Lechon Degustacion at Pepita’s Kitchen

I was looking forward to the Lechon Degustacion at Pepita’s Kitchen.  I never knew that I would be eating so much food.  We ate a total of 15 courses!  Fifteen!  And that included 4 Lechon de leche!  It was too much wonderful food.  I had to stay awake for an hour because I cannot sleep with that state of stomach fullness.

I’m so glad that I attended Pepita’s Kitchen private dinner, or else I’d be drooling when I see or read the experience of the bloggers who went.

I arrived at the venue 7PM sharp.  I was greeted warmly by Dedet, owner of Pepita’s Kitchen.  Then I saw the beautiful arrangement of the dining table.  I was so ready to dive in but I had to wait for my dinner companions.  I was excited already!

I was in total awe with the bread that looked like a mini pig.  It was too cute!  The eyes of this cute lil pig is actually raisins!

The menu was put in each of the plates and there was a pig paper origami too!  I knew right there that we would be having so many lechon that night.  I had to make sure that I have enough space in my tummy for the food overload.

After 30 minutes, we were already complete.  Appetizers started to come in.  I was ecstatic!  Here’s what we had.  My attempt in sharing my experience at Pepita’s Kitchen.  Lechon Degustacion literally!

Appetizers

• Pinoy Pate & Pinoy Caviar with Crackers

The first course was the pinoy pate and pinoy caviar with crackers.  The owner didn’t tell us what comprised the spread yet as they wanted us to guess what they are.  We all made our guesses but we were all wrong! hehehe.

Pinoy Pate (the darker one) – balut & Wine pate.
Pinoy Caviar (the lighter one) – sautéed bihod or fish roe.

The pinoy pate was the clear winner.  I had to save my stomach space for the lechon though 😛

• Balut Salpicao

I love balut but I never dared to eat the chick inside.  However, I love the yellow part and the soup of the balut.  Whenever I saw restaurants putting a different twist to the balut, I ended up disappointed coz they didn’t enhance the natural flavors of the balut but changed it into a different one.  Pepita’s Kitchen’s Balut Salpicao surprised me!  They didn’t compromise the flavors of the balut but enhanced it by cooking it with olive oil and garlic.  It worked for me and I loved it!

• Rellenong Bulaklak

It’s sad that I was only able to eat one piece of Pepita’s Kitchen’s Rellenong Bulaklak.  It was one of the most delicious appetizer I have tried out.  I love that when you hold the toothpick and see the food, it actually looked like a mini-rat (I know I have weird imagination hehe:P).  What was it really?  The Rellenong bulaklak is pumpkin flower stuffed with native cheese & bagoong.  Truly unique but truly yummy!

Main Course: LECHON!

The star of the night was the Lechon!  Oink oink!

Pepita’s Kitchen’s Lechon has been available for quite some time but it was my first time to try it out.  Actually, their concept is so unique!  Imagine stuffing lechon with rice, mushrooms, meat and other food items.  I never thought it was possible!

The lechon was pugon-baked.  I still can’t figure out how Pepita’s Kitchen stuff the lechon.  It’s a big mystery to me.

What the heck, the lechon looked soooo good!  In spite of wanting to try out the lechon as soon as possible, I have to take at least one good picture with the lechon.

Stuffed Lechon is Pepita’s Kitchen’s style.  They made several variants of it.  There’s the Pinoy lechon, Chinese lechon, German lechon, French lechon, Hawaiian lechon and British lechon.  We tried out four of those lechon.  I can say that as of now, it’s the most unique and most delicious lechon I have eaten!

With Pepita’s Lechon de Leche, we are actually eating 2 meals in one — Lechon + international stuffing!

If I’m to describe the lechon, I can say that the skin was super crunchy, there wasn’t too much fat in the lechon plus the meat was so tender and most importantly, flavors were soooooo good!

Have a party planned soon?  I highly suggest you order the German lechon from Pepita’s Kitchen.  You won’t regret it!  You and your guests will have an awesome time sampling the dish for sure! 🙂  There are 2 sizes available for Pepita’s Lechon de Leche.  Depending on the number of guests you have, you can order either 7kg or the 12kg.

• Pinoy Lechon

This is most probably the deadliest combination ever!  Sisig and lechon but noone can ever resist this.  According to the owner, their Pinoy lechon is one of the best sellers.  That’s enough proof right?  Deadly but ooohh sooooo good! *burp*

• German Lechon

I never thought that I would prefer this over the other international stuffing.  German lechon is the only one without rice.  Instead of rice, Pepita’s Kitchen put potatoes.  Other ingredients were herbs and garlic.  I love the combination of flavors of the German lechon.  While the other lechon variants had the stuffing overpowering the lechon, this one made it clear that the lechon is still king!

• Chinese Lechon

Machang is a famous Chinese delicacy.  Pepita’s Chinese lechon has that machang inside!  The ingredients that put it all together in the stuffing were the herbs, chestnuts and mushrooms.  If you love chestnuts, you will love this lechon de leche chinese style.

• French Lechon

Most of us loved the German lechon but some of my dinner mates preferred this French Lechon.  This was our finale lechon.  I guess I was too full already that I couldn’t eat more of it.  This French lechon is stuffed with truffle rice.

Other Courses (Palate Cleansers, Side Dishes)

• Calamansi Sorbet

I’m a big fan of sherbet.  So this was a great way to take in between eating different international lechon.  I was starting to have too much of the lechon that I needed the break.  Good thing there was the Calamansi Sorbet 😀

• Sabachara

Banana is not my favorite fruit.  Achara is not a side dish that I’d like as well.  However, the unique combination of banana and achara works like a charm!  I never thought that 2 items that I don’t usually take individually would make me wanna eat over and over when combined.  This was a definite winner in my book!  I love how the dish was named too! — Sabachara (Saba + Achara).

• Pinoy Carbonara

Oh we couldn’t get enough of lechon!  Even the pasta has to have chicharon in it.  This pinoy-inspired carbonara is made of pasta, mushroom cheese sauce and chicharon.  We truly had a Lechon overload!

• Cholesterol Sweeper

We’ve eaten so much lechon!  I totally consciously tried to forget my diet.  It’s a good thing that Pepita’s Kitchen had something ready for us to sweep off the cholesterol from all the lechon goodness we’ve taken.  It’s called Cholesterol Sweeper and it’s a shot of an oatmeal!  If you know champorado, it tasted like it.

• Darna’s Surprise

It was a big surprise indeed as the name implied.  We were all pleasantly shocked at how good the shot is.  Darna’s surprise was created by the owner’s beautiful daughter.  She has a potential!  Imagine a cute teenager making such a beautiful alcoholic mix drink.  I must admit I don’t drink alcohol and I’m not a fan of cream but when I tasted Darna’s Surprise, I didn’t even feel the alcohol a bit and the cream was perfect!  We shall say it’s Pepita’s Kitchen’s version of butterbeer.

Desserts

• Pinoy Ice Cream

It was my first time to try out guava ice cream (which is one of the 2 flavors served to us).  However, I couldn’t help but rave about it.  The ice cream was so heavenly!  The taste of the fruit really came out in the ice cream.  It was so pure!

The pastillas ice cream was good too!  Similar to the guava flavor, the ice cream stayed true to its taste.  The pastillas ice cream was sweet and delicious.  Next time I crave for pastillas, I might go for the ice cream type instead.

• Dayap Cheesecake

I noticed that the desserts served to us are Filipino-inspired.  I wondered what famous Filipino ingredient would be used in the cheesecake.  Then I learned that the cheesecake was Dayap Cheesecake.  Dayap is our native lime.  I love the light flavors of the dayap which gives the cheesecake a refreshing taste.

Whew!!!  Each one of us surely tagged this dinner as one of the most memorable dinners ever!  How can we ever forget eating 4 different lechon plus 11 other courses in one sitting?  Thank you so much Pepita’s Kitchen!  I was practically sharing this experience with friends and colleagues the day after haha!

Pepita’s Kitchen will be offering private dining soon.  If I recall correctly, Dedet said that it’ll be ready in a month or so.  For now, they are accepting orders for lechon.  They do delivery as well through City Delivery.

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Pepita’s Kitchen
Magallanes, Makati City, Philippines
(02) 425-4605, +639178660662
pepitaskitchen@gmail.com