Hoping to hog the limelight this month at Publika, here's The BIG Group's first eatery that's promiscuously porky.
We're casting pearls of praise before this S.Wine, thanks to oink-worthy originals like this meaty salad, which features something for everyone. Carnivores can go hog-wild for warm nuggets of pork belly confit, while leaf-lovers will lick their lips over assorted Asian greens with watermelon & lychee in a tangy peanut dressing.
Momofuku-inspired pork buns. Finger-scorching steamed mantao, sandwiching irredeemably sinful sponges of Dongpo pork belly. We'll pause for a moment to give thanks to the Song Dynasty Poet Su Dongpo, whose culinary creation of red-braised pork still supplies so much satisfaction nearly a millennium after his lifetime.
Going belly-up with our orders, all of which utilize a single, singular part of the pig's anatomy: smoky-juicy pork belly satay with kitchen-made peanut-pineapple sauce.
Five-spice Chinese roast pork belly with Japanese cucumber & pineapple chili sauce. If this looks a little too lean for your liking, it might be worth begging S.Wine's staff for a more lardy cut.
Auspiciousness abounds: on the evening of S.Wine's opening, the Luis Philipe Edwards winery of Chile conducted a wine appreciation session at Ben's Independent Grocer, within which S.Wine is hidden. We piggybacked on this tasting for five minutes, but the call of the boar proved too strong for us to tarry too long.
With everything from Parma ham & peach salad to whole roast pork ribs with crackling on S.Wine's menu, not to mention breakfast platters like Mexican pulled pork with poached eggs & avocado-feta mash on toast, everyone who can eat pork might head here in the weeks to come. No mean achievement _ that'll do, pig, that'll do.
S.Wine: Round Two (of course one round wasn't enough!).
Parma ham, peaches, arugula & roma tomatoes, tossed in white balsamic vinegar & extra virgin olive oil _ the salad to scarf down while listening to Lauren Alaina sing, "there's a reason the boys pick Georgia peaches." A sweet change from the usual ham-&-rock-melon medleys.
What's S.Wine's pork burger like? Sloppy & juicy, thanks to a Mexican-style pulled pork topping; it might not win the award for KL's best pork burger, but it should get nominated. No nitpicking possible about the plump patty & buttered brioche bun.
Geographical boundaries count for nothing at S.Wine. The menu features Italian favorites like this traditional preparation of spaghetti carbonara, replete with a raw-&-risky egg yolk, roughly torn prosciutto & pancetta chunks ...
... alongside mainstays of Malaysia's heritage: Hainanese pork chop flooded in tomato sauce & festooned with peas, corn, carrots & coriander. Would it be sacrilegious to say this is as satisfying as Yut Kee's Worcestershire-sauce version? OK, we won't say it _ but we'll imply it.
Maybe our senses were swayed by S.Wine's Voga Italia Sparkling Pinot Grigio.
Wine bought at Ben's Independent Grocer can be consumed without a corkage charge here.
Follow the pig: these posters unveil the path to pleasures no longer forbidden.
Heading back to S.Wine @ Publika, this time for brunch
Mexican-style pulled pork & baked beans with poached egg & avocado-feta mash on toast. If 'creamilicious' were a word, this recipe might be the definition. Trivia: S.Wine fortifies its baked beans with ham hock for a richer feel & relies on Korean eggs for a smoother finish.
The number of eateries in KL that serve Eggs Benedict with pork can probably be counted on two hands or fewer. Pierce these eggs, let their yolks weep over the BIG-baked ham & trickle through the toasted English muffins. Pure poetry.
S.Wine's own-made sausages, one infused with arugula (see the little green bits?) & the other with garlic, both pleasurably coarse & meaty enough to provide a real protein rush. Served with sour cream & potato rosti laced with sauerkraut.
French toast, deliriously high-piled with a dastardly dollop of peanut butter, apple-wood smoked bacon, bananas & maple syrup. Much more elaborate & extravagant than The Red Beanbag's simple, almond-coated version, but both are masterworks in their own fashion.
Another shot of the French toast, focusing on the peanut butter for three friends who are peanut-butter fans _ Bern, Chee Kiong & Hon Choong _ all coincidentally with the surname Lim, two of whom have already eaten with me here.
Don't skip the waffles, supplied with a savory-sweet twist thanks to maple-glazed pork belly (!!!) & strawberries. Would be even more satisfying with bacon ice cream on the side (we're thinking of the ice cream at The Hungry Hog in Subang).
Casa Lapostolle Cabernet Sauvignon (Chile).
Ham-&-veggie soup, a tomato-based one with cannellini beans, barley & coriander. We gotta give a shout-out to Collin & Leong, the long-suffering leaders of S.Wine's week-old service team. They represent some of the finest folks on the BIG Group's front lines _ give 'em a raise, Ben!
More ribs, this time in a baby-back slab of twelve, soaked in kitchen-made BBQ sauce. Masterfully prepared, with a flavorsome tenderness that rivals KL's best. Some might feel deterred by the roughly RM80-ringgit price tag, but this must be shared by two or three.
Chicken isn't spared from porkification at S.Wine: the coq au vin comprises chicken leg braised with pork stock, pancetta, white wine & herbs, served with toasted ciabatta. Note: dinnertime is the best time to be at S.Wine; that's when beloved '90s hits flood the air _ everything from Duran Duran's 'Ordinary World' to the Crash Test Dummies' 'Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm.'
Epitome of evil, sin incarnate: Russet potatoes roasted in duck fat & accompanied by bacon, to send us straight into a starch-fueled stupor.
Is there anything on S.Wine's menu that's pork-free? Only one: a quirky-cool dessert of Chinese black jelly topped with vanilla ice cream, then topped further with a splash of espresso.
Craving Chinese? This pork rib & duck soup, slow-boiled with silken tofu & salted veggies, tastes nourishing & homemade. Familiarity breeds comfort; grandmothers would assuredly approve.
Roasted whole rib with crackling & apple sauce. For the first six days of S.Wine's existence, this dish taunted customers with its presence on the menu but was impossible to order because the chef insisted on perfecting the recipe. The crackling's chewy, but some want it that way.
Pork meatballs in tomato-capsicum concasse. The closest thing to Spanish tapas at S.Wine. If the restaurant ever extends its business hours through midnight, we'd love to nibble carelessly on these bewitching balls at the witching hour.
Nyonya assam pork curry, sweet & rich like nobody's business. Perhaps some potatoes could be splashed in for extra enjoyment, but that's simply being greedy.
Thick buttered toast ('pain de mie' for Francophiles), filled with nearly-as-thick honeyed ham & Branston pickle spread. Notwithstanding the pork, this looks like something customers might find at Ben's, Plan B or Estate (it's a BIG world after all). But though we won't turn our snouts up at roast beef or chicken sandwiches, we'd rather hoof it to S.Wine for this.
Last call: Wine from Booze.it at Ben's Independent Grocer. Extra tip: S.Wine's smoking section comprises two tables in an intimate, spacious setting. Take a risk & take a table there, since few venture inside; for three of our four visits, we had the entire room to ourselves.
Here's Part Four of our S.Wine Quadrilogy, finishing up with a fourteen-dish feast.
Soup's up! Know the phrase, 'thick as pea soup?' It matches S.Wine's recipe precisely. Blended into a creamier-than-expected broth, rendered savory with smoky slivers of ham hock.
A perfect pork-seafood pairing: apple wood-smoked bacon, fitted tightly around remarkably fleshy scallops with a spicy tartar dip. Succulence squared equals satisfaction quadrupled (it's a culinary-mathematical miracle!).
Minced sausage roll with tomato relish. How can we find fault with golden-hued puff pastry that's this light & flaky, without the tiniest trace of excess oil? Or stuffing that's so generously portioned & fabulously flavored with pine nuts, mushrooms & garlic? The truth is, we can't.
On the menu, this failed to whet our appetite: salted fish pork patties. But on the plate, it turned out to be one of our favorites (don't judge a dish by its description?). Hit all the right notes for taste & texture _ S.Wine shoots, S.Wine scores!
The fourth and final thing we tried at S.Wine was the Hainanese Pork Chop (RM 23.90); pork chop in a pool of traditional tomato sauce, with peas, carrots and corn. If this looks like what you get at your local coffee shop that does western food, then you're right. Of course since the price is higher, the pieces of pork are much bigger and meatier. But really overall, though well marinated, there wasn't much to truly make this a distinguished piece of Hainanese excellence.
We also had the Sloppy Piggy Burger with Mexicana Pulled Pork (RM 23.90), which our waiter insisted was man's favourite burger, one that the guys usually went for. This was made up of a pork patty with mexicana pulled pork on top, all in a brioche burger bun with crinkle-cut fries and coleslaw on the side. The patty was acceptable, a good bite of minced pork, which went well with the sweetish brioche bun, but there wasn't much flavour to the pulled pork. Not the worse pork burger we've ever tried, but S.Wine's got serious competition for pork burgers out there, we'd say.
The menu at S.Wine is actually quite short; don't come expecting to be spoilt for choice! In the pasta section, we went for this Spicy Bacon & Mushrooms (RM 23.90), consisting of spaghetti with chorizo, button mushrooms, pancetta chunks, and arugula olio style with chilli flakes to finish it off.
Starting with this Warm Pork Confit, Watermelon & Pork Salad (RM 19.90), it comprises of crispy pork belly confit with chunky pieces of watermelon, asian greens and big juicy lychees, tossed in lychee dressing and topped off with peanuts.
