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Pork Steaks @ Ante 1-Utama

Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia - August 2018

On a treat outing, the birthday boy got to pick the place for the do; and he picked a place that served pork steaks. Pork steaks? Can pork be cooked as a steak? Yes, I have tried pork chops. But as a steak? Can it be as chewy tender as beef? Yes, he answered. And they have good marbling too. That got to me, marbling - the magic word! Let's go!

We started off with a Polenta, but one that's served uniquely with the cream scooped into a quarter head of fresh cabbage. It came with bacon bits and garnished with thin strips of spring onion. The bacon bits were more than just bits, slightly chunky for a better bite. Overall it was a good dish, with the fresh cabbage balancing the creaminess and the bacon porky salty aroma adding to the flavour.

As an entree to the main, we ordered a plate of grilled pork striploin to share. I am not that good at porky parts, but this one looked like pork belly prepared ala Chinese style, just like one from the corner coffee shop. Well balanced with more fat (the way I like it), and with lean meat that was tender; both slurpingly good. My only complaint, the skin was not crackling crispy and hence had some parts harder to bite into.
It comes with a "classic gravy mix" (meaning soy sauce with some lard oil), with sprinklings of Italian herbs.

A nicely presented diagonal cuts of seared duck breast; a fusion dish with green pea curry and duck sauce garnishing, complemented by peach salsa. Another good starter to share with the breast slightly salty and with good ducky aroma. The green pea curry was just slightly chilly hot, and the salsa a good diet balance.

They do serve pasta here! This one is a good carbonara with small slices of lightly pan-fried bacon.

And here comes the mains..... almost.
I must apologize for this, it's of a cut of 450gms, much bigger than shown above. By the time I got to photo this, the rest of the gang had whacked it! This is a pork shoulder marinated with North African chermoula spices before being grilled.

The cut of dark meat was very tender and the spices had done their job of making it uniquely tasty, with the edges nicely seared.

The meat was also nicely marbled, making it all the more tasty and tender!

This is their chargrilled pork shoulder served with truffled butter sauce. On the menu, it was supposed to be a cut of pork rib-eye but they had run out of rib-eye; but the shoulder cut worked fine too.

I was curious on how well the marbling goes and did a V-transverse cut across the slab. Yes there was marbling, but most of it were nearer the top fat layer.

I had no complains though, as overall it was still very tender and almost a juicy as a rare-done beef steak. The truffled butter sauce was good, not so full as spices as the other piece, and with it's own individual flavour.

Grilling was perfectly done, nicely charred fat and tender leans. Beautiful aren't they?

For desserts, we had a free piece of Salted Caramel Chocolate Cake, compliments of the house to the birthday boy. It was a generous piece good enough for the five of us to share. The caramel was very good and went well with the slightly wet cake full of chocolate flavour.

Okay, okay... we are not cheapskates! We did order another dessert, their home-made waffles (meaning self-made in their kitchen instead of those frozen ones). I love this one too, as it came with a good helping of fresh raspberries and blackberries and a large scoop of honey lavender ice-cream.
We took advantage of their BUY 2 - GET ONE FREE offer, and bought another cake to get another free. Both these other two pieces we took away. Yup, their cakes are that good.

ANTE has upped the ante, let's hope the other eateries will place their bets the right way too!

Below are ANTE's current menu and price list (click on photo for enlarged view) :