We headed down to The Spotted Pig at 6:30 on a Saturday evening expecting to get seated between 7:30 & 8. The host gave us a 1-hour wait time, so we strolled upstairs to the bar for a cocktail or two before getting seated. Before the Devils on Horseback were even delivered to us, we were seated! Turns out 1 hour was only 15 minutes.. score!
Their martini was served purple w/ kalamata olives, and the Old Speckled Hen beer (an amber) was roughly 20-24 ounces... a great deal (or at least as good of a deal as you can expect from The Spotted Pig).
The Devils on Horseback was mentioned on Food Network's "Best Thing I Ever Ate" and it's certainly the best bacon-wrapped dates stuffed with almonds that I've ever had the luxury of eating ;-) While it might be tough to screw this up, it's also not easy to blow away all previous renditions of this dish. They did! The bacon was cooked perfectly with no chewy fat, and the rest of it just melted in your mouth. It didn't hurt that I'm a date-lover. Five of these for $7 is a great way to start you off.
Next came the ricotta gnudi, which our helpful waiter told us was their specialty. He wasn't lying. It's 8 balls of ricotta cheese served in a brown butter & sage mixture... Once again, it's hard to mess this combo up. Nonetheless, it was nailed, and is a great appetizer for a table of 4, or in this case a table of 2. What can we say? We felt like splurging!
I read a bunch of reviews raving about the chicken liver toast, so I figured that would be a harmless "bar snack" to throw on the table... We were expecting a few crackers with a modest helping of liver... WRONG! It's a very healthy heaping of chicken liver piled on top of a large, crunchy piece of bread. It was quite good, but a bit over the top after already having two apps. Plus, we wanted to save some room for the stars of the show... the entrees:
After the older woman next to us described the above pork dish as "orgasmic," I couldn't not order it. And, as the saying goes, "When in Rome..." Turns out, she was spot on! It was a large portion of super flavorful, tender, lean pork under some roasted shallots & scallions. I'm not a pork guy at all, but this dish might have converted me. An intense amount of flavor filled my mouth with every bite & I never wanted the dish to end. I was a happy camper:
Jess agreed with my assessment as she never turned down an offer to have a bite.
Jess went a bit lighter with her entree & ordered the sea bass with fennel & salsa verde. The bass was cooked perfectly as the crispy skin had a great crunch to it, and the rest of the fish was nice & flakey. This dish also had tons of flavor from the salsa verde. It came with a salad on the side in a lemon-y vinaigrette.
The side dish of roasted onions & sage pesto looked too good on paper not to order... I'm glad we did cause it looked good on the plate, and tasted even better in our mouths! A must-get if you like roasted onions & pesto.
As you can tell, we would whole-heartedly recommend The Spotted Pig to anyone looking for an over-the-top delicious meal. Don't expect to go there and leave feeling healthy about what you ate, but if you can forget about that for one night you'd be hard-pressed to find a better meal.
