Eating in Kuala Lumpur - El Cerdo

A pork craze has come over Kuala Lumpur in the past couple of years, and many places have cropped up in the Klang Valley to satisfy this craving for everything porky. El Cerdo, located in Changkat Bukit Bintang - one of the hottest hot spots in KL, is one of them.

From the outside, it doesn't look much. Compared to the other ultra-chic food outlets, it is outright ordinary. Inside, the restaurant is done up in a pseudo-Mediteranean style, with stucco walls painted in bright yellow. There is a cold room for the wine and cured meat which is placed prominently at the entrance lobby. The overall ambience is cosy and unpretencious.

El Cerdo specialises in pork, with the tag line "Nose to Tail Eating" borrowed from English chef Fergus Henderson. They serve pork chops, sausages, ham and a large selection of cured meat. For lunch they have 2 set lunch menus. The Set Lunch comes with an antipasto buffet, and a choice of main course, with desert. 

The antipasto buffet was nice. There was a salad bar, and a large selection of cured meat and deli items. It would have been nice to have a selection of cheese as well.

My favourite from the buffet was the pork knuckle terrine, served with a horseradish sauce. The cold roast pork with tuna sauce was also very good, so was the Serrano ham. The pork head jelly had an interesting texture, but there wasn't much taste. 

For the main course I had hickory smoked soft pork ribs, served with mashed potato. It was smokey, tender and tasty. The only disappointment was the barbeque sauce which was a bit too strong and masked the natural flavour of the pork a bit. 

All in all, lunch at El Cerdo was quite pleasant. Next time I would try their marinated pork chop, which is a house specialty.