-like texture is exactly the type of weird shit that’s doing it for me right now. And the taste of these Concords in particular are highly tart, funky, and sweet. Right now, to my Covid-affected taste buds, everything else pales in comparison to the flavor of a Concord grape. Hopefully that changes soon, though, because I don’t want to try to bullshit my way through writing assignments without a sense of taste. Although, that’s certainly doable. Anybody can do what I do. Do you know the words acidic and earthy? Great. You’re hired.
Now, on to something that I ate before I had Covid. It’s a restaurant in Detroit that makes me miss L.A., which is no small feat.
But, hey, before we get into that. Subscribe will ya! Pay if you want. Sharing this newsletter helps, too. So, do that!
Bunny Bunny is The Best Meal I’ve Had Since I left L.A.
And it makes me miss Los Angeles dearly. Why? Because the food is surprising.
I felt surprised when I sat down at Bunny Bunny. Surprised when I saw the appetizing, electric menu. When I saw the diverse crowd of people drinking on the rooftop, and the excited, hungry regulars who came through the front door, shouting to the kitchen, “Yo, you got any sandwiches left??” I was thrown for a loop, stunned, and staggered when I finally tried the fried chicken + fries with curry spices, and refreshed when the owners proved to be bright, funny, and charismatic people. Surprise is what Bunny Bunny specializes in, and it’s the same element that makes me long for dining in Los Angeles.
Surprise is the thing that binds together all of the great food outposts in L.A—the booming Tijuana taco stands, the iconic Chinese restaurants in the SGV, the dives serving modernized bar food, the wild chef collaborations, the experimental pizza joints, and the many fusion restaurants. All of the vast cuisines and ethnicities and chefs, they all fall under the same umbrella—surprise.
You can spend a lifetime eating through Los Angeles and you won’t get bored. There’s an excitement to that. And that same excitement wafts through the air at Bunny Bunny, a restaurant on the bottom floor of Collect Beer Bar, where boredom is decidedly the enemy.
That L.A. to Bunny connection has roots, too. When I first sat down, I noticed a bunch of L.A. menus displayed in a glass case, including Jon & Vinny’s, Girl & The Goat, and Son of a Gun. That’s because chefs/owners Justin Tootla and Jennifer Jackson have both spent some time in Southern California. Justin worked in L.A. years ago, though it didn’t sound like a very long stint, but his culinary sensibilities certainly line up with the city. These two cook with excitement. If you’re in Detroit, the very first move I’d recommend is Bunny Bunny: The food is simply a blast.
The Indian style fried chicken ($17) sure looks and tastes like it was corn-flake fried, but it’s just a classic Southern fry technique: Buttermilk marinade, then dredged in seasoned flour and corn starch. They actually massage each piece of chicken into the flour while drizzling in some of the marinade. “Keep massaging and drizzling,” they said via an Instagram DM. That technique is what gives the chicken its shaggy, corn-flake texture, which is flaky, tender, and lightly crisp.
What really makes this dish sing, though, are the French fries and fried onions littered throughout this plate. The fried onions have a generous amount of curry spice attached, enough to dry out your nostrils. Everything—the chicken, fries, and onions—is salted well, seasoned generously with curry spice, and packs a ton of flavor. It’s electric comfort food.
The fried chicken also comes served with plastic ramekins of coriander chutney, peach chutney, and a curry leaf buttermilk ranch. Mix and match any sauce, and you won’t be disappointed, though the combination of coriander chutney and curry leaf ranch is exceptionally delicious. Michigan crushes ranch dressing.
The collared salad with ground cherries ($10) was leafy, crunchy, seasoned well, and dressed perfectly. It’s a simple Southern-inspired salad, but packs a lot of flavor. The ground cherries, AKA cape gooseberries, were wonderfully tart, sweet, and crisp. The feta used reminds me of ricotta salata—it’s dry, but creamy and salty. I also love that they included little slivers of collared green stems in the salad, which provided some extra crunch. There’s a whole lot of crunch, actually—collared stems, sesame sticks, and peanuts. You know what good chefs do really well? Season their salads. And this collared salad tastes like salt and pepper, baby. There’s not a morsel of blandness here because they just know how to season properly. Whatever the menu looks like when you visit, trust these chefs to serve a tasty, engaging salad.
The chicken curry noodles ($16) are wok-fried, and come out to the table with nice charred aroma to them. These egg noodles are thick, frayed, and delicious, almost like an Italian pici, the way they refuse to be twirled. They, again, come sesasoned generously with curry. The lime is subtle, and it gives off more aroma than flavor. The chicken is made achari style, which means that it’s cooked with Indian pickling spices like ginger, dried chili, coriander, and mustard powder. It’s just a wonderful, mellow heat. I love the dry char of these noodles. The slightly burnt, crispy ends are delicious.
Audrey and I couldn’t eat everything, so we boxed up some of the food and took it home. The next morning, I reheated some in the oven. I don’t want to overstate this, but, I’m pretty sure these were the most satisfying leftovers I’ve ever had. A twirl of curry spiced French fries and onions with chicken curry egg noodles was absolutely what I needed the morning after a night of drinking.
The use of flavors at Bunny Bunny reminds me, again, of Los Angeles. It reminds me of Piija Palace (an Indian sports bar) or Poltergeist (a loud fusion restaurant inside of an arcade specializing in Italian-Hispanic-Southeast Asian combinations). The eclectic flavors at Bunny Bunny work well, not because a chef tried hard to think of how to reinvent these classic foods, but because the flavors just make sense. Because the chefs themselves have a wonderful, diverse background.
Per this Eater article written by Serena Maria Daniels, who by the way does a really fucking good job covering the food in Detroit…
This latest iteration is the third major shift in Bunny Bunny’s journey. When Tootla and Jackson — both alumni of Voyager in Ferndale — opened the restaurant in the former Gather space in 2020, it was originally intended as a takeout-friendly, regional Chinese spot. In less than a year, that menu was scrapped.
“I think when we open we just felt it was very textbook cooking, and we kind of felt a little detached, like, cooking out of cookbooks,” Tootla tells Eater. “We learned a ton, but it wasn’t our food. [That’s when] we decided to lean into our culture.”
Bunny Bunny has been through a few different iterations, and none more exciting than this one. Tootla’s father is first generation South African by way of India, and Jackson was brought up in Georgia. Combing the two and you get Indian hot chicken. Though, not everything is a straight mash-up of Indian and Southern. The cumin lamb roti, picture below, is a wonderful fusion of Indian and Chinese (see: Xinjiang cumin lamb). Cumin lamb is one of my favorite things to order at a Sichuan restaurant. In fact, I think I’ll hit Chengdu Gourmet next week.
Oh, and this prime rib baguette? No fusion, just goodness. Baguette toasted in beef fat, stuffed with prime rib from Ronnie Meats, and slathered with chili oil, peppers, onions, tomatoes, and cheese. Who cares what the inspiration for this is? It’s just fucking good.
I love that the chefs here cook outside of their experiences, as well. There doesn’t have to be a personal history behind every meal. As far as I’m concerned, talent knows no lane. Sometimes, you just want to cook good fucking food. That’s what you can expect at Bunny Bunny.
The menu at Bunny Bunny rotates, which means that there will always be something new to try. Alway some new inspiration, some rad, funky dish. You’ll constantly be surprised. I miss that feeling.
I briefly spoke with Justin on my way out of the restaurant. I had to ask why the hell there were so many L.A. restaurant menus displayed in the glass case. I told him that I lived there for six years,
“Best food in the country, and it’s not even close,” he replied.
I sometimes worry that, if I leave L.A. for good that I won’t be as stimulated by the food in whatever city I land in next. Can you be constantly surprised in Detroit? I don’t know. But Bunny Bunny gives me hope that you can. It’s the best meal I’ve had since I left L.A. And if you’re in Detroit, it’s the move for sure.
Thank for you reading The Move!
Almost at 200 subscribers, which feels nice. Next week I think I’ll dip my toes into some Pittsburgh restaurants, and perhaps provide a decimal point ranking of pepperoni rolls that I’ve tried this Summer. Neat!
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