And now… a post from my partner in swine:
With my culinary soul mate all the way in New York, I’ve spent the last several years just kind of drifting around Toronto, not really opening up myself to all of the hole in the wall gems this city has to offer. Well, that ended today.
I just had an exhausting day traipsing across the city to try some random place in the middle of Parkdale, which is about as close as this city gets to having a ghetto. In recent months I’ve stumbled upon a great blog that visits these small, ethnic hole-in-the wall eateries and then write them up. After reading one of the posts earlier this week, I felt I had to venture out and try one of these places. Whooboy, was it worth it. I’d like to introduce you to Bernard’s.
It’s this little, easy to miss Filipino convenience store that also happens to cook up whole pigs. I’ll repeat that. WHOLE. PIGS. See, on your birthday you had a whole piglet. Which is different than a pig, in that it’s approximately one quarter the size. Don’t believe me? Well, I don’t own a digital camera and I have no idea how to hook up my phone to my computer to show you, so I guess you’ll have to believe me when I tell you that this thing was a hundred pounds if it was a gram. 
And the guy shuffling it in and out of the cooker happens to be an 80 year old Filipino dwarf man. It really was quite something.
If you’ve read the article I linked to earlier in this email, you know that they sell this stuff by weight and that it costs only $5.50 per pound. I almost had a coronary just reading that online last week. The pork on its own is quite a bit different than the stuff you and I are used to. First off, it’s not so much pulled as it is roughly diced, and it comes with the skin on, crackling and crunchy. Second, we’re used to pork that’s been liberally seasoned, either with a salt based rub or something with a bunch of spices. Bernard’s essentially leaves it alone, letting the fat inside the pork do all of the seasoning. As a result, the only thing you taste is the meat itself, and it was a bit surprising because my first thought was, “well, this is really tasty, but it’s missing the flavour of either a wet or dry rub.”
But then.
O then, comes the lechon sauce. I’m not sure if there’s a rigorous, dictionary definition of the word sauce as it pertains to cooking, but I’ve never had a ‘sauce’ quite like this. I didn’t get the master chef’s insight into what goes into this sauce, but here’s what I surmise are it’s two only ingredients: Ingredient #1: reconstituted pork fat; Ingredient #2: for each part of reconstituted pork fat, seven parts of sugar. When I die, my only wish is to be buried with a tub of this ambrosia.
Like all good hole-in-the wall eateries, Bernard’s has no tables and no chairs at which to eat. You must take everything out. I almost walked out of the place with my little plastic baggy of pork goodness when I turned to proprietor and said, “is there a fork in here?” I immediately felt ridiculous. It’s take out only. You need to eat this stuff 2 minutes after you walk out the door. Of course they gave me a fork. But then she says, “oh, you wanted a fork?” like my plan was to go outside and stick my face into the Styrofoam container and shovel the food into my mouth like a horse eating out of a feedbag. But take note; you must specially request cutlery.
I walked around the corner to a small parkette that looked like it had been flown in from Baghdad and ate my lunch on a park bench, like an animal. I’m going back next week if you’re in.
This Shit's Good 