Oink if you love pig feet
LAST year it was bellies. This year, feet seem to be the most fashionable part of the pig.
At Meson G on Melrose Avenue, chef Josef Centeno braises pig feet in white wine and aromatic vegetables, shreds the meat, cooks it with stock and butter, and refrigerates the mixture until it sets. He then cuts out hockey-puck size disks, which he breads, fries to crispy and serves over borracho beans (beans cooked in beer).
But you won’t see “feet” on the menu. “It says ‘crispy pork trotters,’ ” says Centeno. “We’re trying to word it so people will try it.”
David Myers of Sona is another fan of trotters. “I love using all the parts of the animal,” he says. “It’s really what cooking is all about. The foot is so gelatinous. It has a unique texture.”
Myers offers a main dish of braised pig feet stuffed with foie gras and served with lentils. But more often he’ll use them “to add a textural component,” he says, in a dish such as grilled swordfish with bearnaise sauce and crispy pig feet. Gino Angelini often offers a pig feet, cabbage and tomato casserole special at his Beverly Boulevard Osteria; other times, he stews them with tomato and onion and serves it with polenta. And at sister restaurant La Terza, there’s a ragout of pig feet sauteed in olive oil with pine nuts, veal stock and red wine.
Although they’re not always on the menu, trotters make regular appearances at Spago, where pig head is getting some play too. About once a month, chef Lee Hefter gets a whole Berkshire pig from Pennsylvania and boils the head, snout and all, to make head cheese, which he slices and serves chilled with mache salad, grilled bread and mustard. Other times he’ll grind the head to make sausage. He’s also served braised pig feet stuffed with this sausage.
But food fashion is fickle and we hear that ears are big in some circles too.
Providence chef Michael Cimarusti does a warm salad of julienned braised pig ears and roasted squid topped with frisee, wild arugula and dried black olives.
“They’re soft and melting on the outside with a stripe of cartilage in the middle that stays firm no matter what you do with it,” says Cimarusti of the ears. “I think that’s why so many people appreciate it: that snap between your teeth when you bite in.”
“It’s like a black licorice thing,” he says. “Either you love it or you hate it.”
-- Leslee Komaiko
Small bites
* Looking for late-night dining on a Monday night? Citizen Smith has opened in the Cahuenga corridor. Designed by Thomas Schoos (Wilshire, Koi, O-Bar) in a building that once housed Wolfman Jack’s studio, it has three bars and a large patio. On the menu: American comfort food such as jalapeno mac ‘n’ cheese, steaks and chops, and the slacker favorite -- the bottomless bowl of cereal. Open daily for dinner with a late night lounge menu till 4 a.m. Tuesday through Saturday, till 2 a.m. Sunday and Monday.
Citizen Smith, 1600 N. Cahuenga Blvd., Hollywood, (323) 461-5001.
* Stonehill Tavern opens today in the former Aqua location in the St. Regis Resort, Monarch Beach. The space has been redesigned by New York-based Tony Chi (Nobhill Las Vegas, NoMI Chicago) and Michael Mina is back on board. (Mina split with the Aqua Development Corp. nearly four years ago.) The day-to-day chef at the helm will be Joshua Skenes, most recently of Chez TJ in Mountain View, Calif.
Stonehill Tavern, 1 Monarch Beach Resort Drive, Dana Point, (949) 234-3318.
* Porto’s, the popular Cuban bakery and cafe in Glendale, has opened a second location in Burbank. You’ll find all the same goodies at this new Porto’s, including Cuban sandwiches and guava pastries.
Porto’s, 3614 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, (818) 846-9100.
* There’s a new pastry chef at Providence: Adrian R. Vasquez, a San Francisco native who has worked in the kitchens of Aqua and the Michelin-starred Pied a Terre in London. Chicago’s Bin 36 was his most recent post.
Providence, 5955 Melrose Ave., L.A., (323) 460-4170.