Meat the Porkers @ Solaris Dutamas

Hogging the Limelight in Indian Cuisine

Talk to me about swine and I will swoon. Shamelessly biased about my love for the hog, I get excited when I hear about dishes made with it. So when Meat the Porkers came on board the culinary scene in November last year, it was big news.

Well truth be told, of course it would be big news. Never in our Indian culinary scene have we had a porky Indian restaurant or even porky Indian dishes. In fact, I would daresay it’s probably a first in Asia! Owner Herukh Jethwani, you would know him from Fierce Curry House, has been tossing his idea of taking Indian cuisine to new heights for years. Despite the unknown, he and his missus was ready to introduce porky Indian delights to our culinary scene, taking the swine into limelight in his heritage cuisine.

After toying the idea for a while, it turned out harder than he thought. Not having the knowledge in the other white meat, he had to really go through a lot but he finally made it. Even then, Herukh tested his porky creations from takeaway orders from his home too. Meat the Porkers finally opened and the rest they say is history.

Located in Publika area, the restaurant has a minimalist industrial vibe that exudes much casualness. Colorful boxy shelves with cute hogs reminded us again what we were here for. Opt for dining in the main dining area or simply al fresco.

It’s quite the thrill to see a menu that reads Siew Yoke Biryani, Tandoori Pork Ribs, Butter Pork and Bacon Cheese Naan. I just couldn’t wait to savor the dishes…

For starters, there’s Pork Pakora (RM20). Yep, you heard me… not onion pakora, not vegetable pakora but Pork Pakora served with mint chutney. These crispy nuggets of porky bits with spices and aromatics tasted so moreish, you’ll want a bucket of these. Oh wait, that’s me that wants the bucket… it’s that good!

Then there’s Pork Seekh Kebab (RM28). Moist and tender, these kebab pieces are very tasty with all the spices and herbs. Served with mint chutney too, I personally didn’t think it needed it as it was already so tasty.

When the Tandoori Pork Ribs (RM48) landed on our table, there was certainly a lot of oohs and aahs in amazement. The sight of glorious meaty pork ribs basted in the classic reddish tandoori marinade and chargrilled in a tandoor oven had everyone at the table salivating.

Don’t know how we managed to resist not attacking the ribs but rather let our camera and phone eat first was a definitely a mystery to us. The ribs is picture perfect with all its colors.

A quick cut up, the ribs looked juicy and very meaty. Expect lovely well-balance tandoori flavours with a slight tang and a good dose of smoky notes. Although it’s tender, I like how it still has a good bite. The Tandoori Pork Ribs come with lemon, mint chutney, pol sambal and tamarind BBQ sauce. Squeeze the lemon over the pork and then sprinkle the pol sambal all over the ribs as advised by Herukh. Then enjoy these with both sauces for different flavours. Lip smacking good…

Then the star of the menu showed up. Siew Yoke Biryani (RM28), hidden in the usual biryani bowl and seal with dough to keep in the aroma and flavours. The roasted pork biryani comes with sides of curry sauce, yoghurt sauce, pol sambal and pork cracklings. I am super glad the pork crackling is served on the side because this means that it will be crispy.

When the lid came off, we were hit with a wonderful aroma of spices. The biryani long grain rice was fluffy with beautiful yellow hue providing the base for fried shallots and coriander. We dug in and low behold, generous chunks of roasted pork were unveiled.

I can’t believe no one has ever thought to come up with this sooner. What a treat! The flavours of the biryani and the roasted pork with cracklings are superb. The rice was beautifully fluffy, aromatic and well flavoured with spices. The roasted pork was tender and tasty too. The combination of both was lethally yummy. As I look around, every table had at least an order of this dish. Damn shiok!

Although the Siew Yoke Biryani hog the limelight, the hogging didn’t stop there. Butter Pork (RM28), a piggy take on the much beloved butter chicken was sublime. His other restaurant already perfected the butter chicken and now it’s made with tenderloin pork fillet. Thick, lusciously rich and creamy with a nice tang of tomato flavours, the Butter Pork goes so well with rice or bread.

There’s also a porky rendition of another classic in Pork 65 Masala (RM28). Bold spice flavours with punchy heat from tenderloin pieces of pork are guaranteed to go well with rice or bread for that matter. The tiny mustard seeds added touches of popping flavours and texture to the dish.

After all that meat, we consoled our health conscience with an order of Eggplant Masala (RM17). Eggplant cooked till soft and creamy with lots of aromatics and spices, the dish was a big hit on the table.

Then, there’s also Tadka Dal (RM17), a must-order when dining on the cuisine. The version here is damn delicious. Thick, creamy, nutty and well infused with spices, dried chilies and fresh herbs, I kept piling this on my rice.

Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, Herukh presented his pride and joy, the Bacon Cheese Naan (RM15). Bacon chips sautéed with garlic and butter, then folded into his naan with cheese and baked in tandoor oven, smelled heavenly. Definitely decadent than the usual naan. This one is a testament that bacon makes everything taste better…

We enjoyed how Meat the Porkers aim to please us swine fans. It took a huge gamble and has gone where no man has been and the gamble certainly paid off. Meat the Porkers may be the first porky Indian restaurant to hit our shores but I am sure it won’t be for long before many will follow pursuit. Herukh plans to introduce other new dishes every 6 months so expect more porky delights like Pork Rib Biryani to come. When food is this good and made even better with swine, Meat the Porkers is a must-visit!!

MEAT THE PORKERS

D1-G3-5, Publika Dutamas,

1 Jalan Dutamas 1,

Solaris Dutamas,

50480 Kuala Lumpur

Tel: 019-987 1945

Facebook: www.facebook.com/pg/MeatThePorkers

Business hours:

Wed to Mon 12noon - 3.30pm | 6.30pm-10pm (last order 9.45pm).

Closed on Tues

Recipe: LINGHAM’s Mini Chili Honey Bacon Dogs

With all the festive cheers around the corner, parties and potlucks are here! Festive seasons are the perfect excuse to indulge, have fun and create happy and delicious memories with family, loved ones and friends. I for one, loves to throw parties. In fact I still do every year during festive times. It’s also my excuse to cook up a storm and get together with everyone to catch up. I have had endless parties where I have cook everything from scratch and it takes time and planning for it. Over the years, I have also learn to make things that are simple and can be prepared ahead. No point in slaving over the stove on the day itself and get yourself so tired that you cannot enjoy your own party.

This festive holiday, I would like to share a very simple recipe that even the most novice cook can whip up in no time at all. Not necessary the healthiest recipe but let me reassure you how yummy this one is. It’s great as an appetizer or snack at small or big parties or potlucks. Diners of all ages can’t resist picking up one to try. Once they tried, they tend to go back for more. And since I have made this several times at my parties, this dish is always the first to be polish off. It probably takes less time to devour this dish than for me to make it!

Bacon, it’s like the ultimate porky ingredient of most foodies. I swear that bacon can make any dish delicious when cook right. For this holiday, I am combining my favorite LINGHAM’S chili sauce with bacon in LINGHAM’s Mini Chili Honey Bacon Dogs! You get familiar taste of LINGHAM’s spicy and sticky sweet flavours working its magic with salty and moreish bacon notes. It’s also great with cocktails, beers or anything for that matter.

The recipe is super simple and has only 5 ingredients. You can even prepare this in advance and baked it on the day of the party. You can also switch up the ingredients easily. If it makes you feel better, serve them with raw vegetables of carrots, cucumbers or cherry tomatoes. The recipe can also be easily double or triple up. Easy, effortless and pretty addictive. Serve them hot or cold, they still taste yummy… take my advice, make a big batch of this and it still won’t be enough!

For more recipes and information, visit LINGHAM’s website www.lingham.com or Facebook: www.facebook.com/lingham.sauces

LINGHAM’s Mini Chili Honey Dogs

Ingredients

12         cocktail hotdogs (or sausages)

6           bacon rashers

2 tbsp    LINGHAM’s Original Chili Sauce

2 tbsp   Honey

1 tbsp    Worcestershire sauce (optional)

   Toothpicks

Method

Preheat oven to 200 degree Celsius for 10 minutes.

Coat hotdogs with Worcestershire sauce. If you are not using this, just skip the step.

Cut bacon into two to wrap the hotdogs.

Secure the bacon with toothpicks to the hotdog firmly so it doesn’t unwrap when baking.

Drizzle honey all over the bacon wrapped hotdogs.

Drizzle on LINGHAM’s chili sauce over the bacon wrapped hotdogs.

Mix well to coat all the hotdogs.

Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Take them out and turn them over and spoon the sauces from the tray over the hotdogs again.

Bake them again for another 10 minutes, watching during the last few minutes to make sure they don’t burn.

Remove and serve. If there is access sauce on the tray, spoon the sticky sauce over the hotdogs.

Extra Notes and Tips

• Try it with LINGHAM’s other variation of chili sauces – Thai, Garlic, Ginger or Extra Hot
• Use Maple Syrup instead of Honey for richer sweetness
• Use your favorite sausages instead of hotdogs
• Add more honey and chili sauce to your liking
• Each oven is slightly different so adjust your oven temperature accordingly
• Try making them for BBQ party where you prepare everything and grill them over fire

          

Smoking Hog @ SS2, Petaling Jaya

It’s A Swine Affair!

If you are a porcine fan, I guarantee that you will be swooning at Smoking Hog! Full blast porcine glory in its most unadulterated swine laden menu, it is a restaurant that caters to foodies like me who cannot resist porky dishes. Located in the bustling square area of SS2, Petaling Jaya, this restaurant is discreetly located on the first floor of Crab Factory. The entrance is rather discreet as one enters by the side of the building of the Crab Factory restaurant. There is no signage but a little hanging piglet gives it away. It’s rather an exciting and secretive moment as one heads into the entrance to Smoking Hog. Sharing the same owner as Crab Factory, T.Y. and team goes all out in pleasing porcine fans with its creative and rumbustious menu.

Upon entrance of the restaurant, one is immediately transported to a world of dark and mysterious space filled with a mix of stylish yet quirky ambiance. Flanked on both sides by the open kitchen and the bar, one walked past into the dining area. By the bar, a stairway, lined by a wall filled with artistic impressionist’s paintings with much quirkiness of animal head on human body, lead diners up to another level of dining, a more private one with an open balcony. Though it was dark, I could see a large and serious looking smoking machine where Smoking Hog has all their bacon smoked. Yes, they do take their hog seriously. The team tries to make magic in their own kitchen, going all out in curing, smoking and turning pork to various heavenly pieces of porcine pleasures.

We knew it was going to be an epic night of porky fare the moment we saw the menu. Choices are decent with enough dishes to tempt me from ordering one of every dish. Nevertheless, we tried not too but opted for the signatures of Smoking Hog.

Dinner commenced with Japanese sake and Umeshu of Kirei Umeshu with Collagen (RM65/bottle) and Yamadanishiki Special Junmai (RM65/bottle). Both served chilled in special glassware that allows the ice kept in separate compartments to chill the alcohol without diluting it. Absolutely love the Kirei Umeshu for its rich sweet plum wine notes while the Yamadanishiki Special Junmai had a full body boldness and smooth note of the King of Sake rice – Yamadanishiki rice.

First up was Egg Bomb (RM15). Looking every inch its namesake, the Egg Bomb is gracefully plonked on a vegetable ring surrounded by a creamy sauce speckled by black sesame seeds. The bomb proved to be an explosion of perfectly poached egg with a molten egg yolk center enveloped in creamy mashed coated in a crispy fried panko crumb. It’s pure comfort food between the egg and the mashed with a nice element of seaweed and cream sauce.

I simply cannot get enough of the Bacon-Wrapped Takoyaki & Kimchi Baby Octopus Salad (RM34). Octopus takoyaki balls are wrapped with bacon and piled on with piquant kimchi, seaweed and served on a bed of greens. It’s a plate of bombastic flavours. Super yum in flavours and textures. I don’t know how consoling it is to call this a salad but hey, I am certainly feeling less guilty about devouring this… Must order!!

It’s practically on every table I see that evening. Smoking Hog’s Signature Bacones (RM32) is alike a breakfast dream come true for me in every sense. Bacon cones filled with scramble egg, mashed and baked beans proves that bacon can turn an ordinary dish into something extraordinary. The bacon cone is simply crispy and super yum in every possible flavour sense. May be a bit messy to eat this but hey, anything with bacon is worth it. Kudos to the team at Smoking Hog for this creative dish…

Caesar Salad (RM23) is not spared the porcine touch and comes laden with bacon, poached egg, crispy anchovies and all the other trimmings of the salad. Extra points for the perfectly poached egg with oozing egg yolk.

The pastas are Smoking Hog is super scrumptious! We had three pastas and all three scored points for flavours and textures.

Pig’s Tongue & Bacon Matriciana (RM31) would be a first for me. I didn’t think I would enjoy pig’s tongue but I did. It’s tender and provided a good bite to the dish. Of course, there’s plenty of crispy bacon to make this pasta even better. The sauce is intensely tomatoey and spicy too which gave the dish an overall solid A+ for flavours.

Double Smoked Duck Carbonara Fettuccine (RM39) was set with a glass cloche and came hidden in the midst of smoke. Though I didn’t managed to capture the smoke effect, I must concur that the carbonara was deliciously rich and wonderful. Another dish with perfectly poached egg, lots of cubed smoked duck and mushrooms with luscious cream sauce, the pasta also had a tinge of smoky note. One word of advice, scoff this down while it’s hot for the full effect of the luscious egg yolk coating the strands of the silky fettuccine pasta. May be compellingly rich but its pure comfort for the soul…

I am pretty sure that the Spicy Lemongrass & Seafood Tagliatelle (RM41) is the only seafood dish in the menu. Nevertheless, it still scored with us as the pasta has a lovely Asian lemongrass twist on the usual tomato sauce. It has a savory, spicy and lemony note and comes with generous portions of prawn, clam and octopus as well as fish.

More tongue and this time, it is was in the Grilled Pig’s Tongue Burger (RM25). A super thick and juicy pork patty played host to the slices of tender pig tongue. Finished with sliced onions, pickles, cucumber, tomato and lettuce with sesame seed bun, it’s a mega burger to be reckoned with.

CW’s Berries ‘Ku Ru Yok’ (RM39) is a luscious and fruity take on the classic Chinese sweet and sour pork thought it reminds me more of the ‘Kau yuk with Mantao’. Slices of tender pork belly braised in a sweet and unctuous berry sauce served with warm mantao, sautéed beansprouts and mushrooms, raw onion slices and cucumber. What I really enjoy was the pork belly with the pieces of soft sweet cherries and strawberries. Never knew pork and berries go so well despite it being very fruity and sweet. A clever Western take on our Chinese dish!

Smoking Hog does go out of the ordinary when it comes to their menu and the next one is a take on the Korean rice cake where it goes into the Baked Rice Cake Lasagna (RM25). It’s quite a good one because I enjoyed the light and chewy rice cake in this lasagna. Layers of tomatoey and cheesy yumminess…

Dessert time but it’s more of a sweet and savory dessert list than the usual sweet one. Think salty and sweet bacon in every dessert!

First up, Dutch Babies with Honey Candied Bacon & Tomato Salsa (RM25). Well, there’s also sweet Dutch Babies but I happen to be a fan of sweet and savory one and so I adored the fluffly Dutch Baby pancakes with crispy edges and fluffy middle paired with honey candied bacon and tangy tomato salsa. Drizzle maple syrup over these babies and you’ll get a heavenly pairing that is across between breakfast and dessert rolled into one. There’s plenty of other variations to go with the baked Dutch Babies like Caramelized Banana Fritter & Ice Cream or Nutella, Crumbed Cookies & Ice Cream for the sweet tooth.

French Toast (RM30) sounded simple but it’s not. This one is jazzed up with whisky!! Talk about a happy ending… thick slices of bread is dipped in egg and crumbed with lots of nuts has whisky caramelized banana and honey candied bacon all rolled into one mega French toast sandwich. Served with Vanilla ice cream and maple syrup, it obviously cannot get any more heavenly than this … have this for dessert or even brunch, whichever rocks your boat, it will be heavenly.

I like how the Smoking Hog team thinks. Starting and ending with bacon makes perfect sense to me, an ardent hog fan. And so when I saw Bacon & Egg Ice Cream (RM24) on their menu, I knew I had to have this. If I am going to crash my whole week’s cholesterol in one meal, I might as well go all out and finish with a big bang. That said, a fabulous Bacon & Egg Ice Cream with plenty bacon in each spoonful. Damn, this is just so damn fabulous!

What an epic meal of pork and bacon! Gather up your family and friends for a treat at Smoking Hog. Dishes there are creative and cleverly concocted to please many porky fans. The team literally makes everything from scratch downright to smoking their own bacon. And that’s a plus sign how passionate the team behind Smoking Hog is…

SMOKING HOG

(above Crab Factory)

3rd Floor, Jalan SS2/64,

47300 Petaling Jaya

Tel: 03 7865 9239

Website: www.smokinghog.com.my

Facebook: www.facebook.com/smokinghogmalaysia

Business Hours:

Tues to Thurs   4pm-12am (dinner)

Fri to Sun    12pm – 3pm (lunch) 6pm-12am (dinner)