Porchetta me horny

Price: $7 Porchetta on roll with wild parsley

Location: Roli Roti at the Ferry Building Farmers Market Saturdays only


I don’t claim to know it all, but when I see a sandwich that resembles a baby’s arm loaded with savory, fatty, and moist boneless rotisserie pork, I know my belly is on its way to epicurean nirvana. The Porchetta sandwich served up by Roli Roti’s enthusiastic team of sandwich artists has delivered both excitement and disappointment on a few occasions. Inconsistency you ask? Maybe it is the nature of the Porchetta sandwich that is to blame for my love hate relationship with this Ferry Building Farmers Market staple. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Porchetta, let me explain. The body of the pig is gutted, boned, arranged carefully with layers of stuffing, meat, fat, and skin, then rolled, spitted, and cooked on a rotisserie. Next, the jolly French man at Roli Roti slices thick rounds of Porchetta, layers it on a grilled hoagie which he rubs into the succulent juices that accumulate on the wooden cutting board, tops it with wild parsley and hands you over a creation that will either give you a 12 inch food boner or leave you questioning why you waited in line for 45 minutes for a sandwich loaded with gelatinous pork trimmings. However, with good karma and a bit of luck, the Porchetta sandwich with its crunchy salty skin and notes of wild herbs including rosemary, fennel, garlic, and lavender has the potential to put a smile on the face of samich gluttons everywhere! At $7 a pop, I would give this Italian piece of art 3.5 bites out of 5 on the samich scale.



Pyle Style