Category Archives: manhattan

Frank and The Whole Roasted Pig

Frank Piazza of the Piazza Brothers Winery approached us with a bottle in his hand. We were there for the Sopressata Making Class, an occasion good as any to showcase the winery’s collection.

“See this guy on the label?” Frank Piazza asked. On the label was a blue photo of a guy posing in a manner that must have been trademarked by James Dean – sitting on a set of steps, one foot resting higher than the other, arms leaning lazily the way only a carefree young man would.

“That’s me,” said Frank.

Of course it was. The last time we were approached by an older gentleman who claimed it was his younger self on a wine bottle’s label, we were at a wine store in Brooklyn and the man was a goon in one of the older Godfather movies. How appropriate that we’d hear the same line again, but this time, in a non-descript warehouse in Staten Island beside an adult video store. Should we have started looking over our shoulders?

Instead Frank Piazza took it upon himself to sit us down and demonstrate the “proper” way to taste wine. Other than the usual nosing and legs examination, he prompted us to take a bit of wine a keep it for a few seconds in the front of our mouths, pooling around our bottom incisors.

“Okay,” he said, “now slowly move your tongue around it, then swallow.”

As he predicted our tongue split into several parts, the sides tingling from the acid of the wine, the tip from the sweetness, the back from the bitterness. I had never tasted wine like this before, and being no connoisseur, a new way was welcome. (Of course after further reading, apparently the existence of the tongue map is insgnificant, but I still thought it was pretty cool to demarcate the areas of your tongue with a sip of wine.)

After the class a whole roasted pig was served, and he cut it so expertly that I began to doubt the expertise of the butchers I watched in my homeland.

We explained to the wine and sausage makers that a whole roasted pig was a fixture in Filipino parties. They smiled and said this one was actually from Chinatown. That explained the Five Spice Powder taste it had about it.

Either way we feasted, crunched on the skin, and I was able to scam the head to make some lechon paksiw. Good times!

Thanks, Frankie!

Frank Carves a Whole Roasted Pig

My plate of crispy skin, pasta and salad.

The head I scammed and took home to make Lechon Paksiw (recipe next post).

Hong Kong Supermarket: Old-Fashioned Food Shopping, Modernized

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The time I was a child was long enough ago that I still remember when there was no such thing as a grocery store in our suburban village in 1980s Manila. We had a refrigerator that worked but could not make ice nor keep ice cream frozen. It was a maroon White Westinghouse fridge that we go scolded for if we opened and closed it too often, and while we rarely had ice cream at home, the perk was that if someone did get an ice cream cake for his or her birthday, the whole thing had to be consumed on the spot.

The point of this reminiscing is the difference in cooking practices during that time. If I was home from school I would go with my nanny to the “wet” market in the morning for the evening’s meal. (It was really wet. We had to wear rain boots or soak our feet in rancid fish-washed mud.)

HK Supermarket’s Fish Section (no muddy feet here).

This practice disappeared when “super” markets rolled into town. Suddenly there were industrial sized freezers for meat, refrigerated shelves for produce, and styrofoam tray-backed flash frozen fish from the closest port. We got a better fridge and shopped for a week’s worth of food at a time. (There was still no ice cream, but that’s another story.)

It’s not surprising in spite of these conveniences that many people still shop the old-fashioned way. They go to markets to see what’s in season and create a meal plan from there. At least in New York and other Chinatowns in the US, there is still a market for fresh-for-the-day produce, meat and fish. You may still get fruit, vegetables, and seafood for a fraction of its normal cost – but don’t expect it to last. Don’t expect it to be pretty either. A lot of Chinatown’s markets are on the street or in tiny run-down stalls where an elderly gentleman gently prods you to take for cheaper a quantity much more than you will need.

For the shopper who has only recently discovered Chinatown delights, it would be refreshing to learn that establishments like Hong Kong Supermarket provide the medium in between street market shopping and a controlled supermarket environment where everything is organized and stored as opposed to the supplier-to-street system employed by sidewalk vendors.

Of course, some markup is inevitable. But since supply is great and demand even greater,inventory flies fast enough to maintain a cost comparable to other vendors, but with the convenience of a one-stop shop.

Hong Kong Supermarket (with branches in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Elizabeth street in Manhattan) not only has competent produce and meat sections, it also boasts aisles of common Asian dry goods including many Filipino staples such as toyo, suka, tuyo, dried mangoes and Nata de Coco.

What more do you need? As an acquaintance often said, “Can’t complain a lick!”

The meat section. This is where I can reliably get slabs of pork belly, and only at $2.39/lb.

The vegetable section is large and complete as far as most Asian kitchens’ standards.

In this picture we can see Chinese cabbage, mustard greens, scallions, leeks, lettuce, mushrooms, been sprouts, broccoli and celery.

A favorite treat is purple yam, a super-sweet yam perfect when baked wrapped in foil.

This sells for about $3 apiece at Fresh Direct. Here it is $1.99 a pound.

This must be the most diverse mushroom section I’ve seen, although they do not have the exotic specialty mushrooms, you have most of what you would commonly need.