The Piggery

Restaurant Info:

The Piggery

423 Franklin St.

Ithaca NY

607-272-2776

We decided to try out the fairly recently opened The Piggery on a Saturday afternoon for a quick lunch. Their menu looked interesting for a light meal and we were eager to check out the butcher/deli offerings. Ithaca does not really have any butchers outside of the grocery stores (although Wegman's has good meat, it's not a real butcher shop), so we were excited for this. At the moment, The Piggery only does pork, but they are promising us that beef and duck will soon be available. While we're not going to review the butcher/deli offerings here (haven't cooked with any of their stuff yet!), I will say this - the staff was friendly and knowledgeable in answering questions about their various porks, hams, and sausages. They really seemed to know their stuff, including optimal cooking methods. The owners are actually Cornell alumni who studied molecular biology and engineering. They must be smart!

Anyway, on to the food that we ate! Tricia ordered "The Three Little Pigs" item, which came with a pulled pork slider, a "pig dog", and a taco with carnitas in it. Siddharth had the Italian Combo, which was basically a grilled sandwich with salami, "piggeroni" (I'll get to what this is), and cheese. We ate in the car, because, well, The Piggery does not have seating available, which is unfortunate. When we arrived at The Piggery, there was already a line of 7 customers waiting to order from the butcher. To our surprise, the glass case of pork was almost empty, maybe leaving 2-3 small tupperwares of bacon ends and 2-3 "piggeronis." And it was only 11am on a Saturday!

Tricia's Three Pigs, were actually not so Little. It it was a complete packed lunch. But don't let the sizes of each "pig" fool you. There was a great amount of taste in each bite.

Siddharth's grilled sandwich was a logical size for a light lunch:

Here's our review:

TASTE
Siddharth:
RATING: 8/10

My sandwich was actually delicious. "Piggeroni" turns out to be a 100% pork version of a spicy, dry sausage. It is not quite as spicy as pepperoni, but it has a spicier quality than typical Hard Salami. Regular salami was also put in the sandwich, making the overall taste very meaty. The cheese that was used (Red Meck) was very tangy, which was needed, given the strong tastes introduced by the meat. A typical white bread was used, and the sandwich was grilled to perfection. It was an extremely simple meal, but it was unarguable tasty.

I also sampled each of Tricia's pigs. Now these were all pretty delicious. The pulled pork slider in particular (pictured to the left) was done especially well. The hard roll that it was on was the perfect bread for it (held up to the juicy meat, but was really soft), and the red cabbage slaw was a great complement to the meat. The slaw was vinegar-based (not creamy/mayo-based) and I found this delicious. The meat was not sauced (not dripping in BBQ like many pulled pork sandwiches). I'll leave a complete review of the Three Little Pigs to Tricia, but I will say that this is probably the best item on the menu to order, as you get variety, good taste, and a good amount of food.

Tricia:
RATING: 9/10

I absolutely loved the pulled pork sandwich. I've never had a pulled pork sandwich that bite sized with an acidic punch. I think it was the vinegar slaw that really contrasted with the sweetness of the pork that made the sandwich. I love the crunchiness of the cabbage while the pork is smooth and soft. I appreciate eating a sandwich that isn't dripping in over-powering BBQ sauce, I love chewing the meat. The bun was a little sweet and really helped soak up the oil from the pork.

As you may know from one of my previous entries (That's what she said!), I LOVE HOT DOGS. So you can imagine my delight when I ordered Three Little Pigs. I was most excited about the pork hot dog. I will admit, when I first saw it, the color of the dog caught me off guard and I was expecting the chef to lay the dog in a homemade bun, not your Wonder potato hot dog bun (and when they toasted my bun, too!). But it was love at first bite. It was like no other juicy hot dog I have tasted, it was more like a pork sausage that was oozing with richness, perfectly seasoned with black pepper and salt and some subtle seasonings. And because it was oozing with richness (i.e. fat) the potato bun really helped soaking it up and cute down the heaviness of the hot dog. The hot dog itself was not too salty and it didn't taste watery like a boiled NYC hot dog. This was definitely cooked on a rotisserie.

And then there was the carnitas. This was on a typical palm-sized corn tortilla that was lightly toasted. The meat was pulled pork mixed with cabbage and carrots but very little seasoning. I didn't care much for the taste, but more so the texture and the richness of the meat. After one bite of this small carnita, juice from the pulled pork (not sauce) immediately flowed out, it was that "fatty" and rich! The tortilla really soaked up the juice well and it was not runny or too acidic at all. This little piggy should have gone to the market to pick up some salt.

Overall, I would order this again, but maybe skip the carnita and order 2 more hot dogs.

Menu Selection
Siddharth:
RATING: 7/10

This is strictly a lunch/breakfast place, so you don't expect to have a ton of options. However, if you like pork and ham, there are actually a good deal of option to choose from. The staff is also very friendly, and if you can come up with something not on their menu, they seem likely to put it together for you. They also serve coffee and a limited assortment of breakfast pastries (made off-site by other local Ithaca vendors). You have to have your mind made up that you want some form of bread (or tortilla), cheese, and pig before you go here, but if that's the case, they have enough variations to not get bored of for a while!

Tricia:
RATING: 7/10

I'm not sure if there's anything else on the menu that was interesting to me. Again, there aren't that many options (how many ways can you cook pork?) but what I ordered compensated for the lack of other dishes.



AMBIANCE
Siddharth:
RATING: 2/10

You could say that ambiance is not applicable because they don't intend for you to sit and eat, but honestly, this may be a real weakness of The Piggery. For a place that serves coffee and breakfast sandwiches, it would be a plus to be able to enjoy it leisurely and not in your car. Given that they don't serve you very fast (they make things to order, and they do it with care, so our two meals took somewhere between 7 and 10 minutes to get to us), having to wait in a tiny storefront can lead to overcrowding and being in the way of other customers. If The Piggery is serious about serving food in addition to offering fresh meat, they need to find some space for customers to sit, or they need to have more staff so that they can serve things to go much quicker.

Tricia:
RATING: 1/10

The shop itself was renovated from a drive-thru cafe. Most of the space was for fridges, toasters and counters for butchering. You'll definitely feel smushed up against the wall during the rush hour. It would have been nice to be able to sit down and eat with a nice view of the meat fridge, but I guess my car will suffice.

SERVICE
Siddharth:
RATING: 6.5/10

Everyone is really friendly at the Piggery. It was a pleasant experience to order from them. However, they are a bit slow and disorganized. After our orders were taken, it took a while for them to actually get to the cook. I think this is because most of the staff is new and still acclimating. The manager was very efficient, and she made sure that everything she handled happened fast, but the store was actually crowded, leading to delays due to the staff inexperience. I think this will get better with time, but as of right now, this is not the fastest place.

Tricia:
RATING: 6/10

I agree, you can definitely tell the staff didn't know how to separate out customers who wanted to order hot food and those who wanted to order from the butcher. And there was no space for them to form 2 separate lines. But the staff made sure every customer that entered was able to put an order in. I even saw that the lady-butcher gave a few pieces of bacon away for free as samples to a customer! I think once you develop a relationship with them, the service will be even better.


VALUE
Siddharth:
RATING: 6/10

The sandwich I ordered was overpriced at $5.95. While it was large enough for a light lunch, it was very small overall. For just $1.50 more, you can get much larger sandwiches with many more ingredients and bread choices at Ithaca Bakery/Collegetown Bagels. Actually, if it was just the sandwich I was rating here, I'd rate value much lower than 6/10. The caveat here was that The Three Little Pigs item was actually a good to great value. At $8.95, the amount of food and overall meat quantity was impressive. So in terms of value, I'd say that the individual pricing of items is a but skewed and confusing, but overall, it's an average value for the Ithaca Area.

I would visit The Piggery again in the future, and I recommend trying it for anyone that really enjoys fresh pork and ham.

Tricia:
RATING: 6.5/10

Siddharth's sandwich wasn't too impressive for the price he paid. To me, it was your typical grilled cheese with some bacon in the middle, pressed. I would save your $8 to buy your own bread and butter. The Three Little Pigs, on the other hand, was priced quite well, everything tasted rich and fatty. The hot drinks (coffee, lattes, teas) were $3-4, which is a bit expensive in my book, especially for a place that is not known for their coffees. Unless you're selling Ithaca Coffee Co., it should not be that expensive.