The Smoking Hog @ SS2
The restaurant is located on 3rd floor of a shop lot It is pretty small, with 8 tables on the main floor and I believe there's a small mezzanine floor. First impression, it was very dim inside. It was warm too because of the open kitchen. When I asked a waiter to turn on another air conditioner, he was giving me reason they could only have 4 units running at one time. Puzzled. Then he gave me a "ok, never mind, whatever" look and hand, then asked my colleague to flip a switch on the wall.
The menu are meant for carnivores. Most dishes spin around pork or bacon. We ordered a Lamb cutlet + brown rice Barley soup, a Smoked Duck Fettucine Carbonara and a Pig Tongue + Bacon Matriciana. Food serving was slow, the last dish, matriciana came 40min after order. I was hoping for an elevated version of pig tongue pasta but I didn't get that. It was mostly throat meat mixed with cartilage and bits of bone fragments placed on top the Spaghettini. I don't think the pig tongue was brine, it was very gamy, I couldn't finish the dish.
My colleague's Brown rice barley soup was on the salty side. Lamb could be MORE tender. It said lamb shank in the menu but it was actually one cutlet. Other colleague said his fettucine carbonara top with poached egg was overly creamy and couldn't justify the RM39 price tag. Oh, also not going nuts over the Nutella Latte.
We also had a Bacon & Egg ice cream to share. The ice-cream was creamy with bits of bacon in each spoon; a nice sweet and savoury flavour. Candied smoke bacon on top tasted like "yok gong".
Level of service was really general. Presentation of food was average cafe / bistro array. There's really no big deal here. It is not categorized as a casual dining place, not price wise, nor the ambiance. Yet it is not a fine dining restaurant , neither are they serving any avant garde food here (after all the fuss about the hidden location, the dramatic big chairs, the big block of eternal flame candle). What you pay are not justify with what put in front of you. It is going to be a one time visit and leaves you feeling "meh~".