Best Thing We Ate Last Night: Bone Marrow at Hog & Rocks

By Meesha Halm

While all eyes are across the street from Hogs & Rocks, where the Maverick team is inching closer to opening their third Mission venture Hi Lo BBQ, there’s plenty of exciting stuff worth paying attention to at the two-year old neighborhood gastropub known for its trifecta of ham, oysters and whiskey. New executive chef Robin Song, who came aboard in October after working with Daniel Patterson at Plum Bar and Haven, has slowly been elevating the pub grub menu while still keeping the tried-and-true bar favorites - pimento cheese, pretzels, etc.

We stopped in last night to check out some of the dishes. To start we enjoyed a self-guided exploration of the restaurant’s namesake items with a sampler plates of both, but we also dug Song’s newest dishes including an expertly executed two-tone baby heirloom beet salad garnished with tangles of fennel, dollops of brandied goat cheese and crunchy wild rice nuggets that reminded us of earthy Rice Crispies. Song is really embracing the whole snout-to-tail thing by utilizing every part of the pig, which resulted in last night’s housemade coppa di testa appetizer, slightly crunchy paper-thin slices of headcheese. But our favorite hands-down was a not-so-small plate of roasted bone marrow topped with mélange of pickled cauliflower, onions, grapes and raisins, which embodied the best of agrodolce, equal parts sweet, sour, meaty, creamy and crunchy.

3431 19^th St.; 415-550-8627