Nose to Tail at Hundred Bar + Kitchen

Chef Andrew Cowan

If there are two things you can count on when you go to a meal being cooked by Chef Andrew Cowan, it’s that every course has meat and that you will never leave hungry, even if you can eat like the Hulk. This past weekend, Hundred Bar and Kitchen hosted a Nose to Tail dinner featuring various parts of an Irving’s Farm pig that had been broken down the weekend before. That evening, it was an intimate event consisting of my humans and I, @ThePorkGirl and a friend, and Alan Irving (@berkypigs2008) – one of the owners of Irving’s Farm.

Bacon Sriracha Popcorn

We began the night with bacon sriracha popcorn which was mildly salty with a bit of heat to finish. Then we moved onto a pork and sauerkraut soup made with hocks and trotters and homemade sauerkraut. Although I’m not normally a fan of sauerkraut, the sauerkraut in this case was actually fairly mild with a very light broth filled with shredded pork, it was a nice, light dish to start the meal with.

Next we moved onto a porkolicious dish disguised as a pork salad over flowing with cured pork loin, otherwise referred to as lomo, scrapple - essentially pigs head polenta, chorizo patties, pork belly, crackling, 63 degree eggs cooked in an immersion circulator, with a dash of greens spread throughout. The scrapple was soft and tasted of cornmeal with shredded pork dispersed within, while the chorizo was deliciously salty with visible bits of fat dotting the patty. The eggs had an interesting texture, not solid, yet not liquid, with an almost gelatinous texture too it, yet incredibly rich feeling, while the crispy pig skin was beautifully crunchy. My favorite was the lomo which luxurious and melted in my mouth.

Pork Salad

For our third course, we were presented with a play on liver and onions, a pork liver mousse served with caramelized onions, garlic, shallots, red and green onions. The mousse did not have an overpowering liver taste to it and was mildly sweet from the caramelized onions. The pièce de résistance though was house made pork sausages on top of cheese curd mashed potatoes with onion gravy. The mashed potatoes were unbelievably rich and luscious I luxuriated in every mouthful. The sausages piled atop slipped and slid elegantly down the mounds of potato. The sausages themselves were mildly spicy, but could have benefited from a tad more fat to make them more moist. Despite our best efforts, we hardly made a dent in this course, but were more than happy to take home a bounty and hefty box of leftovers. Last but not least, a dessert of cereal milk panna cotta with grilled peaches, strawberries, gooseberries, mint and bacon sugar, a delightful but thankfully fairly light ending to a meal of epic proportions.

Pork Sausage on Cheese Curd
Mashed Potatoes with Onion Gravy

As per usual, we were left with an abundant number of boxes filled with moolicious leftovers that we divided amongst our merry band of diners. Hopefully as word spreads of Chef Cowan's skill with all types of meats, more people will attend these absolutely fantastic and filling dinners. I look forward to the next dining event Chef Cowan puts on as I know that I will always leave any meal he cooks satisfied and satiated.

More photos at PhotoBucket!

Hundred Bar + Kitchen
10009 101A Ave
Edmonton, AB  T5J 0C3
780-425-0100
Twitter: @100BarKitchen, @chefcowan