2012 - The Purple Pig
The Purple Pig - Cheese, Swine, Wine - what's not to like. FABULOUS meal on an absolutely gorgeous day in Chicago. Known for small plates meant for sharing - Mark and I took this opportunity to try pig parts not normally found on most menus:
1st Plate - Proscuitto escarole bread balls (ok we've had proscuitto before, but trust me, we get wilder...)
2nd Plate - Pig's ear with crispy kale, pickled cherry peppers & fried egg (cut the egg, before taking the picture, but this was really good. Kale was like potato chips, ears were deep fried yumminess)
3rd Plate - Pig tails braised in balsamic - wow, this was amazing. extremely tender and flavorful (apologize for the slightly blurry picture - damn cellphone).
4th Plate - Milk braised pork shoulder with mashed potatoes - WOW, this was SO good. tender, perfectly seasoned, the mashed potatoes were so creamy. One of our favorites!
5th plate - Morcilla with pink lady apples, watercress & saba. Ordered this because of Anthony Bourdain. He absolutely loves it and I wanted to know what all the fuss is about. It's actually quite good - especially with the apples.
6th course - Pork Sweetbreads with fennel & apricot, One of the best dishes. Great texture and crunch on the breading.
With all these wonderful dishes, naturally we needed some beverages. Purple Pig offers most of their wine at 5oz glasses, 3rd of a bottle (8oz), half bottle and full bottle sizes. Nice because it gave us the opportunity to try different wines. Today we had:
2007 Vina Equia Crianza
2009 Domaine du Couron Cotes du Rhone
2010 Pierre Gaillard "Des Collienes Rhodanniennes" Cotes du Rhone