oh.my.goat

it took some time for this idea to germinate and when it finally did - the great mutton peratal shoot-out as i called - happened with great success.
yes, for the avid pubcrawler - i count myself as nearly there - there is nothing better that goes with ice-cold beer than a plate of mutton peratal - mutton in a dry curry gravy.
so, together with some friends and the new straits times, we went to three pubs near each other and tasted their house speciality. to make it as scientific as we could, we used bottled heineken beer as our control.
while it's not exactly the grandest and tastiest of beers, heineken - a pilsner at five percent alcohol by volume - has a pleasant enough taste without any hint of being watery unlike some other beers.
but the most important thing is the mutton peratal.
we started off in the bulldog pub in sri hartamas. it took some 20 minutes before the bowl of lamb masala - as it was called - turned up on our table with thick slices of english bread.
the cubes of lamb - or mutton dressed up as lamb as the case may be - tasted of its ginger-and-garlic marinade with crunchy chunks of either available in moderate amounts in the gravy.
it had the right combination of spices and went well with the bread and beer but most of us there thought that we had tasted better mutton peratal.
not exceptional but just right to start off the shoot-out.
off we trudged to the street behind and ended up at the backyard pub to order the house special. a quick question of whether we wanted our bread slices toasted was replied immediately with a plate of each - toasted and untoasted. the heineken beers came pretty fast as we waited in anticipation.
the mutton peratal - with a garnish of chillies and onions- came in an orange dish and tasted better than it looked. the chef had added zesty lime juice to bring out mutton peratal's spiciness and aroma, and add to the gravy.
the mutton and gravy went well with the toasted bread slices - which were brushed with butter. we finished the mutton peratal but there was bread and lo! and behold, just a bit more mutton peratal arrived for us to finish off with our bottled beer.
what can i say, it was just great mutton peratal with the right spiciness and the zest more than helped whet our appetite.
the plate was clean. enough said.
we were still within time and decided to take jalan damansara and head towards the online pub in damansara kim - famous for its mutton peratal and wild boar peratal.
the mutton peratal came with a garnish of cucumber slices and we took our time to savour the flavour.
it was quite peppery with just vague hints of spiciness for the rather tough mutton cubes. the gravy was thick as we wiped it off with slices of bread which had been quartered.
quite a different touch but we had expected more. it was not as good as it once was and did not go down too well with the heineken.
maybe we were just stuffed. or tired of mutton. or the beer temperature was off. or the time was different.
but we had to decide.
for me, the best was at the backyard pub.
maybe we will expand the search and shoot-out the next time.
oh.my.goat. maybe not!