Big thanks to sandwich enthusiast @BobbyBigWheel for tipping me off to this thing and joining me for the festivities.

The sandwich: Ju Pa Bao (a.k.a. Macanese pork chop bun) from Pok Pok Wing, Rivington and Suffolk in Manhattan.

The construction: A fried pork chop on a Portuguese roll. That is all.

Important background information: Pok Pok Wing primarily sells wings made from a Vietnamese family recipe from a former co-worker of a chef named Alan Ricker who is lauded for his Thai restaurants in Portland, Oregon. The Ju Pa Bao is, per the Wikipedia, one of the most famous and popular snacks in Macau. I ate it in a Lower East Side bar next to a 50-something British photographer and his mid-20s girlfriend, both of whom complimented my looks and told me they had an open relationship. New York City is a strange and interesting place.

What it looks like:

How it tastes: You don’t even know. You don’t.

F@#$.

Look at that unassuming thing. Just look at it for a second. It looks like something that shouldn’t even merit a shrug no less several hundred words here, and you’re probably thinking, “oh Ted’s run dry now, just reviewing a plain ol’ pork chop on a bun.” But that’s because you don’t know.

Holy hell. There’s only two things and they’re both amazing. First, the bread: Piping hot, crusty on the outside, soft on the inside and sopping up just a little bit of the grease from the pork, bready and delicious.

Then, the pork: Not terribly thick but not too thin either, the perfect balance to the bread, and so tender and juicy, and just singing with pork flavor. It’s seasoned on the outside with what I’d guess is salt and black pepper and some garlic, pleasant and familiar flavors that remind me of my mom’s fried chicken only then, lo, it’s amazing pork.

There’s just one issue, one minor setback that’s going to keep this sandwich out of the Hall of Fame. There’s a bone in there. It’s a pork chop, remember, and it’s cooked with the bone in and they leave the bone in when they serve it up on the bone.

It’s not a terrible thing to negotiate, plus I recognize that there are some culinary advantages to leaving it that way. And it’s apparently the traditional way, for whatever that’s worth.

But everything else about this sandwich demands that I absolutely punish it with giant disgusting wolf-bites, and here I needed to be tentative because I knew that bone was threatening. It alters the sandwich-eating experience, and not in a good way.

Which is not to say the sandwich-eating experience wasn’t a pleasant one. It was amazing. This sandwich is outstanding. It’s just falling short of the Hall of Fame because I had to nibble at times instead of gobble and this is America bro.

What it’s worth: $8, and it’s a solid but not huge meal.

How it rates: 89 out of 100.