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Restaurant Review: Celebrate Your Birthday With A Cake Made Of Meat At Dehesa

Also expect exotic cuts, bold flavours and more at the casual Spanish restaurant

While not officially a birthday cake, the Crispy Pig’s Head Dehesa Signature ($28) at Dehesa is jolly well like one.

Instead of cream and crumb, you’ll find meat from a pig’s head that is braised and then moulded to form a shape that likens to the celebratory confection. Sprinkled with chorizo pork belly pieces and capers. the meat cake is then topped with a single egg yolk, which we think embodies a lit candle, no? Crack open the crispy exterior and you’ll be greeted by soft, chewy meat that boasts heartwarming and robust flavours.

Are your mouths watering yet?

Serving up Spanish dishes crafted from French cooking techniques, casual dining joint Dehesa has veered away from its previous ‘nose-to-tail’ concept to put forth a more flavour-driven menu. Perhaps as an attempt to make a dining experience more inclusive, the refreshed menu hopes to cater to everyone with great flavours, while alternative cuts are for appreciation by more adventurous foodies. So crowd favourites such as the above pig’s head will still be a mainstay offering at the Spanish restaurant.

Soo great flavours they say, and great flavours you shall get.

Starting with the Carabineros Carpaccio ($34)  – a delicious amalgamation of piquant flavours and contrasting textures, featuring fried heads of massive deep-sea red prawn resting on a bed of its own sweet flesh, salty caviar and romesco sauce. For an equally delicious follow-up, ask for the Dehesa Octopus ($28) which is pan-fried and embraced by sinful lard once melted by a Searzall blowtorch.

A must-order is the rice dish Carabineros ($36) that is cooked with lobster stock, giving every spoonful an explosion of oceanic flavours. Deep-sea red prawns also make a reappearance to sweeten the very rich and robust staple.

A fan of Netflix’s Okja or E.B White’s Charlotte’s Web? Then you may want to skip the ¼ Suckling Pig ($65) which was roasted in-house for two to three hours. For the rest of us with hearts made of steel, you’ll be rewarded with crackling skin that encases meat so tender, it easily falls off the bone.

Even till the last dish, Dehesa stays true to its flavour-driven menu with the concluding dessert of Gin Panna Cotta ($15). Rich and luxe, the already boozed up dessert is further glazed with Negroni, before laid on a bed of berry compote and crumble.

A fitting end we say.

Address: 12 North Canal Road, Singapore 048825
Tel: 6221 7790
Website: dehesa.com.sg
Opening Hours: 11:30am-2:30pm, 5:30pm-late (Monday-Friday); 5:30pm-Late (Saturday), Closed Sunday

A Chinese version of the article appeared here.

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