You need The Bird. It’s $20, smashed potatoes and addictive sauces included

I’ll take The Bird, please, the whole bird.

You could order the half, but two people can easily polish off the tender whole animal, and at $20, why skimp?

It comes with a trio of divine sauces and a liberal side of salted smashed potatoes. It travels well. It’s made for this era, and it’s ready for the future.

Chef Blake Lord-Wittig — who became executive chef of Harmon Brewing last fall and launched Spice Lab, a pop-up inside the downtown Tacoma restaurant — lathers The Bird in a marinade of soy sauce, cinnamon and cumin, a little lime juice and olive oil, a dash of Dijon and aji panca, a fruity, smoky Peruvian pepper akin to a chipotle, particularly when dried. After a quick sear on the flattop, the spatchcocked specimen spends about 30 minutes in the oven, its skin crisping just enough to nourish the meat within.

Inspired by a visit to Peru — where the diverse geography and influence of Chinese and Japanese immigrants has birthed an envious culinary ecosystem that includes the world’s original potato, Lord-Wittig has hatched a concept fitting of our amorphous dining landscape.

“It’s not traditional,” he said, showing deference to the pollerías across Peru, as ubiquitous as the American pizzeria. Peruvians flock to these neighborhood restaurants — tens of thousands of them, by some estimates — that specialize in one dish: pollo a la brasa. Traditionally spit-roasted over charcoal for about an hour, this rotisserie chicken always comes with fries and a creamy aji sauce starring Peru’s beloved yellow aji pepper.

In the tome “Peru: The Cookbook,” celebrated chef Gastón Acurio calls his accompanying dip simply “chicken condiment,” a creamy harmony of aji and oil with a sprinkle of garlic, cumin, oregano, mustard and huacatay, a marigold-family herb native to the Peruvian Andes.

Lord-Wittig describes his aji amarillo as an aioli jumpstarted by Zócalo Gourmet’s 100 percent Peruvian pepper paste. He enhances your order of The Bird with two more house dips: a refreshing aji verde (cilantro, jalapeno, cumin, lime juice, sour cream and mayo) and a textural aji criollo (garlic, cumin, coriander, plentiful cilantro and red onion, and of course that yellow aji).

You’ll probably want to order extra for $0.75 each, particularly for the potatoes.

The chef first cooks whole russets, skin on, in warm water, taking care to never let it roll to a boil. Once soft but sturdy enough that an inserted toothpick comes out clean, he smashes them gently by hand — as if performing a mild CPR — before frying. The goal, he said, is to ensure they remain intact while increasing the surface area for crispy bites.

I will remind you here that for one soon-to-be Harriet Tubman, you get a generous portion of potatoes, three sauces and about a 3-pound chicken. It’s a damn good deal.

“It’s a meal that’s satisfying,” said Lord-Wittig, “but it’s not gonna break the bank. People are looking for that now.”

He considers it “upscale fast-food,” where the flavors (not to mention the quality of the meat and the execution of a skilled chef) extend beyond the convenience and the price.

Lord-Wittig won over the South Sound with a hyper-seasonal approach to cooking over five years at his restaurant De La Terre in Steilacoom. After a stint at a Seattle hotel, he returned to Tacoma with the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern influenced fare of Spice Lab, where a couple can enjoy a three-course meal for $50. Rather than try to fit an in-house experience into a takeout box, he strives to accommodate the pandemic era with options beyond everyday to-go foods like sushi, pizza and sandwiches.

“We wanted to do a to-go friendly dinner,” he said.

If ever there were such a thing, The Bird is it.

He has a vision for The Bird by Spice Lab as a standalone fast-casual concept, ideally in a space where he can build a full rotisserie, with branded jars of those addictive sauces available for retail sale.

As Harmon reopens its dining room under the state’s new Phase 2 guidelines, guests can order The Bird to enjoy on-site or online for pickup.

THE BIRD BY SPICE LAB AT HARMON BREWING

▪ 1938 Pacific Ave., Tacoma, 253-383-2739, spicelabtacoma.com

▪ Available: Monday-Tuesday 3:45-7 p.m., Wednesday-Sunday 12:30-7 p.m.

▪ How to order: online at exploretock.com/spicelabharmon, choose date and pickup time; also available on-site at Harmon Brewing

This story was originally published February 2, 2021 at 5:05 AM.