Eat Your Vegetables

He was repeating himself: “I can’t believe I’m eating Brussels sprouts . . . I can’t believe I’m eating Brussels sprouts.” Occasionally, he’d change the subject: “This is squash--I’m eating squash.” He looked confused. “I hate squash,” he said.

He was also eating turnips. Before that he had munched on fistfuls of parsnip chips.

Back when he was 10, he called these vegetables “icky.” Yet, here he was sitting among the art directors and screenwriters at City Restaurant on La Brea Avenue eating Brussels sprouts . . . and liking them.

Susan Feniger wasn’t surprised. “We’ve always tried to take vegetables that we think people hate and make people love them.” She is the co-owner/chef, with partner Mary Sue Milliken, of City, where side dishes of sauteed Brussels sprouts and rutabaga puree are as popular as the entrees they’re served with. And the phenomenon is not limited to City. Vegetables--especially vegetables thought of as odd-looking or unglamorous--are turning up in the flashiest restaurants in town. It’s sort of the triumph of the vegetable nerds.

At Citrus, celeriac--grown for its profoundly ugly but tasty root--is paired with cured salmon. In the ravioli at Ma Maison, turnip subs for pasta. At Kate Mantilini, kale shares side-dish honors with mashed potatoes on the meat loaf plate and with roasted country ham--and it gets eaten.

Even at Engine Co. No. 28 (see review on page 108), where hearty, meaty grub (chops, chili, burgers) is king, the attitude toward vegetables, while not trend-setting, is progressive. “Normally, if someone asked for a vegetable plate in a place like this,” says general manager Steve Grant, “we’d just take whatever vegetables we had around and steam them.” But after some discussion with chef Ed Kasky, an assortment of grilled and steamed vegetables with three dipping sauces was added to the menu as an entree. “Vegetables are important in Los Angeles,” Grant says, “and I think chefs now have the obligation to put some creativity into the making of them.”

It all started with baby vegetables, teeny versions of real vegetables that were more plate accessories than food. Then came the vegetables of invention--broccoli and cauliflower bred into one space-age-looking creation; mutant bright-red carrots. Finally, chefs turned to the dregs of the vegetable kingdom--vegetables with funny names, vegetables with funny looks--the most loathsome of the vegetables that Mom never got us to eat. We’re even eating vegetables that the authoritative reference work, “Larousse Gastronomique,” finds boring: Look up parsnips and you’ll read, “Root vegetable used as condiment, particularly for flavoring stocks.” And then, almost as an afterthought--”It can also be used as a vegetable.”

But in Los Angeles, 1989, root and bulbous vegetables are as important as pasta was half a dozen years ago. Think of how often the trendiest kitchens have served you fennel, a former vegetable nerd that has achieved glamour status.

Even more common is the vegetable coulis --purees, mostly of root vegetables. Often, restaurant customers aren’t exactly sure what they’re eating--maybe it’s turnips; maybe celery root. We don’t ask questions, we eat the white mush on our plate because it tastes pretty good. We’ve gone from baby vegetables to baby food.

More than 10 years ago, Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken worked with a coulis pioneer, Jovan Trboyevic, at Le Perroquet in Chicago. “Everything used to come with either beurre blanc or red wine sauce,” Feniger says. “But at Le Perroquet everything was made with a vegetable puree--turnip coulis , coulis of tomato, coulis of leeks, coulis of cucumber. At that point, it was a major change.”

When Feniger and Milliken went on to open the City Cafe on Melrose (now the Border Grill) and later City on La Brea, they expanded on the techniques they’d learned at La Perroquet. “We’ve tried to show people that vegetables can be as interesting as meat, chicken or fish,” Feniger says.

Some find the City vegetables more interesting: For four straight months, the vegetarian platter has been City’s biggest-selling dinner entree. “You know,” Feniger says, “there are something like 18 entrees on the menu . . . for the vegetarian platter to outsell everything else, well, it’s mind-boggling.”

The trick? Feniger and Milliken cook vegetables the way they like to eat them. “I was a vegetarian a long time ago,” Feniger says, “back when all you could get in a fancy restaurant was steamed, boring vegetables. If you went to health food restaurants, the vegetables came filled with junk like pumpkin seeds. It wasn’t interesting.”

But City’s Brussels sprouts are. “We shred them really fine and saute them in hot butter; then we finish them in lime,” Feniger says. “That caramelizes them and changes the whole flavor.”

As for the vegetarian platter, “we put a great deal of effort into it,” Feniger says. “There’s dal --either from black beans, lentils or chick-peas--done with roasted garlic or cumin or maybe cardamom. And we always have a different raita (yogurt and vegetables) and a chutney. Then we add more vegetables--steamed, grilled and batter-glazed. We don’t cook everything to death the way most parents used to.” But just how far has the vegetable revolution gone?

Not long ago, Feniger reports, two conservatively dressed men--business suits, business faces--walked into City. Everything about the pair suggested that they were used to eating in the kind of red-leather-boothed restaurants that serve good stiff drinks and steaks as big as the platters they sizzle on. No doubt about it, their waiter thought, meat was on these boys’ minds.

“I’ll have the vegetarian platter,” said the big one.

“Me too,” said the other.

The waiter shouldn’t have been surprised.