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Saturday, October 29, 2011

porchetta and co.

We never seem to have much luck on Dundas. Turned away from a string of restaurants there the other week, a crappy brunch once ages ago at Saving Grace & a thoroughly underwhelming lunch at E L Ruddy during our gluten free fortnight last year. J only seems to eat well on this street when she leaves L at home, so it was with some trepidation that she dragged L to Porchetta & Co last weekend before an afternoon gallery hopping


It's a tiny place but very inviting with a lovely wood ceiling & a quintet of rickety stools. The menu is minimal in the extreme: do you want your pig on a plate or in a bun? (To be fair there are also a handful of sides, a seasonal soup & this being Saturday, a breakfast sandwich).


We both had the porchetta bun but J snagged L`s toppings of choice with mozarella & mushrooms leaving L forced to make do with rapini & parmesan in order to provide you, dear reader, with a bit of variety with the pictures. L got his own back by getting hot sauce & dijon on his, thus rendering it inedible for J, the petty little man. The strange thing is that L has never requested mustard on anything in his life, but when the guy at the counter asked if he wanted dijon or grain, L felt compelled to pick one, in what was even for him, a pathetically craven attempt to curry favour with the proprietor, channelling Dobby the house elf, "Oh yes please master! Dobby hates the taste of mustard  but spread it all over every inch of my pork sandwich please master! After all, master knows best & Dobby is but his humble servant."

Turns out master did know best, L rather enjoyed the dijon, there were only a couple of bites that were tear inducing & he actually quite enjoyed those too. Neither of us could find fault with the bun which was sturdy enough to keep the contents of the sandwich in line but so soft that you wanted to rub a cherubic girl's face in it like a commercial for fabric softener. Toppings contained within said bun were equally enchanting, although J wouldn't have said no to a slightly sharper cheese given half the chance. J also had the foresight to order some roasted potatoes which, while admittedly only being roasted potatoes, were lovingly prepared, perfectly seasoned & everything you would want from roasted potatoes, unless you had an unreasonably high expectation of spuds & what they could bring to your life.

But we didn't drive across town for bread, cheese & potatoes. We came for marinated pork shoulder wrapped in prosciutto wrapped in pork belly & then slow roasted for several hours & assuming you're not vegetarian, after reading that description you're probably reaching for the car keys or metropass yourself right now. It's such a treat to go somewhere that just takes one thing & devotes itself to doing it better than anywhere else; the staff's enthusiasm comes shining through & the pork itself is so sumptuously, unashamedly decadent that all that was missing from the experience was two bare chested servants fighting to the death for our amusement while we licked the fat from our lips. 

Of course the problem with determinedly plowing such a singular farrow, is that if you are not head over heels for what they do with the pork here, the menu doesn't have much to offer you, in which case if it's a tasty sandwich you're after, you're probably better off heading to Black Camel. Overall though, Charlotte the spider said it best: some pig.

Porchetta & Co on Urbanspoon


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