Here's something you might be interested in.
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed
Big Screen — Movie commentary
Blurt — Music's inside track
Booze News — San Diego spirits
Classical Music — Immortal beauty
Classifieds — Free and easy
Cover Stories — Front-page features
Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes
Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts
Feast! — Food & drink reviews
Feature Stories — Local news & stories
Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore
From the Archives — Spotlight on the past
Golden Dreams — Talk of the town
The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it
Letters — Our inbox
Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites
Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans
Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists
Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news
News Ticker — News & politics
Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated
Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna
Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated
Poetry — The old and the new
Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers
Reading — The hunt for intellectuals
Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails
San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds
SD on the QT — Almost factual news
Sheep and Goats — Places of worship
Special Issues — The best of
Street Style — San Diego streets have style
Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves
Theater — On stage in San Diego this week
Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative
Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work
Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego
Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads
Your Week — Daily event picks
Pig changes at Porchetta Shack
North Park's Snack Shack rebrands with a new pork obsession
Same old pig-topped shack kitchen and chef, new name
The first food story I ever wrote in San Diego covered then newly opened hole in the wall Carnitas Snack Shack. That’s hole in the wall in the original sense: just a window facing the sidewalk looking into a tiny kitchen. There wasn’t much else to the place at first. If you didn’t want your food to-go, a driveway to its left led to a couple tables and a cramped parking lot. There was little polish, just a bit of character appearing in the form of a cartoonish, pig-centric mural, and a pig sculpture placed atop the shack’s roof.
What the Snack Shack mostly had were decadently meaty hot sandwiches made by Carnitas’ cofounder and chef, Hanis Cavin. The Shack’s signature triple-threat sandwich — carnitas, schnitzel, and bacon — led a collection of pork dishes that quickly drew long lines to the University Avenue sidewalk, often til midnight. The driveway and parking lot were cleared out to make a backyard-like dining area, a shade structure went up, beer and wine joined the menu. New Snack Shacks were opened in other parts of town.
But times have changed, and Cavin has amicably moved on from Carnitas Snack Shack, while holding on to its original North Park location, now home to a new concept: Porchetta Shack. Not to worry, it’s still dog-friendly, and both pig statue and murals remain. And when I walked up to that shack window to order, I found chef Hanis back there, cooking in that little kitchen and pretty pleased to have come full circle.
A porchetta sandwich, served in a pool of bright red ahogada sauce
Because my finger’s always firmly on the pulse of popular opinion, I actually spent that first, 2011 article raving more about Cavin’s beef items: a ribeye steak melt on jalapeño cheddar toast, and in particular the shack burger. Which, to the chagrin of Rocky’s and Hodad’s loyalists, I declared it hands down the best burger in town. I still think it’s in the running, though now you’d have to look for it over at the shiny Embarcadero location.
For Porchetta Shack, Cavin and collaborator Stephen Gage have created an entirely new menu of meaty hot sandwiches, and this time I’m more on trend, raving about the namesake pork. There’s no escaping comparison when talking about this Shack verus that Shack, so I’ll put it this way. I think Porchetta Shack’s porchetta is better than Carnitas Snack Shack’s carnitas.
Porchetta is basically pork belly rolled up around pork loin and bunch of herbs, and roasted. For the signature Porchetta sandwich ($9.25), shavings of it are piled on a soft telera roll with mashed avocado and pickled onions, and smothered in a tomato and arbol chili sauce, a la torta ahogada. Except unlike an ahogada (which means drowned), this sandwich is served dipped in a pool of sauce, rather than smothered in it.
The smoky, spicy, and tangy sauce is addictive. I wound up dipping my $2.95 side of fried tater tots in it. But the sandwich tastes great without, because the shaved porchetta (pronounced either pork-etta or porch-etta, depending who you ask) bundles tender and juicy pork textures and flavors together in one sumptuous package, without being as overwhelming as the triple threat.
Another change Porchetta Shack brings is a full liquor license — just shots and you-call-its in the backyard unless a guest bartender shows up to make cocktails, which sounds like a sit-com premise, but a whole lot better.
Here's something you might be interested in.
Pig changes at Porchetta Shack
North Park's Snack Shack rebrands with a new pork obsession
Pig changes at Porchetta Shack
North Park's Snack Shack rebrands with a new pork obsession
Same old pig-topped shack kitchen and chef, new name
The first food story I ever wrote in San Diego covered then newly opened hole in the wall Carnitas Snack Shack. That’s hole in the wall in the original sense: just a window facing the sidewalk looking into a tiny kitchen. There wasn’t much else to the place at first. If you didn’t want your food to-go, a driveway to its left led to a couple tables and a cramped parking lot. There was little polish, just a bit of character appearing in the form of a cartoonish, pig-centric mural, and a pig sculpture placed atop the shack’s roof.
What the Snack Shack mostly had were decadently meaty hot sandwiches made by Carnitas’ cofounder and chef, Hanis Cavin. The Shack’s signature triple-threat sandwich — carnitas, schnitzel, and bacon — led a collection of pork dishes that quickly drew long lines to the University Avenue sidewalk, often til midnight. The driveway and parking lot were cleared out to make a backyard-like dining area, a shade structure went up, beer and wine joined the menu. New Snack Shacks were opened in other parts of town.
But times have changed, and Cavin has amicably moved on from Carnitas Snack Shack, while holding on to its original North Park location, now home to a new concept: Porchetta Shack. Not to worry, it’s still dog-friendly, and both pig statue and murals remain. And when I walked up to that shack window to order, I found chef Hanis back there, cooking in that little kitchen and pretty pleased to have come full circle.
A porchetta sandwich, served in a pool of bright red ahogada sauce
Because my finger’s always firmly on the pulse of popular opinion, I actually spent that first, 2011 article raving more about Cavin’s beef items: a ribeye steak melt on jalapeño cheddar toast, and in particular the shack burger. Which, to the chagrin of Rocky’s and Hodad’s loyalists, I declared it hands down the best burger in town. I still think it’s in the running, though now you’d have to look for it over at the shiny Embarcadero location.
For Porchetta Shack, Cavin and collaborator Stephen Gage have created an entirely new menu of meaty hot sandwiches, and this time I’m more on trend, raving about the namesake pork. There’s no escaping comparison when talking about this Shack verus that Shack, so I’ll put it this way. I think Porchetta Shack’s porchetta is better than Carnitas Snack Shack’s carnitas.
Porchetta is basically pork belly rolled up around pork loin and bunch of herbs, and roasted. For the signature Porchetta sandwich ($9.25), shavings of it are piled on a soft telera roll with mashed avocado and pickled onions, and smothered in a tomato and arbol chili sauce, a la torta ahogada. Except unlike an ahogada (which means drowned), this sandwich is served dipped in a pool of sauce, rather than smothered in it.
The smoky, spicy, and tangy sauce is addictive. I wound up dipping my $2.95 side of fried tater tots in it. But the sandwich tastes great without, because the shaved porchetta (pronounced either pork-etta or porch-etta, depending who you ask) bundles tender and juicy pork textures and flavors together in one sumptuous package, without being as overwhelming as the triple threat.
Another change Porchetta Shack brings is a full liquor license — just shots and you-call-its in the backyard unless a guest bartender shows up to make cocktails, which sounds like a sit-com premise, but a whole lot better.
Comments