Guest Post: Need Chicken? I Got A Guy
When you’re in a pinch, convenient food beats fast food every time
Sometimes a writer comes along who makes you genuinely excited to work with.
Larry Majewski is one of them.
Larry used to own a Spanish restaurant in Wisconsin before moving to Portugal a couple of years ago, He came across my desk last year when he submitted a story to my Medium-hosted food and drink pub, Rooted.
Wow, I thought. This guy is good. He’s funny, engaging and the sort of writer I want to be when I grow up. Happily, he agreed to let me share his work in a guest post here at The Sauce. If you’re interested in Portuguese food culture, you’re going to love Larry’s work.
Larry isn’t on Substack but if you’re on Medium and want to read more of his work, you can find him here.
By Larry Majewski
When friends come to visit our family in Lisbon, they always say that they don’t want us to make a big fuss.
“We don’t need to do anything special. We just want to see you.”
On the surface this is an endearing and considerate sentiment. It’s also code for, “let’s not go out for every meal.”
At first, this is a relief. Dragging (in this case 10 total) people around the city for every meal is a daunting endeavor.
When we owned a restaurant back in the United States, we were always astounded and perplexed by large groups of people who would approach the host during the busiest time of dinner service and ask for a table for 8 or 12 or 15 people.
We called them ‘Roving Big Tops.’ In restaurant parlance, ‘top’ refers to how many covers are at a given table. And, ‘covers’ simply means total people.
Who were these amorphous bands of blended and extended friends and families roaming the countryside, looking for a table? And, why didn’t anybody in this group think to call ahead?
Being on the operational side of things, having self-awareness about the size of one’s party seemed obvious to us. But, being in hospitality is about being understanding and using creative problem solving skills.
Occasionally, we could do some ‘Table Tetris’ and accommodate these roving big tops. More likely than not, we could only offer a table much later in the evening or on another night.
This was the confounding thing about roving big tops: They always wanted to “eat now.” But, their desire for immediacy flew in the face of basic geometry.
There was no room at the inn.
We’d send these people on their way and wish them luck. But, we couldn’t help scratching our heads about it.
This brings us back to our situation in Lisbon. If we didn’t have all meal periods squared away for our visitors, we faced the possibility of becoming what we feared most — a roving 10-top.
The onus was on us to plan the right ratio of eating out to eating in to eating on your own.
With a few choice restaurant reservations secured, the next call was to the Chicken Guy.
More precisely, I walked over to the Chicken Guy and asked him to save me three chickens for Thursday.
Thursday’s menu
On Thursday, I asked my visiting friend to come along to pick up the chicken.
“It’s an experience,” I explained.
To enter the Chicken Guy’s shop is to be thrust immediately into his personal space. You feel helpless and insignificant. It’s like getting too close to a mechanic working on your car or your grandpa doing some woodworking. You’re right there. You feel like you should help.
Truth is, you can only get in the way.
I stood at the small counter and my friend stood in the door jam — half in, half out. He pressed his arms to his sides, lest he bump into a passerby. I didn’t see an official maximum capacity sign, but I reckon it’s three.
The Chicken Guy knew why I was there. We gave one another a “boa tarde.” Then he went about the important business of moving chickens around the grill. His grill had the dimensions of a phone booth.
And just like a phone booth, people on the street could look right in. Churrasqueiras in Portugal appeal to all the senses.
Churrasqueiras always have the grill on display. Better to see what you are about to eat. Of course, smelling the undercurrent of chicken skin rendering in the smoke plumes and hearing the little pfffts of fat dripping into the bed of coals does wonders for whetting the appetite as well.
Sausages, pork cuts and beef are all fair game at other churrasqueiras. But, it all starts with a chicken.
In Portugal, they identify chickens for eating by their age. Frangos are young, usually free-range chickens, similar in size to the so-called roasters back in the States. Galinhas refer to older hens, best used in stews, soups and braises.
You can safely assume the frango at any churrasqueria will be spatchcocked, a technique of cutting out the spine so the chicken lays flat.
The Chicken Guy uses only two tools.
Tongs flip and rotate the chickens to hotter and cooler spots on the grill in his proprietary cycle of doneness.
Then, when a chicken is ready-to-go, the Chicken Guy uses large snips that resemble pruning shears to cut the bird into pieces. The power and efficiency of the snips is unsettling. In my estimation, they’re more dangerous than the open flame.
Other than the number of chickens you want, the only other question the Chicken Guy will have for you is if you want piri-piri sauce or not.
Portuguese food isn’t spicy by nature, but when it wants to get hot, it’s usually by way of piri-piri. The origins of piri-piri peppers are murky, but everyone can agree it evolved into its current spicy sauce format in Mozambique and made its way to Portugal from there.
We opted for two piri-piri chickens and one plain. The birds were snipped, weighed and then tossed into foil-lined bags.
Cash only.
The total price averaged €9 per chicken.
This was expertly prepared protein in a bag ready to take home. Paired with some rice, beans, salad and/or fries and you’re on your way to a square meal — Portuguese style.
Our spread back at the apartment, however, wasn’t very Portuguese. But, that’s the point. Just about everything goes with chicken.
I made flatbreads and hummus to accompany some sliced up vegetables. It had a build-your-own-chicken-wrap vibe. Dinner was casual, delicious and it didn’t break the bank.
We were all in for less than €50. I guarantee we could not have beat that price at a fast food joint. Don’t forget, we would have been a roving 10-top.
This style of convenient food is a world apart from fast food. And, it’s much more satisfying than what corporations want you to believe is convenient and healthy food.
I think that’s why nobody has been able to make meal kit services like Blue Apron or Hello Chef profitable back in the United States. There’s no love. There’s no expertise.
They can perfectly package the chicken, seal up the accompaniments and send it to your doorstep, but you could still over-cook it. Also, the person who has prête-à-porter meals sent to the doorstep ain’t spending an hour nurturing a bed of coals into glowing amber embers.
I doubt the Chicken Guy keeps stats on this sort of thing, but there’s no way he loses 90% of his customers after one month like convenient mail order meal businesses do.
Caring is not scalable.
A love story
It’s safe to assume the Chicken Guy’s first love was chicken, but it is not his only love.
He is from Lisbon and grew up not far from where his churrasqueira stands today. He built the shop and went into business for himself in the mid-80s.
Then he met a woman from the north of Portugal.
The woman did not want to live in Lisbon, so they agreed to move back to her village in the hills outside Porto. So, the Chicken Guy sold his business to a couple and moved to the north with his wife.
The Chicken Guy did not like living in the north. It rained too much and he enjoyed big city life. But, he loved his wife and liked his work at a restaurant up there.
This was the Chicken Guy’s existence for four decades until he received a phone call.
The couple he had sold his beloved churrasqueria to back in the 80s was ready to retire. Would he like to have it back?
The Chicken Man was beside himself. Could his life be coming full circle?
He and his wife came to an arrangement. He would operate his shop back in Lisbon, provided they spend summers back in the north. It was a kick-up-your-heels life moment for the Chicken Guy.
Nothing makes me happier in life than knowing someone who is doing the precise thing he or she was put on this earth to do. I’m talking about a soul mate, except for your job.
In my most honest opinion, I only know two people with a professional kismet on this level.
When I come across these types of things, it has a profound effect on me.
The importance of knowing a guy or gal
The older I get, the more I value knowing people with métiers. It’s good to know a guy or a gal you can trust for certain specific jobs.
When we first arrived in Portugal, our attorney was at the top of our know-a-guy/gal list. Naturally, she held our hand as we navigated all sorts of immigration red tape. But, she also turned out to be a wonderful person. So the relationship became less transactional and more friendly.
In short, we trusted her in what she had to say about things other than the law. She shared her opinions about restaurants, neighborhoods and beaches. She also introduced us to some of her most treasured guys and gals — everyone from a banker to a surf instructor.
Come to think of it, we met our attorney through a friend of mine. She wasn’t taking on any new clients, but thankfully we knew the right guy to make the connection.
It was a great reminder that knowing a guy or gal doesn’t have to be a self-proprietary dead end. Quite the contrary, it’s a way to expand your circle of trust.
It’s about sharing.
I love introducing people in the neighborhood to the Chicken Guy. My greatest coupe was introducing my neighbor, a restaurateur, to the Chicken Guy. This is a person who knows everything about everything. But, he hadn’t known about the Chicken Guy.
Not to be outdone, about a year later, my neighbor pulled me aside and said, “you know our friend the Chicken Guy? If you call him the day before, he will grill you a beautiful piano de porco (pork ribs).”
Need some BBQ? I got a guy for that too now.