Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pork. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

LA's Cochon 555 Moves to Downtown on June 2, 2019

If you're unfamiliar with Cochon 555, this event is an annual staple in multiple cities around the country. Cochon 555 is a food event and competition meant to highlight heritage pigs. In each city, 5 chefs partner up with 5 pig farmers and prepare some nose-to-tail pork dishes. The winner from each city is crowned Prince of Porc and will move on to compete in the big finale. What that means for us is an afternoon filled with pork (and booze). For this year, the Los Angeles event will take place on Sunday, June 2 at City Market Social House.

This year's participating chefs include Kat Hu and Justin Yi (Hock+Hoof) with Marin Sun Farms, David Johns (Mason) with Rancho Llano Seco, Jason Mattick and Ivan Marquez (Broken Spanish) with Marin Sun Farm, Ben Diaz (Nixo Lounge) with Peads and Barnetts. Brian Redzikowski from Kettner Exchange who made this (adorable!) pork bun (Pic Mac Bao) last year will also be returning to compete, this time partnering with Cook Pigs Ranch.
Cochon555 2018
There'll be a lot of more food than from the competing chefs, though. There'll be a tartare bar, cheese bar, oyster bar, and even a veggie bar. Some of my favorite bites last year besides than the Pic Mac Bao is this lechon kawali from Maynard Llera (H.wood Group)
Cochon555 2018

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

SGV Now Has 8 Flavors of Pork Belly KBBQ at Porkfolio (Arcadia, CA)

A while ago I had written about Eight Korean BBQ in Koreatown, which is known for their 8 flavors of pork belly. Well, now they've partnered up to open Porkfolio at the Arcadia's Westfield Santa Anita mall.
Porkfolio
Despite the different restaurant name, you can still find the 8 flavor of korean bbq pork belly and much of the same Korean BBQ menu at Porkfolio.
We got the Combo A, which comes with the 8 flavors of pork belly. The flavors are original, miso, korean red pepper paste, garlic, wine, sesame, curry, and herb. My favorite flavors are the sesame and the spicy Korean red pepper paste.
Porkfolio

Friday, March 23, 2018

Belly Up to Eight Korean BBQ for 8 Flavors of Pork Belly

Eight Korean BBQ focuses on pork belly, and has locations in Buena Park, Koreatown, and Singapore. The main attraction here is the eight flavors of pork belly. If the concept sounds familiar to you, that would be because the Koreatown location was Palsaik which also served eight flavors of pork belly. Palsaik is now rebranded (and with much much better service!) and with new menu items.

We got the Combo A, which comes with the eight flavors of pork belly plus a seafood stew and mozarella kimchi fried rice for $56.99. It was plenty of food for 2 people and probably would feed 3-4 depending on how much you eat.
Eight Korean BBQ
The eight flavors were: hot, miso, curry, herb (mostly rosemary), garlic, black sesame, original, and wine. The black sesame one is a new addition (it replaced the ginseng) and I'm pleasantly surprised how well the sesame flavor worked with pork belly. I think the sesame was my favorite this time around, but the garlic and hot flavors are also great.
Eight kbbq
We also ordered the Flower Pork Belly ($22), because it looked so cool! Although we thought it looked more like a hedgehog than flower, but either way it made for a great photo and more fatty pork belly for us to eat.
Eight kbbq

Monday, February 19, 2018

Mark the Dates for Cochon555 Around the Country

Cochon555 is returning - a time of celebration for pork lovers. Each Cochon555 event pairs five chefs to five heritage pig breeders to prepare a nose-to-tail feast. One chef will be crowned Prince of Porc and will go on to compete for the title of King of Porc at the Grand Cochon finale.

In Los Angeles, Cochon555 will be at Viceroy Hotel Santa Monica on March 11 and you can purchase tickets here. There's no signature event in Boston this year, instead there will be a Heritage BBQ on August 5. You can check out the rest of the national schedule on Cochon555's website.

Last year, I was in Boston for their Heritage BBQ event, which is run very similarly to the signature event.

Boston Cochon555
Barbacoa on chicharoon by Juliet
Boston Cochon555
Whole pig break-down


Thursday, March 30, 2017

GIVEAWAY: Cochon555 BESPOKE and Heritage BBQ in Boston, April 8-9

UPDATE: first round winners have been chosen but you can still enter to win a pair of VIP tickets to the Sunday Heritage BBQ on www.facebook.com/gourmetpigs !

Cochon555 is a competition and food festival dedicated to promoting heritage pig breeds. At the main event in each city, five chefs will partner with five farms to prepare dishes, utilizing 1500 lbs of heritage breed pork! The Heritage BBQ is coming to Boston at SoWa on April 9, as part of a three-day weekend of food, art, and thought called BESPOKE.

Untitled
It starts with CREATE on Friday evening, April 7. CREATE showcases Boston's artists paired with the city's guests and bartenders. On Saturday there'll be a forum (which I'll talk about shortly), a local producers' market and chef's pantry and a charity dinner. Sunday is the main event, the Heritage BBQ, where the chefs from Townsman, La Brasa, Loyal Nine, Tapestry, and Juliet will compete head to head, or nose to tail, for the Prince (or Princess) of Porc title. I'm also giving away two VIP tickets ($400 value) to the Heritage BBQ, which you can enter via Instagram until April 4 here.

They're also incorporating a new component this year, a forum called BESPOKE: An Exploration of Taste & Thought. Taking place on Saturday, April 8 from 9AM to 2:30PM, the Bespoke forum will feature keynote speeches on the topic of Food and Landscape, and a panel on the topic of Power, Labor, and Class in the Food Industry. Beyond the food for thoughts, the day will also be interspersed with a pop-up ramen bar and tastings of German Rieslings and Glenfiddich scotch. There will also be plenty of cold brew to keep everyone going.
 

Tickets to the BESPOKE event is $70 per person and can be purchased here. Want to try your luck? I'm partnering with Cochon555 to give away one ticket to the Bespoke event! You can enter via this widget:
  a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunday, June 5, 2016

Farm to Table Pork Dinner at Post 390 with Dogpatch Farm

Post 390 in Boston is already known for their farm-to-table fare, but every couple of months, they take it a step further by holding a special dinner featuring one local producer, and bring them into the restaurant! I recently attended this Farm-to-Post dinner with hog farmer Sue Frank from Dogpatch Farm in Washington, ME.

The dinner starts out with a cocktail reception on the second floor of the restaurant with delectable hors d'oeuvres like Coppa di testa (olive gardiniera, smoked provolone), Pork fat fried chicken oysters and habanero honey, and Pate en Croute (pistachios, pickled mustard seeds, apricot, pork liver, their own pate herb blend, other meat parts)
Post 390

The cocktail of the evening of course features the beloved pork as well: Lipstick on a Pig (smoked Bulleit bourbon, Pedro Ximenez sherry, bubbly charred rosemary lemonade, candied crackling)
Post 390
It took them 6 days to dry the pig skin to make the crackling!

The Farm to Post dinner was held in their private dining area which was beautifully set.
Post 390

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Jiro-style Ramen at Yume Wo Katare (Porter Square, Cambridge, MA)

As you exit the red line T stop at Porter Square, you will soon notice the line going towards Yume wo Katare, a place popular for the fatty pork ramen in the style of Jiro in Mita.

image
Buta Ra-man!
Yume wo Katare is supposedly one of the first (if not the first) US shop to serve Jiro ramen, which is a really fatty pork broth that is completely different from a tonkotsu, topped with a big pile of bean sprouts and some cabbage. With that, some thick chashu (more pork fat!)
image
Being from LA, I initially snuffed at the Boston ramen scene, but this small shop is one of the very few that looked promising and I was happy to see this particular style, which you can't even find in LA until Tsujita Annex opened just a couple of years ago.

Thursday, March 21, 2013

25-Layer Pork at Kimukatsu (Honolulu, HI)

With the number of Japanese tourists swarming Hawaii every year, it's no surprise that Honolulu would have great Japanese food. From ramen to handmade soba, you can find pretty much everything here. One of the places I had my eye on was Kimukatsu, famous for their pork katsu made by stacking 25 layers of pork slices, then deep frying it. This way, the katsu is supposed to retain more of the juices than a thick piece of pork cutlet.

Now, Hawaii is also not cheap. An order of pork Katsu set (with rice, cabbage, miso soup, pickles) would be $19 normally but they do have a special menu during lunch. The regular tonkatsu order is not on this menu but you can get a katsudon set ("The Original Kimukatsu Bowl") for $16 or the Kimukatsu Curry for $13.
Katsudon

Monday, January 7, 2013

8 Flavors of Pork Belly at Palsaik BBQ in Koreatown (Los Angeles, CA)

I was recently involved with a project to review a few Korean restaurants in Los Angeles, and one of my assignment was Palsaik Samgyupsal Korean BBQ. I was pretty excited since I had never been to this restaurant which boasts eight flavors of pork belly. The set menu with the 8 pork belly and stew ("Palsaik Set Menu") was $49.95. I asked around as to how many people the set would feed and got answers ranging from "two, but when you get to the rice you won't be able to taste anything" to four, so I settled at three, which seems to have been the perfect number.


Compared to other Korean BBQ places, Palsaik is decidedly more modern looking and cleaner (though the service wasn't any better)
The presentation was also quite impressive. A long wooden board held eight plates of the pork and underneath each one the flavor was printed: Wine, Original, Ginseng, Garlic, Herb, Curry, Miso Paste, and Red Pepper Paste.

On the wall they also display the "health benefits" of each flavor, which I thought was pretty funny ... I mean, we're eating eight slices of fatty pork belly here! I don't think the "benefits" of the red wine marinade would really cancel out the effects on your blood vessels.

Thursday, December 9, 2010

"A Dose of Vitamin P" for FoodGPS!

Since FoodGPS had a disappointing week in pork, the bloggers who went down to Tijuana for the Pork 5 ways meal decided to each do A Dose of Vitamin P, dedicated to FoodGPS! (For those of you who didn't know, P here stands for Pork. FoodGPS highlights the best pork dish in his weekly Dose of Vitamin P.)

My Vitamin P was this tosta de cachete con erizo from Chef Jair Téllez of Laja in Valle de Guadalupe. He had run out of food within an hour so I was the only one in the group who had it (sorry!). Here you have uni and avocado on top of a "toast" made with pork cheek. Sweet, creamy uni. Crispy, fatty pork. Mind, blown.

Pork and Uni
Toast? Crostini? BORING. Crisped pork needs to be the new toast. Bruschetta with crispy pork. I'm going to smear foie gras torchon on a piece of toasted pork cheek. Pork rillette on pork, anyone?

For more porkporkpork, check out my fellow adventurers Street Gourmet LA, e*starLA, and My Last Bite who are all supposed to be posting their Dose of Vitamin P today.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Dec 8: Pig Out in Tijuana, Head to Tail

Mexico? It ain't that far, and this Wednesday is the perfect time to cross the border. How does a pork feast, from head to tail, with paired wines for 350 pesos (about $35) sound? Talk about a deal! Yup, on Wednesday December 8, you can partake in 5 Chefs, 5 pork preparations, 5 Baja wines at Villa Saverios in Tijuana.



Here's the chefs' lineup:
Chef Max Bonacci from The Linkery and El Take it Easy (San Diego,CA)
Chef Benito Molina from Manzanilla and Muelle Tres ( Ensenada)
Chef Jair Tellez from Laja (Valle de Guadalupe) and Mero Toro (Mexico City)
Chef Paul Zamudio from Peacocks(San Jose del Cabo)
Chef Javier Plascencia from Villa Saverios, Casa Plascencia, and Mision 19 (Tijuana)

Paired with wines from Valle de Guadalupe:
Adobe Guadalupe
Aborigen
Sinergi VT
Tres Valles
Vinisterra


For reservations, call Villa Saverios, from the US dial 011-52-664-686-6443,ext. 104.

Wednesday, December 8,2010, 7PM.
Villa Saverios
Blvd Sanches Taboada
Esq. Escuadron 201
Zona Rio, Tijuana, Mexico

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Oink (Edinburgh, UK): Scottish Hog Roll and Crackling!

What better way to get customers in the door than a whole roasted pig on the window?

That's exactly what Oink, a little shop on the similarly-little Victoria St, does to get you to try their Scottish hog roll.

Not that the gourmet pig could've passed by a pink pig-shaped sign that says Oink without going in. 

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

NYC: Fatty Pork Buns and Pork Ramen at Momofuku

I didn't quite adjust to NY time so at 3 pm one day I found myself searching for a good "lunch" place that's open at least until 4 ... All the sushi places I wanted to try are out, and apparently so was Momofuku Ssam Bar. The noodle bar was open, though, so I decided to give that a try.

People seem to rave about the steamed pork buns at all the different Momofukus so I decided to give them a try here. $9 gets you two pork buns - expensive but since I was on vacation I didn't give it *too* much thought.These pork buns tasted like a super-fatty peking duck! Because of the bun and oyster sauce. The pork is a slice Berkshire pork with a fatty layer.Instead of green onions they put cucumbers instead, which adds a very nice crunchy texture and a cool, refreshing taste. Delicious. Are they worth the price though? Tough call - maybe not. Peking duck would be cheaper ...

I of course had to get the Momofuku Ramen (I was at the Momofuku noodle bar after all!). $16. Again, not cheap for a bowl of ramen.
Pork belly, shredded pork, bamboo shoots, green onions, and fish cake. And the egg - unlike typical ramen fare which uses a hard boiled egg, the egg in the Momofuku ramen is a poached egg that runs and soaks up the ramen when you break it.

It's a great bowl of ramen that really warmed me up in the 36F New York weather. On a vacation from LA I didn't mind spending the $16+tax+tips+cab ride for this delicious bowl of ramen. Whether or not I would go there on a regular basis were I to live in NY is a separate question. But I'm not doing hypotheticals right now, so I'll just say this was a nice late lunch for a November afternoon in New York!


Momofuku Noodle Bar

171 1st Ave (btw 10th and 11th)
New York, NY 10003
(212) 475-7899
www.momofuku.com

Momofuku Noodle Bar on Urbanspoon

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