Having done the Whole Pig thing not a month ago in San Francisco, I was delighted to hear of a restaurant famous for whole roasted pig in the center of Bali, in Ubud. It has become so famous that it even was the showpiece for an episode of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations. And, as it turned out, it is famous with really good, really juicy, really porky reasons.
To start with, the front entrance to this place leaves nothing to the imagination. There, you have several of the cooks chopping up a pig from its whole state, with the next pig at the ready.
Then, you sit down at one of the many, always full tables. Everybody orders the same thing: mixed pig plate. We also had some complementary iced tea with the meal.
The pig, oh the pork. This was tender, juicy, roast pork at its absolute best. It is apparently brined in coconut milk water for 8 hours, then slow roasted and basted for another 8, continuously. That's right, the spit never stops spinning and the juice never stops basting. And you can tell when you eat it, it is so rich and flavorful. And spicy! Wow, they aren't kidding with the chiles in this pork, it's powerful stuff. It required a second iced tea and it demanded to be eaten in full.
In addition to the roast pork, we also received a big chunk of pig skin, with that delicious crispy exterior / fatty interior combination that I love so much from duck recipes. Additionally, there was scrumptious pig intestine, deep fried into a little golf ball sized chunk that was initially crunchy but then gave way and melted in my mouth. It is likely there were one or two other parts of the pig on the plate, but in my ecstasy I missed noticing them separately.
For those of you who love pig, check out this close up of the lovely crispy skin.
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