momofuku ssam bar

on friday it was robin's birthday and to celebrate, her, i and six friends went to momofuku ssam bar and dined on an entire pork butt. the butt is actually the shoulder portion and chef david chang had performed some magic on this one. we started out with a few small plates to whet our appetites - not that we needed to, as when the bo ssam ( that's what the meal we had is properly titled) came out it was a full seven pounds of fatty love. before i skip ahead too far, we started with a dish of fried cauliflower



and then moved on to a selection of seasonal pickles



and lastly decided to try the spicy squid salad



by this time, everyone had arrived and we settled in for the big one. they brought out the dozen oysters first and then they followed that by the bibb lettuce, rice and four types of sauces. two kimchi's a scallion puree and a spicy kimchi puree. then they brought out the pork butt.



the proper way to eat the bo ssam, according to the waiter was to take a lettuce leaf and add some pork, an oyster, some rice and some sauce - roll it up and say good-bye. it was some serious good eats, the pork appeared to have been heavily seasoned and seared on all sides first and then set in a very low oven for some hours. when it came out, the waiter placed it on the table, handed us some tongs and said "no forks will be needed." he gave a quick demonstration by poking the pork with a tong which caused the meat to fall apart. after that it was about an hour of silence as we all dug in.



more pictures after the expansion