Premium Pork @ Sanbanto, SS2, Petaling Jaya

comforting pork bolognese with home made pappardelle (RM17)

After a long stressful week, winding down with a little porky goodness seems to be the best way to recharge the batteries. This relatively new place located in the heartland of SS2 seems to have garnered quite a few fans already, judging from the crowd hanging out at the small place and the number of references once you Google search it. Don't expect much in terms of decor, as the place doubles up as a shop to sell the meat in the front and a large open kitchen takes up almost half of the space. The whole set up is relatively simple with mirrors on one side, to give an illusion of a bigger space. Tables and chairs are also quite limited, hence I can imagine looking for a place during peak times will be quite trying. The lack of any soft furnishings and mirrors does no wonders for the acoustics, as it can get terrible noisy especially if there's a loud crowd hanging here.


1. pork bolognese, 2. mr. piggy, 3. pork belly salad (RM13)

If your aim is just some pork to cheer you up, then you're in the right place. The menu is relatively small - appetizers, pastas, mains and desserts. They have handy indicators next to some items to help you order their specialties. Spotted pork ears on the menu (I wonder if that will be too chewy?), pate, pork burger and etc. Since we couldn't eat the whole menu, we just settled on a few items.


delectable BBQ ribs (RM38)

The pork bolognese arrived first, looking a little lost in the large white plate. A quick taste of it revealed pretty good home made pasta - not too soft but still with a slight bite to it. The pork bolognese that coated the thick pappardelle strands was strangely reminscent of a home cooked meal - comforting and familiar. Well hidden within the minced meat, you will find bits of deep fried lard that is a little soggy from the sauce. I guess it would have been better to sprinkle the pasta with the deep fried goodies on top, to give a slight textural difference. Nevertheless, we both thoroughly enjoyed the pasta and decided we don't mind trying it again.


very soft pistachio pannacotta (RM9) served with dragonfruit on the side

The sinful sounding pork belly salad felt a little ordinary though and probably due to the moisture from the salad, the deep fried pork belly slices weren't as crispy as we preferred. It still made a good and less sinful accompaniement to the meal with the healthy greens dipped in a tangy honey mustard sauce on the side. What we truly loved was the BBQ rib - one long rib slathered with a smoky BBQ sauce. Dig into the rib and discover fork tender meat topped with a fatty portion that melted in your mouth - simply sublime stuff especially for those who love their pork fat! The sides of mash potatoes was a little too gluey but I quite liked the sweet tasting grilled corn in the cobs.

Dessert was less exciting - a wobbly and very soft pannacotta that didn't have much taste of pistachio at all. Dragonfruit was served on the side that didn't seem to complement the flavours of the dessert at all. I reckon this place justifies a few more visits as I'm dying to go try out their pork burger, which the lady kept recommending.

On another note, the pork is from this farm located in Endau-Rompin that is ISO 22000 (Certification for Food Safety) certified by Moodys International. The meat is from pigs that are reared without any growth hormones. These pigs are fed a special type of bacillus using a Japanese technology. More pictures can be found in my Flickr set.

Sanbanto
32, Jalan SS2/63
Petaling Jaya
Selangor

Tel: 03-7876 1728

(Non Halal. Open for lunch and dinner. Shop is the same row as KTZ, Maybank, Rocket United Cafe and A Little Dim Sum Place.)

*Disclaimer: The opinions expressed here is entirely based on my personal tastebuds and may vary for others. This review is time sensitive; changes may occur to the place later on that can affect this opinion. The reviewer also declares that she has not received any monetary or non-monetary compensation from this place for writing the review.

Tagged with: Pork Bolognese+ BBQ Ribs

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