This Little Piggy indulges @ Bo Ssam!

EWI brunch adventure round 2: our supper club was able to get a reservation for Bo Ssäm @ Momofuku Ssäm Bar this past Sunday.  To be quite honest, I woke up feeling fairly crappy Sunday morning, and this Little Piggy would have done anything to stay home.  But reservations are hard to come by, people were relying on my presence, and well... since when do I turn down a potentially insane eating adventure?  I got myself cleaned up and arrived for our 12:30 reservation.  For those who don't know, Bo Ssäm is another one of the wonders in the Momofuku world. 

Basically, it has the same online reservation system based on "fuku" ("lucky" in japanese) timing.  You sign on and hopefully they have a space available.  The cost of the Bo Ssäm (which is Korean for enclosed or wrapped) is a whopping $200 and includes a whole slow cooked pork shoulder, a dozen oysters, white rice, bibb lettuce, ssäm jiang (korean bbq sauce), kimchi and ginger scallion sauce.  Now you may think $200 is a lot, though considering this feeds 6-10 people, and we were 10 (the max, the min is 6), it worked out to a mere $20/person (experience included, drinks and other items for and additional cost).

What happens is, the pork shoulder is slow roasted for 6-8 hours with a brown sugar and salt rub.  The point is to make a delicious taco-like lettuce wrap.  My preference: take the lettuce, put some sticky rice in the middle, then some kimchi, kimchi puree, or ssäm jiang sauce (all are very good), some tender pork pulled right from the source and an oyster, with maybe a little scallion sauce and salt.  I would say the scallion sauce is optional.  The salt definitely is not.  It adds a wonderful kick and crackle to every bite and I highly suggest it!

The server will explain that the oyster is part of the traditional way of enjoying the Bo Ssäm and should at least be tried with the intial wrap.  I personally thought it tasted amazing with the combination of pork, kimchi and rice, though with 10 people and a dozen oysters, I only got my shot at one.  Anyways, not to ramble, the pork shoulder was just the right amount for 10 people and it was definitely worth making it out of the house on a rainy Sunday afternoon!  Better that little piggy than this one!  Oink oink!