Au Pied de Cochon

Last night's dinner with Gabriel and Jane at Au Pied de Cochon was, how do we say, "the pig's foot". (I wonder if the French would say this like the English say "The dog's bollocks"? Heh.)

We started with a sampler plate, followed by poutine (cheese fries) topped with foie gras and another foie gras dish with thick bacon and a sweet sauce on a bed of something I haven't figured out. Then came the sweetbread pastry, and the piece de resistance: the restaurant namesake au pied de cochon, an actual pig's trotter that went up to the knee, stuffed w/ foie gras, laid atop a bed of cheesy mash potatoes in a mushroom sauce. Eugenia, our lovely waitress for the evening, clued us into the secret technique to "carving" this monumental dish: stab it in the center with a steak knife and slice lengthwise away from the trotter end, so that the treasures within burst forth. We didn't realize it was going to be that much food. Gabriel took a picture to prove we actually ate it. By the time we got to it, we were almost full. We fought bravely to finish, but alas the lovely trotter won. No dessert for us. And I think I'm going vegetarian today.