Posted by Erin Zimmer, October 1, 2008 at 11:00 AM
There are few things better in this world than pig roasts. Unless you're a vegetarian, maybe. And as noted in the New York Times today, few men know their way around a pig better than Tom Mylan, the butcher for Diner, Bonita, and Marlow & Sons. He'll spend all day Friday, October 10th, nurturing a heritage hog from Fleisher's into juicy perfection for the Big Brooklyn Pig Roast at the Yard in Carroll Gardens.
In addition to benefiting your tummy, the feast will benefit the New Farmers Development Project, a Greenmarket program that educates and supports immigrants who want to start local agricultural endeavors.
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Posted by Erin Zimmer, July 21, 2008 at 10:00 AM
As Brooklyn bands played in the backyard of East Williamsburg's 3rd Ward on Sunday, the real rock star was making music by taking a big, serrated knife to a 200 pound roast pig. Butcher Tom Mylan of Diner, Bonita, and Marlow & Sons fathered the pig roasting part of the 1st Annual Pig Roast & Dance Party, and all eyes were on him. Watching Mylan is like watching an indie rock band on the cusp of stardom. He'll be big soon enough, but for now, it's mostly just hip Brooklynites fawning over him—the Ray-Ban-protected ones willing to trek out to Morgan Street yesterday for his meat. Whether you're stalking him at the Un-Fancy Food Show (he was one of the organizers), watching him spread pate at the Taste of Brooklyn, or attending one of his many butchering demos at The Brooklyn Kitchen, here are some tidbits of info from yesterday's event that every card-carrying-fan-club-member will want to know:
- Mylan's guest of honor weighed 197-pound and came from Mario and Son's Italian butcher in Williamsburg (Mario himself delivered the animal.)
- As a Southern California native, he misses his good, dirt-cheap Mexican food, hence the taco interpretation of a pig roast. He basted the animal with a salsa roja made from Mexican chilis like cassia, garlic, onion, and cilantro.
- Other garnishes for the tacos included a salsa verde made of roasted tomatillos, cilantro and lime juice, and a dressing with onion, lime, and cilantro. So good, the salsa stock depleted early, but Mylan threw together more onions with salsa roja for a wing-it replacement. (Nobody seemed to notice.)
- Mylan was exhausted by 6:15 p.m. taco scarfing time. He first got his hands on the fresh pig at 9 a.m. Sunday morning, roasted it from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., and didn't stop all day—except for a few sample bites of crispy skin between cuts.
Warning: Giant roasted pig after the jump.
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Posted by Ed Levine, May 21, 2007 at 9:35 AM
Besides "What's your favorite restaurant," the question I'm asked most at non-food-related parties is "What's a good brunch spot that I won't have to wait on line to get in"? I call it the "Don't tell me about Sarabeth's" question.
Frankly, until this past week I had only one recommendation, Ouest, where Tom Valenti serves an astonishingly well-thought-out brunch that features the best breakfast bread basket in the city. A couple of weeks ago I made another brunch discovery.
My friend John T. Edge was in town and wanted to go to a pig-centric brunch spot. John T. lives in Oxford, Mississippi, but I must confess that he, an out-of-towner, came up with the idea of going to Boqueria.
I love the food at Boqueria, but I find it to be fairly uncomfortable and very noisy and crowded at dinner. But it turns out that the Boqueria dinner crowd hasn't discovered that Boqueria has an original, terrific brunch with plenty of porcine options. We had:
- Revuelto de baicon: A very fine breakfast sandwich of scrambled eggs, double smoked bacon, caramelized onions, and Spanish cheese
- Huevos escalfados: poached eggs with suckling pig hash, sweet potatoes, and rapini. I would have liked more pig and less sweet potatoes, but you probably knew that
- Croqueta cremosas of mushroom, suckling pig, salt cod. Crisp, greaseless wonders.
Somehow I missed the side orders of patatas rotas, crushed fingerling potatoes, crisp bacon, and Macoun apples, and the double-smoked bacon à la plancha, but if they are on the menu next time I go, I'll report back.
Boqueria turned out to be my idea of brunch heaven; comfortable, easy to talk in, and pig-centric.
Address: 53 West 19th Street, New York NY 10011
Phone: 212-255-4160
Website: boquerianyc.com
