Bringing Home the Bacon

After a very high-profile debut in New York City speakeasy, PDT (Please Don't Tell) Bacon Bourbon has finally made it's way to SF. As hipsters take over the the mission, it is only a matter of time before trends become the constantly fleeting norm. To the list of currently flourishing Mission trends, (i.e. food carts, pop-up makeshift restaurants) add bacon-flavored cocktails. The last place one might expect to find such a trendy spirit is Pop's Bar on 24th and York. Nevertheless, amidst dusty broke-down chandeliers, blaring random jukebox music and drunk girls singing and dancing around the entire bar to Freddie Mercury's "We are the Champions," I am served a bacon-infused cocktail. As far as I know Pop's in the only bar in the city serving up this liver damage/possible heart attack combo in a glass. That being said, lone star or not Pop's Bacon Bourbon lacks, at best. Anyway you slice it, and I did a few different ways (a bacontini, bacon bourbon neat and a bacon concentrate of some sort,) Bacon bourbon is not good. To start the bacon flavor isn't really there. The only thing I taste is bourbon. Bartender Tuffy says he used to rim the martini glass with butter and bacon bits for extra bacon flavor, but no longer does. Bartenders in this dive make the base spirit by infusing Safeway deli bacon and a bit of fat in the liquor for a week. Then while mixing your bacon drink of choice they muddle bacon in the glass, shake and strain. Tuffy makes mine with Woodford Reserve, a respectable bourbon but the result is a terribly salty cocktail that is about as smooth as sandpaper. This little piggy thinks DISGUSTING. 2800 24th Street, (415) 401-7677

Lend Me Your Ear

The famed Pizzeria Delfina has added to the daily changing menu of both locations Pigs Ears. For $7 dollars not including tax or tip those tattooed servers in their yelp tee shirts will bring out a platter of, that's right ears. Cut into thin strips, battered and deep fried, they are served with a slice of lime and Calabrian chili oil in a Sanbitter bottle that has been repurposed into an oil shaker. As if the food weren't reason enough you've got to love SF restaurants for all of their "green" efforts.

Delfina falls right in line with their recycled wine bottle water carafes, repurposed chili oil bottles and waste not want not attitude- please believe they are not letting any parts of a pig go to waste. Just ask about the ciccioli on the affettati plate.

White people all over the city are now open to consuming a food usually reserved for dogs thanks to the research and culinary vision of chefs Craig Stoll and Anthony Strong. I'm guessing the close proximity of the restaurant to a dozen mission carnicerias probably was not a hinderance in their creative process, either. Crisp and chewy at the same time, the ears are DELICIOUS spritzed with lime and doused in chili oil. Reminds me a bit of calamari; bacon flavored calamari. But that's just my opinion. 2406 California St, (415) 440-1189