30 days of pork - day 20

The good people at Chowhound are true foodies. That is one reason why I have loved the site, even when it was hard to use, and their search feature made me want to rebuild the entire site from scratch just so I could get to the data. Now those days are gone, and Chowhound is fashioning a fancy new redesign AND a beautiful, fully functional search.

Uninspired by my overabundant eating of bacon and sliced ham this month, Cameron asked the kind folks of the Chowhound community to give me some more "adventurous" recommendations.

One recommendation that kept popping up was a little Northern Italian restaurant in Noe Valley called Incanto. So off we went, via the J Church line to discover this fabled place. Like the chowhounders recommended, we asked for a seat at the bar. When I asked the bartender what he recommended from the menu that has pork in it, he replied, "We've been expecting you."

Wow. The bartender knew that I was coming? He apparently (or someone at the restaurant) is an avid follower of Chowhound. He even went out of his way to apologize for not having the Pork Shoulder on the menu that night. It is nice to know that I have a little league of pork supporters out there.

So back to the food. We did order the pork charcuterie plate as that sounded mighty adventurous. Consisting of "house-cured" meats, the dish included the standard coppa, as well as for the more intrepid, delicacies such as head cheese and an Italian version of scrapple, which is a savory mush of pork scraps and trimmings mixed with cornmeal and flour. All of it was amazing, and delicate. The flavors were beyond compare, once you get over the fact that you are eating parts of an animal that lots of us would find rather unsavory.

Accompanied with a nice half carafe of wine and carrots (marinated in a vinegar that had a hint of umeboshi plum), this dish is a reason in itself to check out Incanto. But lucky for us, there was more to follow.