Bites at Dark and Delicious 2012

It was Dark and Delicious if you know what I mean. If you are thinking about Petite Sirah, tasty bites, Chocolates and alot of Pigs then we are on the same page. It's my first time going to this event and I loved it. The event was held at Rockwall winery in Alameda which is a beautiful event space with a great view of the San Francisco skyline. This is the perfect place for this celebration. You are surrounded by barrels of wine on an old airplane hangar. There was a lot of delicious food, mostly pork since the event was sponsored by the National Pork Board. There's a lot of chocolates too that goes well with the wines. If you can't get enough, you can get both pork and chocolate in one with the salted caramel bacon chocolate from Nosh this or Fraiche catering's Bacon brittle.

Dark and Delicious is a yearly event by PS I Love you. It's a celebration of 58 Petite Sirah wineries and delicious food to pair with it. The event is mainly to promote the wines and the local food purveyors. Most of food vendors were not familiar to me. There were a lot of catering companies and local Alameda restaurants during the event and most of them delivered great and exciting pork goodness.

Since I'm not really a wine enthusiast, I mainly took photos of the food. Here are the food memories:

Pig's candy from Fraiche catering

Ham.Brie.Fig

Poblano Braised Pork, Cumin scented Tortilla chips and Cilantro Gremolata from Fume Bistro and Bar

Venga Paella

Pork loin and pear from Angela's Bistro

Chicago BBQ riblets and chipotle coleslaw from Blue Heron

Seared Pork loin with chimmichurri from California Rose catering

Meatballs from Mary's Pizza shack. These are some tasty balls

C'era Una Volta's pork dish (It was salty for me)

Big Jim's Pulled Pork BBQ sliders

Another pulled pork dish

Bhel Puri from Savoy

Paella on a pastry dough from Paul's Paella

Bacon salted caramel from Nosh This

Lamb with mint sauce and eggplant puree from 9 catering

Sous Vide Pork Belly with Umeboshi Plum sauce and micro greens from Chef Tyler Stone

My Top Bites:

1. Chef Tyler's Pork belly which was sous vide for 36 hours and then seared topped with plum sauce and microgreens. It was so tender like butter, well since it's basically 90% fat with that crispy skin was just sinfully good. I got 2 bites of that which is enough! :)
2. Big Jim's Pork BBQ sliders were amazing. There was a bunch of pork sliders served and this was my favorite. It has the right smokiness and a good amount of pork and sauce in it.
3. Venga Paella was very tasty. There was a couple of Paella dishes during the event. One was wrapped in some sort of pastry and the other was more straight forward which is the one I liked more. They were both good but Venga's Paella was tastier and seasoned perfectly. 
4. Savoy's Bhel Puri was the most interesting dish I tasted that night. It was packed with flavor. It has a lot of spices with puffed rice, potatoes and beans and it was complemented by the wine they served with it.  

FYI: Petite Sirah is related to the True Syrah of Rhone Valley. Syrah is the father of Petite Sirah. Petite Sirah aka Durif arose as a seedling around 1880, in the experimental vineyard of Dr. Durif in Southern France. The seed that became Durif was the result of cross-pollination between old French grape called Peloursin and Syrah. Thus Petite Sirah shared half of its DNA with Syrah. Now you know! (from Carole Meredith, Professor Emerita, Department of Viticulture and Enology, University of California, Davis)

It was a very sinful yet amazing night. Sinful because I think my cholesterol got extra high that night from all the swine. I think I consumed a whole year's worth of pork but it's sooooo good I couldn't resist. It's so bad it's good. Not to mention the delicious wines. It was simply a Dark and Delicious night for sure. Thanks PS I Love you! Til next year!