The soft hiss of fat dripping onto white-hot binchotan. The alchemical smell of both sweet tare sauce and charred meat. If you closed your eyes, you could easily imagine yourself parked at the counter of any number of South Bay yakitori joints.
But this is Three Pigs, a Long Beach-based pop-up and catering operation, that roves around the region, one week perhaps at a street fair, another in the parking lot of a donut shop.
It’s the work of partners Allison and Vasili Tavernakis. In just under two years, they’ve built a community of dedicated diners from Orange County to Los Angeles, drawn to their personal market-inspired take on traditional Japanese cuisine.
Yakitori is what first launched Three Pigs. So there are always skewers on the menu, like a juicy beef kushiyaki skewer dabbed with wasabi…