The last time we went to Grumpy Pig (on a Sunday), there was only the brunch menu. This time, we had the regular menu. All to ourselves.
So we ordered the things that we missed very, very much. Green papaya salad with orange and watermelon, pulled pork summer rolls, and Shanghainese spring rolls.
I’d been hooked on the summer rolls (stuffed with pork, mushrooms, and cabbage) since last autumn, when I powered through six (by myself) while waiting for Myra and her parents. When I need to pass the time, there are often food items involved. Sometimes six of them, even.
After our warm-up, we ordered the barbeque ribs and, my favorite, the pork dumplings. By we, I mostly mean yours truly.
The ribs were interesting – beer-braised, with a cumin-heavy dry rub, then “ghetto-smoked” in some contraction the Grumpy Pig kitchen figured out. Not bad, actually – the best barbecue ribs I’ve had in Shanghai, for sure. I could’ve used a more liberal dose of BBQ sauce.
And my favorite pork dumplings were as delicious as ever, overflowing with juicy chunks of pork. Essentially the opposite to the thin-skinned soup dumplings so popular in Shanghai. A much-needed boost of pork.
And that’s basically what I look for in life. Pork. In its various, amazing, God-given forms.
House of Hao's 