I found my Crispy Pork

I long time ago I put a call out for an authentic Thai restaurant in Manhattan. I had been to that place in Queens, and a few spots out in LA, but nothing in Manhattan came close to they type of menu I was looking for. One dish in particular was what I craved, and that was a crispy pork dish. Mmm Mmm Mmm! Man, I love that stuff. There are other things on the 'authentic menu' I dig, but this was the staple dish. And it was nowhere to be found in my area.

Well, it turned up on the menu at Fatty Crab last night. It had been so hard to track down, I almost assumed it was another dish that shared the same name. But it was, indeed, what I had craved. And not only that, it was the best crispy pork I had ever tasted! No joke. It was not only perfectly crispy on the outside and fatty on the inside, but the salad came with several cubes of pickled watermelon and a scattering of these minty tasting leaves. It couldn't have been better. The watermelon was the perfect sweet compliment to the grotesque portions of pork fat on the plate. The minty stuff acted as an equalizer between the two. It was amazing. Whenever else I've had this dish, it was with something boring like Chinese broccoli. I'm not much of a greens guy, so that usually was left uneaten. This was much much better. Recommended!

The rest of the meal was not as great, unfortunately. The kitchen has a tendency to add tiny anchovies into everything without announcement, which I found a bit unnerving. The Pork Belly Tea sandwiches were too plain and white bread dominated. The Nasi Lemak dish was, on the other hand, way too busy, with a bone-in chicken and a half dozen other ingredients mixed in. Both had anchovies. The Green Mango with Chili-Sugar-Salt was tasty and straightforward, tho it's pretty hard to mess this up.

Anyway, lessons learned, but the moral is I found my dish. And it was great. I'd go back just for that. I may even go out of my way coming home to grab some for take-out.

Between this, Dirty Bird To-Go's Fried Chicken, discovering that RUB BBQ delivers to me, and the openings of the not-bad-at-all Philly Slims on University and Wichcraft on 8th, I'm in the middle of an affordable food renaissance. I had grown tired of my dinner/delivery options of late, but all this is very nice. Too bad Saigon Grill is so overpriced and mediocre. I had semi-high hopes for that one.

Comments

[bill p]

That pork and watermelon dish is truly awesome. Thing about Fatty crab is it's pretty authentically Malaysian for being run by a bunch of round eyes... which means most of the food is pretty "funky." You either like that or you don't, I guess. I like all the little dried fish and the crazy tasting sambal that comes with half the dishes.

If you like the pork, you should definitely try the Fatty Duck.

Were they blaring Dead Kennedys when youu were in there? There's a serious old school punk vibe there. It would certainly be a great pre-Mew place to eat.

Unless you're vegetarian.

I wrote it up back in January.

[Jeff]

No DK...they were playing Modest Mouse, CYHSY and weird Arcade Fire remixes, among other stuff of the same vibe. Not bad at all...

The owner got his start in Williamsburg - very cool vibe at Fatty Crab. Where else do you recommend in the Central Village (maybe some older favorites that might still be new to some)?