The Breslin 2011 (NYC)

breslin

Well, The Breslin did it again.  I was thinking that the night was NOT going to work out.  There was a bit of attitude with the reservation, pre-dining experience (which was annoying), but they came through with the goods.

Hmmm…a business dinner for 8…at The Breslin?  Not your ordinary call.  Chef’s table.  Whole (baby) pig.  A long day of meetings, a good couple cocktails, and a stunningly beautiful whole pig on a wood platter with an apple in its mouth.

I’ve done this type of pig dinner at the St. John Restaurant in London, but The Breslin just killed it.  A perfect mid-point for my “Feast on the Beast” month!

Here are the details:

  • Caesar salad with croutons and anchovies
  • One Scotch Egg per person
  • 2 lamb burgers, quartered
  • A whole roast sucking pig
  • Duck-fat fried potatoes
  • Roasted carrots and garlic
  • Spinach or chard or something I didn’t touch
  • Homemade ice cream with some sort of grain in it.

So the pig clearly stole the show.  Crispy and shiny like some Florida retiree who uses baby oil and a foil reflector.  We devoured it.  Ribs, shoulder, butt, everything.  The skin was perfectly crunchewy.  And then our awesome server asked if we wanted the head carved…  Of course!  Why not?

10 minutes later we asked where the head was.  She told us the Pastry Chef was still working on it.  That was pretty exciting…

Then it arrives…on another wood platter.  The skull is on an iron plate.  Next to the plate, the ears had been removed.  Below that, the eyeballs and eye sockets…below that the tip of the nose sliced off…and below that about 8 pieces of cheek arranged in a smile.  The skull had been cut open to expose the brain…it seemed like there was a highly focused halogen light beaming on to the brain.  And we had little forks to go in and extract the pig’s command center.

I tried the brain, an eyeball and some cheek.  The taste was fine, but the experience was awesome.

Congrats, again, to the Breslin!