Chicken & Pig

Love this place. Always a good feed.
Only downsize is its so messy. A heap of meat in a small roll.

Pork Meat Roll Review only:
I am running a three P scoring system here for my review of the Chicken & Pig (CnP) pork meat roll. Namely, Product, Portion and Price.
As has been said, CnP do not advertise as a ‘Banh Mi’ joint or a ‘takeaway’ joint. Last week there were lines down the street waiting to get a hold of one of these new ‘meat rolls’ or salads on offer from the team at Pizza E Mozzarella. According to anecdotal evidence, the chook and pork are slow cooked in the wood ovens at PeM and are carted down the road in the morning once they’re ready to serve from 11.30am onwards, until sold out.
And they were sold out quickly in their first week. Every man and his dog was in for a nosey. I had decided to see what the fuss was all about the day after a long weekend, and the line was actually not at all a problem today. The service was friendly and the options seem tres gourmet, but I just opted for the meat roll option.
Product (³⁄₅):
The bread I had was a german-​style chewy white bread roll. Chewy as in I felt like I was playing tug-​o-​war with my lunch. And it’s fairly hard work on the jaws to chew through the dough. The bread was nice, but it could have done with a little more ‘crunch n crumble’. I opted for the flavoured butter option, which was in good proportion (I can’t stand when it tastes like you’re eating a butter roll, unless of course you’re actually eating just a buttered roll).
Here is where it got lost in itself a bit. Salad choices included shredded white cabbage, or shredded iceberg lettuce. OK, I get that it is not a banh mi, but the banh mi is so popular for lots of reasons, including the usual dyno salad fare served up. Crunchy pickled carrot and daikin. Succulent juicy cucumber. Coriander. I feel that product differentiation requires a full understanding of the competition, and knowing your weak spots as far as appeal goes. This is definitely one of the weak spots for CnP. But I digress…
Sauce choices are red or green — nice and simple for the customer to choose with a full description on hand for easy reference. I chose the red as the green seemed to lack heat kick. Plus I got extra chilli too. Onto the meat/​portion issue…
Portion (²⁄₅):
Slow-​cooked meats are a cost-​effective way to eat that doesn’t take a lot of effort. And they usually taste world-​class; Which seems to have been taken as carte blanche here to charge considerably more than what seems reasonable.
The meat is served on a set of scales right in front of you. Mine came out at 88 grams. The lady two before me got 180g in her salad. The guy behind me got 130g in his pork roll! Apparently I seem to give off a ‘he needs to eat smaller portions!’ vibe?! Safe to say, I needed to grab a filler roll elsewhere. (side note: after I had finished my CnP roll I went for a 20 minute walk to see if it had filled me up. It had not.)
PLUS, no crackling! In a roast pork roll! That’s just not cricket.
The meat is really juicy and tasty, and its flavours complemented the rest of the roll really well, but no crackling?! Come on!
Price (²⁄₅):
As I mentioned above, the price seems to not be in line with the competition or the product on offer.
You literally walk in, line up, choose what you want and pay within a minute (if there is no line). You get your food dished up in a cardboard box and you’re on your way in two minutes. This isn’t like a fancy restaurant where servers wait on you, advise what is good, help with the wine choices, have a light laugh with you and allow you to enjoy the ambience of a nice time out and about with good company dining on fine china and drinking from elegant crystal wine glasses. It is fast food, done pretty well. Takeaway. Whatever you want to call it, I don’t think there is a justification here to slap a fancy restaurant price on a fast food product. But that is just my humble opinion.
Conclusion (overall ²⁄₅):
There are plenty of costs, fixed and variable, that a business like CnP need to consider, I understand that, and more, as a bean counter. But, at this price point, and the fact that I didn’t get any crackling in my pork roll, I can’t see myself flooding back anytime soon.
Side note: My colleague got a 330mL bottle of coke zero. It cost him $ 4.

Located close Pirie Street not far from King William this strictly (at the moment) take away only lunch spot has had a line out the door each time I have walked by. Today I decided to give them a go and was glad I did as the salad was delightful albeit on the small side and the chicken portion I received was primarily breast meat. Though it looked like the quality of the meat is purely happenstance based on my observations while waiting in line. It would appear that there is an ever changing selection of salads with 4 – 5 to choose from throughout the lunchtime rush.
The four star rating would change to 5 IF the salad portion was more substantial in size AND the meat quality was consistent per order.

This is NOT another Bahn Mi store. Not even close… OMG… The only similarity is that they serve ‘Meat Rolls’ BUT they use wood oven Panini rather than a Vietnamese roll.
If you don’t want the bread, make it a ‘Meat Salad’ box, that’s what I had my first time there.
There is a selection of amazing fresh salads, and of course Chicken or Pork with crackling, there’s even lamb, to top them all off.
It’s take away only, but soon they’ll have a few tables on the footpath.
In town for lunch? Do yourself a favour