after dinner sneeze

What the what?

t says:  Yea, that’s right.  We did it.  Five manly male friends and I came, saw, and conquered the suckling pig at Amada.  What you see above is half of a pig and the head (apparently the head is optional – who the crap wouldn’t want the head?)  By the way, it’s a little creepy that the pig seems like it might be stalking that poor defenseless baby on the left.

August 2011, 5:45pm Sunday, Party of 6.  Forty bucks a person, reserved at lest three days in advance – just show up and eat some pig and four side dishes.  Forget more words, let’s roll the pictures …

Meet Wilbur ... yea ... we named it.

Wilbur's got no backbone ... cuz the dude carving our pig removed it (in the foreground) from the rest of the pig (in the background) ...

Just in case you tried to avoid seeing Wilbur's head above - here it is again ...

Pig ... with potato, garbanzo beans, white beans, scallions ... and more pig ...

Yea … we demolished a LOT of pig.  And we had enough for two small piggie-bags (for g and v) to go.  The best part was that it was frickin’ delicious.  Seriously.  I was expecting the feast to be kind of gimicky, but believe you me – it’s probably the best straight-up pork I’ve ever had – no fancy sauces or seasoning – just good ‘ol Wilbur.  Pork-for-pork, perhaps Fond’s pork belly is the only pig I’ve ever had better.  Also – I must say that it was quite an educational experience to be able to taste the different cuts of pig and see how they differed from one another despite being cooked in an identical manner; my favorite was the cheek – so lucious and sweet and salty.  A lot of the members of the party preferred a cut of muscle that attaches the head to the back (?neck muscle?).  a and kp took it upon themselves to go for some brain (I refuse to eat brain), too.  Their impression: it’s mushy, and doesn’t have a good taste or aftertaste to justify eating it – especially when so many other good pieces of pig are present.

a flexed his wine muscle by providing us with a 2001 Rioja Gran Reserva for the occasion – a fairly bold wine for summer night but it did a superb job matching the intensity of the pig.  Great job!

What was the worst part of the evening?  I think it was when we realized that they had removed the platform-table that used to be able to hold a party of like 10 but elevated one step up from the restaurant and with these curtains you can draw to add an element of mystery/seclusion to the party.  We did it once for g’s birthday a few years ago and it was the best restaurant-birthday I’ve ever been to.  Alas – it is no more.

Everyone’s gotta try this at least once (if not more than once).  Next time, we’ll bring the chicks women.