Ahhh, the first 28th Birthday Week post. Yes, Birthday Week; doin’ it up big time – celebrating the entire week. It just works out that way with different friends, family, various celebrations, and this year, I went all out and took the entire week off, leading to more eating in a week span than any person should rightfully and healthily eat in an entire month. Don’t worry, I’ll write up the entire summary once I’m done posting about all of it. Be prepared to tuck in and be grossed out by how much this little girl can put away. (Well, I’m not really little, actually.)
I mention StB quite frequently on my blog; she is easily one of my closest friends and dearest eating companions. I was pretty surprised that while I was on my trip to SF/Napa Valley, a whole month before my birthday, she emailed me to ask me about my birthday and when I was free to celebrate it. I admit, while I like surprises and all, I was really thrown by the idea that she was planning it over a month ahead of time. And suspicious. As the date drew nearer, she threw me a lot of crazy hints and clues that really meant absolutely nothing (thanks a LOT!), such as “Spacesuit up!” and “The spaceship won’t be ready yet at 6, so it’s okay if you arrive at 6:15.” I was really confused when she wanted to meet up outside Whole Foods in Union Square – I decided that it was a cooking class, but then she told me that was just the meeting point. It was all very exciting and flattering to me – call me odd, but when other people put in the extra effort to make me feel special, it really means a lot to me. (You might postulate that perhaps, as a child, I was neglected or felt unloved; I will tell you to quit your postulating, I was fine, I’m just an attention hog, and I’ll thank you very much not to try to psychoanalyze me! ๐ Hmphs!)
So while of course I’ve thanked her in private, here is my very public thank you, sign of appreciation to StB once again: You rock! Thank you for helping make my 28th birthday the best one to date, finally surpassing the 15th!!! This kicked off what is easily my most memorable and wonderful birthday since that awkward one years ago that included outpourings of affection. (Haha… again… if you’re trying to analyze me… just stop. The past few have been very good indeed, I had a fantastic time and everything was great, but this year included a little extra something that I’m not going to mention that just made it that good.)
Now enough of my rambling: what you’re here for, the food! StB kicked it off on October 25, surprising me with whole pork butt at Momofuku Ssam Bar (I almost don’t want to link to that, because I say a lot of crazy things in there, like “David Chang isn’t even that famous yet!” and… yeah). THAT IS LOVE right there: WHOLE PORK BUTT. I’d been talking about going for this since he first started offering it, but hadn’t been able to gather the right amount of people, so this was an awesome surprise.
I have to tell you somehing first though, because if I don’t say it now, I’ll have to say it at the end and it’ll leave the whole post with a very sour note: we were a group of 8; 3 guys and 5 girls. The girls were mostly (excepting me) tiny Asian girls who look like tiny eaters; the guys weren’t exactly big hefty beefy guys who look like they eat a lot. What we were ordering was whole pork butt, assorted accoutrements. It’s a BIG meal. I believe it’s in the $300 range as well – basically, no small check here. Before I’d even arrived, my friends had ordered 2 bottles of wine as well. We were prepared to spend – money wasn’t the issue.
So I don’t know what the f* was the waitress’s problem. Yes, I am calling her out right now: Asian waitress with the very short hair pissed me off to no end, though I held back from making a scene because it was my birthday and because my friends had all put a lot of effort into putting this dinner together (locating friends that they didn’t even really know themselves!). She was selling and selling hard on all the appetizers; we said no, we don’t want any; she said, you’re going to need some, you won’t be full. We said no, we don’t want any; but again, she insisted we wouldn’t be full with just the pork butt.
I let myself be bullied into picking a few dishes to add to the table, which really annoyed me as we did wind up having too much food to finish, and none of the appetizers (save one) were anything that wonderful. My friends and I exchanged looks throughout this whole exchange because she was really, really, really freaking pushy.
Also about the service: one of the guys who helped put all the things down on the table (for the pork butt, not the appetizers) came over and said in this tone of voice filled with attitude like (I’m not the only one who thought this) “You’re [mostly] Asian, so you know how to eat this, right?” and it was like, no, we don’t, can you explain it to us? And he only explained the different sauces to half the table, not the other half.
Basically: I really didn’t like the service that night. Attitude on attitude, pushy, and just really annoying.
NOW ON TO THE FOOD!!! (For real this time)
The first appetizer we ordered was the bread & butter. I’ve heard StB rave about this before so I thought we should give it a shot. It was okay; we had to keep asking for more bread, which was ridiculous – look how little bread they give you with two huge pats of butter (one is goat’s milk, one is cow’s milk). I thought this was as tasty as bread and butter could be, but not particularly special…
Sea scallops with bacon on top, lychee & lime juices. This wasn’t particularly interesting to be honest, though the waitress had strongly recommended it; the scallops with the bacon texture worked well, but the flavor was all on the bottom in the broth. Most of my dining companions agreed that this wasn’t that good – not horrible, but not something we would order again.
Our next appetizer was fluke with concord grape reduction, yogurt and fennel. The concord grape was really interesting but overpowered the yogurt completely. the fluke itself was only alright and again, I felt the sauce distribution was uneven as mine was pretty covered in the yogurt while a friend’s was completely bare of it. Once again, my dining companions agreed that it was uneventful and not something they’d return to order.
Now, the main event!!!
Bibb lettuce & assorted sauces, from left: scallion oil; kimchee; “Asian BBQ sauce” as the guy called it (tasted like hoisin sauce to me); kimchee puree
Baker’s dozen Kumamoto oysters… wait till I tell you how we were meant to eat these…
THE PORK BUTT IN ALL ITS GLORY…
The attacks on the butt begin! You take the tongs and just rip off hunks of meat to stuff into pieces of lettuce, which you dress with your choice of toppings, slip in an oyster, then wrap it up and bite into it. I know the oyster sounds weird, and some of us didn’t/couldn’t try it, but it worked out: the creamy saltiness of the oysters worked well with the heft of the meat.
I’ll be the first to point out that the meat wasn’t exactly moist, a disappointment for me. It was extremely tender, falling right off the bone as you used tongs to hack at it, but not really moist. I found out a bit later – see, my boyfriend, ever the gentleman, served me first, before anyone else. He took the tongs and hacked off a HUGE piece for me (what a sweetie!), but unfortunately, he managed to snag part of the butt that had no fat. Later on, I realized that certain parts of the butt were super tender and moist, while others lacked any of the fat keeping the other parts moist. Once I’d finished the huge piece he’d given me, I was pretty stuffed, so I didn’t eat much more.
(I didn’t take a picture of an individual piece wrapped up because eating like this was very messy; my hands were super oily and I didn’t take my camera back out after that last pic above.)
While each wrap was to your taste – since you mixed in whatever you wanted, and I really liked the scallion oil – and quite yummy, I don’t think I could recommend this experience to anyone that strongly. It was a fantastic experience to be had with my friends, and I had a great time, but with the really pushy and attitude-filled service, with the uneven/inconsistent textured meat, it just isn’t really what I’d call “worth it”. I think it’s fun to do once, but I definitely wouldn’t go back to order this again. (I probably wouldn’t go back to this restaurant at all, actually, but that’s a different story probably for a different day.)
Yvo says: I enjoyed the meal – and especially the company – but I can’t say to it being worth the price. If they can make the entire pork butt consistently moist throughout, perhaps then I’d be more keen on going back… and train their staff a bit better!
mehhh… a tasty experience but not a must-go
StB’s opinion here
kathryn says
Happy birthday!
The Bo Ssam is delicious but gets monotonous after a while. You can also ask for more bread if you want it for your extra butter, they should have offered it to you! Boo!
I’m not a huge huge fan of the current scallop preparation, nor the grape/fluke one. You should have ordered the fried brussels sprouts, the apple kimchi, Long Island duck with cheddar, or the chicken and egg pate as your appetizers!
Sorry about your service incidents, they’ve always been super nice to me, and maybe they were just having an off day?
The “know how to eat this” comment seems kind of uncalled for but I guess you could contribute it to ignorance? Meh! I’m Asian-American and have never gotten that vibe off of their servers.
I hope you give Ssam Bar another shot and order other stuff…
Rochelle says
The bibb lettuce is gorgeous looking, haha of course I would notice that first. I can’t believe that waitress pushed those other apps. on you, what with the pork, lettuce, oysters, etc .. that is dirty. ๐
It’s funny, because I was just reading a piece by Bruni (know you’re not a fan, but I couldn’t resist) about his glorious pork butt experience. And I am jealous of both of you now, because pork is EASILY becoming my favorite meat.
mmm ..
talida says
Seriously.. nothing says “I love you” like pork butt ๐
Happy Belated!
Swan says
thanks babe =) o^_^o
danny says
that’s the first time someone’s said something bad about the momo empire… i think the world is gonna split apart now
We Are Never Full says
i really do want to try momofuku but i’m still waiting for the hype to die down a bit. i figure another year…
i can’t get over your birthday week! you go girl!
BS says
Yvo! I can’t believe you went for the Chang. I do have to say the pork butt looks beautiful – but charging for bread and butter is a flagrant violation of my restaurant rules, and it’s weird taht a place doing so well would be so pushy about apps
Dazy says
All of these are just fab! I like pork – we have it almost as much as we have chicken, which is a lot.
It should keep me busy in the kitchen.