A Casa do Porco is Portuguese for House of the Pig and this good sized place is all about pork.  They even offer a pig tasting, which features pork in all 9 courses (some just one bite),  that takes about 2 hours and an a la carte menu.  Pacing of the tasting was good as was the portion control.  A small newspaper is at your seat which describes in detail (in Portuguese) the pork tasting.  If you have the opportunity I highly recommend the place.  A large open kitchen is in the back of the space and there are pig decorations everywhere.  Music was in the background and the lighting varied depending on where you sat.  They did have good air conditioning, the bare wood tables had a red checked mat like in the center and the cloth napkins were the size of  dish rags.  The place quickly filled with people, in fact there was a line outside to get in when it opened.  Service was friendly but with limited English.  One interesting thing was that the bathrooms had dental floss dispenser – which was totally handy after a meal of meat.

 

The tasting started with “Breakfast” which was cured ham consommé, melon, sourdough bread, lard butter, mortadella with Brazilian nuts, pork couscous with flowers and mayonnaise salad with real Rueda cooked ham.  The thin sliced melon with what tasted like potato salad was excellent.  Pork couscous was well seasoned and reminded me of a tasty Brunswick stew.  It was good.  The bread was house made and had great texture.  It was fun with the lardo and/or tasty mortadella.  The ham consommé was well flavored but a tad salty.

 

The raw pork was aged meat mixed with wheat alongside beet hummus, herbs and and vegetables.  This was made from ham hock and more mildly flavored.  The wheat gave the dish a fun texture.  The beet hummus and cream, on the side, mixed in well and made for more interesting tastes.

 

Pork jowl was turned into sushi and plated with black tucupi (yellow sauce that has been caramelized after being extracted from manioc) and nori.  This was a one bite item and a little salty but the rice was perfect and the glaze on the meat was terrific.  Tasty.

 

“Parmegiana” was baked eggplant with free range pork ragú, mushrooms and parmesan cheese.  Some fried rind served as the base and the eggplant was on top of that mixed with Italian seasonings.  The rind was not as crisp as some but it was still very tasty and good.

 

The Pancetta with Guava contained pancetta crackling, spicy guava jam and pickled red onions.  It was presented under a ceramic pig’s head.  The fried bit of pork was wonderful and full of flavor and texture then further accented with the tasty guava jam.  A yummy bite.

 

Feuoada Mexidinha was made with broken rice, feijoada, collard greens, pickled cackrey and tangerine. The collard greens made up the sauce and the tasty, savory meat, beans and rice were topped with banana and tangerine.  Some Brazilian cucumber was mixed in and the total effect was a plate of comfort food.  Terrific flavor and texture.

 

Pork barbecue was a plate of pork sausage, vegetables and pork ribs.  The sausage was on tomato, pepperonicis and onions and was a tad dry.  The rib meat was succulent and tender.  There was a separate bowl of garlic powder if you wanted to add that.  It did help to add it to the vegetables.

 

San zé pork was pork that had been roasted for 6 hours.  It was served with sides of beans, banana tartar, onion farofa and collard greens.  The roasted pork had the crispest most wonderful skin and they offered 2 hot sauces to accompany it.  The red one was fruity but the yellow was full of spice.  The collards were shredded into a salad like dish with a light dressing.  The beans were nice and the bananas sweet.  The ingredients were all complimentary to yield a really tasty course loaded with fun flavors.

 

A pre-dessert was a dulce de leche candy.  It was sweet and a little granular.

 

Dessert was “Pamonha” and consisted of corn cream, goat cheese ice cream, crispy corn, pickled corn and corn stover dust.  The ice cream was corn flavored and really tasty.  The pickled corn was too tart to eat alone but mixed well with the other ingredients.  Mixing all the parts together gave you the best end result, which was good.