Little Water Cantina's Wild Boar Sandwich

Laura Wilkinson eating Little Water Cantina's
wild boar/Mangalitsa sandwich.

Little Water Cantina in Eastlake has a neat sandwich: wild boar (from an Oregon game farm) smoked and sauted in Mangalitsa lard. The bread is from Macrina.

Wild boar fried in Mangalitsa lard taco

They served me some.* It was great - I devoured it. I got some tortillas and a little dipping sauce and cabbage. It was nice to get cabbage instead of lettuce. It reminded me of being in Germany and getting döner kebab.

Wild boar sandwich

As mentioned on a Seattle food blog, they've got other stuff fried in Mangalitsa lard, which I've tried before. It really makes stuff tastes great.

I just delivered them a bunch of raw fat. By rendering their own lard, they'll save money, get their lard exactly how they want it and get the greaves. I advised them on how the most quality-sensitive people I know render lard.

In general, Little Water Cantina and Monsoon, both Mangalitsa customers, have the same problem: because they serve ethnic food (Mexican and Vietnamese respectively), people expect their stuff to be cheap and filling. Foodies tend to stay away from such places, even though they'd like the food if they tried it. At the same time, the customers who demand lots of rice (and rock-bottom prices) will leave feeling they didn't get enough food.


* I thought I was going to go to the opening of Eric Banh's new restaurant, so I just asked for a sample. Eric's place didn't open that night. My new rule: if someone offers me free Mangalitsa-based, eat all of it.

St. Louis Slow Food Event

If I'd been in St. Louis, I would have been happy to attend this Slow Food event. The third course featured our pork belly.

It looks like a small piece of Mangalitsa belly. But like foie gras, a little bit is plenty.

Cured Mangalitsa Products Class at Serious Pie

Me talking about Mangalitsa.
Photo by Sonja Groset

Serious Pie (a Tom Douglas restaurant) and Heath Putnam Farms did a class with Slow Food Seattle yesterday. Students started the process of making their lardo pancetta from Mangalitsa pigs. It takes time to make cured products, so they couldn't finish yesterday.

Students got to salt and herb their fatback and bellies. They took the lardo home, because all they have to do is stick it in their fridge to finish it. Serious Pie offered to dry out their bellies in their temperature and humidity-controlled tent, so people will pick that up later when it is done.

I provided a small neck so people could taste Mangalitsa. After I showed the students the raw neck, Kenan Fox, Serious Pie's curemaster cooked it up with a little salt and pepper so that people could eat some.

After making the products, Serious Pie fed people a multi-course lunch. Most courses had some Mangalitsa products. I recall cured neck, lardo and sausage. Most students thought the lardo pizza tasted the best. Hopefully they'll know what to do with their own lardo.

One nice thing the Serious Pie staff did was measure out the salt in advance. People got a few different containers of curing salt and regular salt for the belly and the fatback. That made things easy and stress-free.

Hopefully the word will get out that Serious Pie is serving really great fast food featuring cured Mangalitsa products.

Chef Donald Link - Memphis In May - Fatback Collective

Here's a video about the Fatback Collective competing in Memphis in May.

Zsa Zsa vs Kinga

News from Csarda Haz: Kinga is a better mother than Zsa Zsa.

Zsa Zsa is more nervous. Also, she only had 3 pigs, versus Kinga's 9.

Zsa Zsa better watch it or her name will get changed to kolbasz.

John Besh's First Mangalitsa Piglets

Chef Erick Loos holds one of John Besh's Swallow-Bellied Mangalitsa piglets. Thankfully the piglet has no idea what Erick Loos does with Mangalitsa pigs.

This is a big deal - John Besh has been into Mangalitsa pigs for a while. Now he's breeding them. These are the first farrowed in Louisiana.

There's 9 piglets. You can see how fat that gilt is. There's no visible muscle to her; she looks like a tick.

The gilt looks ugly. She'll probably bite you too, if a pig squeals.
You can see how small thepigs are, and how they are striped like wild boar.

I've never seen this guy before. He's wearing muck boots, so I'll guess he's their herdsman.

When I see his clothes, I think, it must be very hot there. There's no way I want to wear shorts and a T-shirt in a pig pen. Google says right now it is 89F (32C) with 58% humidity.

Little Water Cantina

I visited Little Water Cantina tonight and talked with Shannon the owner.

The Mangalitsa lard is working out well. They've got a new item - a wild boar sandwich. Before they put the wild boar in the bread, they fry it in Mangalitsa lard.

That little Mangalitsa fat dramatically improves the taste of the final product. Any side-by-side comparison makes that clear.

I explained that Mangalitsa pigs are a lot like wild boar, except ridiculously fat-prone and tame. You can see some of the similarities if you look at videos.

Chef Shop

Chef Shop is still selling our Mangalitsa, particularly the bacon.

I visited there today, dropping off a lot more bacon.



Chef Shop Store Location & Hours

1425 Elliott Avenue West
Seattle, WA 98119

Store Hours:
Monday through Friday: 10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Saturday: 10:00 am to 4:00 pm

Watch This Video!

This is from the Today show. You can see Sam Hazen of Veritas showing how he cooks up our Mangalitsa pork.

He gets it from DeBragga.