TLO Restaurant Review: The Pig and the Butcher

To me, the Pig and the Butcher sounds like it should be the title of a very old German folktale about a pubescent porker on the verge of a gruesome fate that possibly includes grinding porcine flesh and bones into a delicious blood sausage of some sort.

Thankfully, to others, it’s the name of Oklahoma City’s latest downhome BBQ joint.

Located at 2925 W. Britton Rd. near Uptown Market, the new owners have done a good job transforming the place into an ever-popular commercial-roadhouse for the whole family, complete with plenty of corrugated tin, rusted advertisements and those metal trays that are so popular to serve food on these days.

While their menu offers many of the usual meats that many BBQ restaurants do like chopped brisket, pulled pork and smoked chicken—and, I’m sure, they’re all alright—what The Pig and the Butcher does that piqued my interest are these edible oddities that make it worth the gas traveling to the oft-ignored Village, like I did last Saturday afternoon.

My ladyfriend and I ordered from the said menu and found our seats in a booth next to the window. After a mix-up or two with our food—I guess they ran out of pork—I eventually got my “sharable” Beef Tacos ($7.00). Using a hardened wonton wrapper as the mighty triangular shell, these BBQ beef tacos were a monumental achievement in both smoked meats and Mexican knowhow; don’t forget to try the BBQ salsa on them.

As I hungrily consumed those inventive comestibles, my ladyfriend dined on a comically large Loaded Baked Potato with Two Meats ($11.00), those meats being the aforementioned chopped brisket and cubed hot links. Topped with so much butter, sour cream, shredded cheddar cheese, candied bacon and green onions, even though I found it to be kind of dry, she let me know that I was wrong, declaring it “as moist as it needed to be.”

For my own main course, I inquisitively sampled the One Meat Dinner featuring the promising Candy Bacon and Two Sides ($13.00). While the mac ‘n cheese was a flurry of yellow flavor and the fresh fried okra was a summertime delight, it was the candy bacon I fell in love with; five or six thick-cut strips were on my tray, with an intoxicatingly sweet and drunkenly salty flavor that has possibly ruined non-candy bacon varieties for me for, at least, the next month.

Though startlingly full from the wide variety of meats, on the specials board upfront it said the dessert of the day was Peach Cobbler ($6.00), served a la mode for three more bills. Thought this bit of sweet treats was primarily fine, the portion was far too small for a couple to share at the table, especially considering the gastronomic $9 price tag.

As I packed up the leftovers and cleaned my hands with sanitizer, I looked over at the wall behind me and spied a cartoon pig with a cleaver pointed at his own throat, smiling as he was about to cut himself up for my digestible enjoyment. “The pig is the butcher!” I gasped to myself, an ominous tinge of sadness and fear coming over me as I bit into the remaining strip of my candy bacon. Cómpralo ya!

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