Cochon 555: This Little Piggy Went to Perbacco…

Last night the biggest pig event of the year in San Francisco went down at the Fairmont Hotel: Cochon 555, featuring 5 different heirloom breeds of pig cooked up by 5 local area chefs and accompanied by some great wine. Tapped to compete in the San Francisco round (ahead of the national Grand Cochon) were Staffan Terje from Perbacco, Anthony Strong from Pizzeria Delfina, Dennis Lee from Namu, Thomas McNaughton of flower+water, and Morgan Maki of Bi-Rite Market. Oh, and also on hand doing some live butchering were the great Ryan Farr of 4505 Chicharrones fame and Dave the Butcher.

So this was bound to be a great event, right? Well, sort of. We paid $125 eacb (no VIP tickets for us). Hands down it was $125 dollars worth of food and wine (wow, some of those wines were great) — if you were seated in a restaurant and got that many gorgeous courses of pork it would definitely cost you. But we weren’t seated. In fact, we were literally wall-to-wall with people, standing in long lines, in some cases only to be told that the wait was in vain because the table just closed for judging. For us the crowds and the difficulty of simultaneously holding a wine glass while trying to eat decidedly non-finger-foods were a big drag. At least we needed those accessories that let you hold a wine glass with a plate (I saw some people walking around with those… lucky persons). The lines were really disorganized and plating was going pretty slowly, it either took a long time waiting in front of the table to sample everything, or, as in the case of Namu, I just never managed to get everything to taste. Plus since walking by the table meant trying to load up with everything there I was so busy trying to juggle multiple plates that I just couldn’t get a hand free to take very many pictures (I ended up without pics of what turned out to be my favorite table — the illustrious Flour+Water)!

But the food, ah, the food, the food it was good. Bi-Rite was my first stop and I snagged a Pork 3-Ways Sandwich (the cracklings inside, while a nice idea, were more hard than crunchy and seemed like a whaa?), a BBQ-pork bun (the bun fell apart and on the whole wasn’t particularly distinctive), and a mixed plate of goodies that included a totally awesome pork ragu. Over at the Delfina table, my favorite item may have been the lard-fried pizza dough covered in cinnamon sugar, but I don’t think that really counts. Perbacco’s table included some great elements including one of the only blood sausages I have ever enjoyed, plus the unique blood+chocolate cupcakes and may I say lightly-decadent-everything’s-better-with-bacon marshmallows. Terje did end up taking home the win, and all I can say about that is I heard a lot of murmurings in the room that I would have taken as evidence he was heavily favored. But I didn’t have enough leisure to get the full measure of what he offered. Over at Namu, the porchetta was great, as was the lovely braised shoulder trotter mole, the other elements not as much for us although we never got to try the pork belly or — my big regret — the “spam.” And finally flour+water, which, situated close to the door, perhaps should have been my first stop. No pictures, and no descriptions of the dishes other than I found lovely porkiness with light delicate flavors and sauces… and that little crispy pig trotter? YUM.