Pig & Khao

Two months ago, it was time for the annual FBM Cookie Swap*! This year, I invited BFF to join, with Hungry and Dessert Zombie per usual. DZ suggested Pig & Khao as our location, and I quickly agreed – we’d had Filipino food the year prior, and why not do that again? Sure to be pork-tastic!

We started off with chicharron, served with coconut vinegar. I didn’t feel like I missed out on much by not being able to try the vinegar when everyone said it didn’t do much for the crispy, light, airy chicharron. Great snack to start the night!

Because we thought we should have some greens, we also started with the Chinese sausage salad, which was liberally doused with vinegar. I really enjoyed this – ever so slightly spicy, but the pieces of sausage were scattered throughout, and the vinegar cut right through the fat to bring a nice level of sourness to the dish.

But even MORE enjoyable was the grilled pork jowl with brussels sprouts; oh my gosh, the fatty pieces of jowl, the roasty sweetness of the brussels sprouts, just delicious. If we weren’t all so polite, we’d have fought over the last pieces, I think. (Okay, that’s a lie, we’re not polite: we just know each other fairly well and have no problem taking the last piece. Hahaha!)

Pork belly adobo with a slow poached egg was absolutely delicious – I also thoroughly enjoyed this dish, extremely tender and flavorful pork belly, just perfect… even though I don’t tend to be a fan of adobo.

Sizzling sisig! with pork head, whole egg, and chili. I quickly mixed that all up and the egg cooked, and my goodness, this is like the best thing ever when eaten with rice to absorb some of the fatty goodness. We dogged this plate… so good.

Green rice crusted dorade with cockles, Chinese sausage – another delicious dish. The crisp crust on the tender fish was excellent, and the broth on the bottom added a layer of umami that I found really tasty. I thoroughly enjoyed this dish.

BBQ baby back ribs – another dish I really liked, with its sticky BBQ sauce that seemed based in hoisin sauce, just delicious and meaty and oh man, I could use a rib right now. Yum.

This bowl of slaw came with the ribs – I think I was the only one eating it, but it was bright, refreshing, and really helped cut through all of the pork products on the table. Another win for me!

And then the crispy pata came – pork leg that’s essentially deep fried. While this was tasty enough, it was definitely my least favorite dish of the night – maybe because it came at the end of a parade of meat? I’m not sure. But I was definitely not the only one to hit a wall – we wound up packing most of this to take home. It was also hard to eat because of the bone that’s in it, though it was at least cut up for you to take just a piece. And the homemade liver sauce that came on the side was FANTASTIC – I wanted to ask for an entire jar of that stuff to take home and eat on everything. That was fantastic!

After eating all that, no room for dessert – not in me, anyway, though I’m sure BFF and Dessert Zombie could have easily eaten dessert, haha. We also all exchanged treats and so didn’t need any more sweets to weigh us down… but my gosh, that was such a great meal. I thoroughly enjoyed our meal and wouldn’t hesitate to go back. Yum!

And if you want details of the cookies exchanged, here you go – Hungry’s post about the cookies. Thanks again for participating, guys!!!

For Hungry’s opinion of the meal, click here.

*Before anyone tries to say a word: the name came from the first year, when all 4 attendees were members of FBM. Though I am no longer part of FBM, and this year’s swap only included 2 FBM members in good standing and 2 non-FBM members, as I founded FBM and I founded this cookie swap, the name stands.