G. Snyder

Lindy and Grundy's Erika Nakamura cuts a hog down to size

If the air seemed a bit heavier with the scent of bacon along the Sunset Strip last night, it was due to the pork-centric carnival that rolled through the House of Blues on Sunday: the second annual L.A. stopover in the nationwide Cochon 555 tour, an event combining five chefs, five whole heritage-breed hogs, and five winemakers together into one bacchanalian cooking competition. This year's venue further cemented Cochon's reputation as the rock concert of food festivals, featuring a well-lit stage where live hog butchery subbed in for screaming guitar solos.

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Anne Fishbein

Butcher competition at the 2011 Cochon 555

Just when you'd managed to expunge -- via marathons and wheatgrass-and-spinach elixirs -- the last traces of Wilbur from your digestive tract, the Cochon 555 roadshow is back for another round. This time, five local chefs, five heritage hogs and five winemakers will tangle at the House of Blues on Sunday, May 6; and once again just one chef will be selected, by the judges and gathered swineaholics, to go on to the national competition.

According to the Cochon 555 folks, more than 1,200 pounds of pork will be served. Depending on your experience at last year's fest -- a carnival of sweaty, gluttonous overkill -- you're either salivating or hitting the back button on your browser.

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amazon

A Girl and Her Pig

As far as cookbook anticipation goes, April Bloomfield's new release, A Girl and Her Pig, which hits shelves in early April, ranks right up there on the crispy pig ear salad (p. 85) meter. Is it deserving of the hype? Perhaps.

But we're not going there just yet, even though we suspect other Google-searchable reviewers will get right to the sausage-stuffed onion (p. 174) point. For us, this book deserves more restraint than just digging right into that sweet banoffee pie (p. 270) commentary.

For starters, there are a few tricky stewed octopus (p. 107) moments in this book. Not tricky in that cooking octopus is difficult, but octopus requires cooking lightning-quick or long and slow, with very few forgivable text-message diversions in between. In fact, you could sum up Bloomfield's cooking style as one that, at its core, has been stripped down to the simplest country ingredients, yet the chef has a Thomas Keller-worthy attention to the tiniest details of that gnudi texture (more on those semolina-ricotta bites later).

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McDonald's

Is there a McRib-sized void in your arteries? In need of some cheese and bacon as well? Then book an international flight to Austria and indulge in McDonalds' newly introduced McRibster.

According to Burger Business, McDonalds' sandwich creation contains "juicy pork, bacon, pepper-Jack cheese, and crunchy iceberg lettuce, red onion, delicious honey-mustard sauce and spicy sweet chili sauce." By the looks of the photos, the slab of pork is breaded, unlike the McRib, which is slathered in barbecue sauce.

Who knows why McDonald's decided to only make the sandwich available in Austria, but based on the list of ingredients, maybe it's best that we keep this thing away from the U.S.

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Anne Fishbein

Amelia Posada and Erica Nakamura of Lindy & Grundy participate in last year's Cochon 555.

Cochon 555, that "Porkapalooza," that "locavore rodeo... of wine, pig and minor debauchery," will return to Los Angeles. After a successful L.A. debut in 2011, the 10-city tour of porcine bacchanalia announced its 2012 dates, which also include stops in New York City, Napa Valley, Memphis, Portland, Chicago, Miami, Washington D.C. and San Francisco before the big national throwdown.

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M. Caskey

You can smell the meaty goodness as soon as you park your car in the tiny El Taurino lot. Sure, the taco truck that sits behind El Taurino is just as popular as the restaurant itself. But for a full-fledged and full-flavored experience, dine in, not out.

Their torta al pastor is made with simple, classic elements -- refried beans spread on the bottom of the bun, al pastor meat on top of the beans, then fresh tomato, onions, avocado and crema. The slightly toasted telera roll is the perfect a perfect meal size, though it doesn't hurt to order a second item. Tostadas, anyone? And don't forget that sweet horchata to wash it all down.

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Flickr/Muy Yum

Gloria's carne adobada

Gloria's Cafe is a just few blocks away from Culver City's downtown proper, underneath a violently purple neon light which, if the restaurant weren't on a strip mall that also houses a liquor store and a tire shop, would seem out of place.

Gloria's is an excellent alternative to the liquor store, if your intention was to go in there and grab a sad dinner, or a very handy pit stop if you are waiting for your tires to be rotated. Else, for those who have no business at either the liquor store or the tire shop, it's a fantastic place to drop in on anyway. Once you step in from the concrete, you'll be whisked away into a homey, loving, family-run Mexican/Salvadorean operation, with possibly one of the best plates of carnitas in town.

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A. Froug

Braised pig's foot at Jangchung-Dong Wong Jokbal

Glistening under soy-glazed skin, slices exposing alternating layers of rosy meat, creamy fat and opaque gelatin, pig's foot at Koreatown's Jangchung-Dong Wong Jokbal arrives to the table on a silver platter, looking like a prop from the feast scene of a Robin Hood movie. One look at the slices tumbling over each other like pig dominoes, resting on gigantic bones, and you realize that this isn't really pig's foot at all.

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A. Scattergood

La Quercia on display at Catch

Last week was a particularly good time to be a pig fan in Los Angeles, as the traveling pork show of Cochon 555 held its first L.A. incarnation, so to speak, in the lately unhallowed grounds of Vibiana's. In the aftermath of the show, dubbed Porkapalooza -- read Jonathan Gold's review here -- chefs, judges and participants fanned out around the city to recouperate, powered by accolades, possible hangovers and residual bacon fumes.

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Back in November, we sounded a gleeful "soooooooweeeee" when we learned that Los Angeles was confirmed as a date for the travelin' pig-palooza known as Cochon 555. For the uninitiated, Cochon 555 is a massive party suffused with the scent of molten pork, which we'll take over a shot of anything. Five local chiefs spend a week turning one of five heritage breed hogs into an assortment of delicious dishes. On May 1st, at Vibiana downtown, ticket-buyers get to devour said dishes and quaff wines supplied by five special vintners. Local judges will name one of the chefs the winner and that lucky pig-wrangler will head off to the Grand Cochon competition set to take place on June 19th.

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