Pork Jowl :: คอหมูย่าง

Pork jowl is never going to be a lean cut of meat since it's heavily marbled with layers of fat. It's not a lean low-fat protein option. It's probably fattier than pork belly. Hurhurhur. Yet it's sooooo tasty. I like this in the form of Thai Issan-style grilled pork jowl (คอหมูย่าง / khor moo yang). 

However, I want the excess heavy fat trimmed away as much as I can. And that is dependent on the butcher or the line chefs in the kitchen. Most restaurants give diners to full fatty chewy oily shiny slices. There're very few restaurants who try to do it the way I like it — with as little excess fat as possible. An oxymoron, I know. But they can do it by scoring the skin and slicing it thin across the grain to distribute the fat evenly.

Years ago, I found my ideal pork jowl dish at Little Elephant. They've always been consistent in the way they slice it and render the fat. Till today, it's still gorgeous. I have bravely tried pork jowl at the restaurants around the island, and even in Bangkok. Few can do it the way Little Elephant can. I know their menu so well now that I know what dishes the kitchen seems to be stronger in, and what I absolutley would not order there, say noodles, they can't seem to do noodles well. 

I always order pork jowl at dinner. I was very pleased to see pork jowl now offered on the classic set lunch menu too. Little Elephant has a few options for set lunches on week days, and it's fairly popular with the office lunch crowd. It has no air-conditioning. The fans provide ventilation, but at mid-day, it's hot. So if you go to have lunch, go prepared to sweat. 

The waiting time for a grilled pork neck is stated as '20 minutes'. They do need to grill it. It's faster than that if your timing doesn't clash with a ton of orders going into the kitchen at the same time. At lunch, I come in at 1pm, and I always get my plate within 15 minutes. 

The grilled pork neck comes with a tangy dipping sauce of naam jiim jaew (น้ำจิ้มแจ่ว). It's mostly sweet and sour instead of spicy, made with tamarind, fish sauce, lime juice, chili flakes, and toasted rice powder. Little Elephant's version is sweeter. I'm not fond of it. I leave it be. If I want spicy, I'll take the chilli padi in fish sauce. It makes lunch so satisfying. Just don't ask me about the fat content, nutritional value and such. The egg gives me more protein.