Ridgewood Pork Store

[k43]

Based on the story in the Times I went last Saturday to the Ridgewood Pork Store, 516 Seneca Avenue in Queens. It's hell and gone away from the BQE, or any other findable street, but it was worth the trek and more!

A single thin slice of the gypsy ham, quite lean and dry, is more than enough for my favorite Silver Bells rye, which is saying something. The wine salami with hazelnuts is amazing. Salami must taste like this in heaven. The double smoked bacon is another Platonic ideal. I also got some smoked duck breast, sealed in plastic, which I haven't tried yet, but it looks great.

The butcher was generous with samples, and I tasted some perfect garlic salami and chorizo. There were also great looking cappicola and mortadella, which I'll get next time.

A great discovery.

[Mistinguett]

Their Sunnyside store is much better located but the merchandise is brought in from the Ridgewood store. I haven't seen the wine salami with hazelnuts - I'll have to ask the next time I'll be in.

And I agree, they have some very good stuff, I've been a customer for almost 2 decades, having lived in Ridgewood before I moved to Sunnyside.

[hathor]

OMG. Weinoo, my husband and I took a road trip to Ridgewood this week. I'm still in recovery mode. To say they are generous with samples is a VAST understatement!!

The sheer variety of sausages and salumi is beyond comprehension.

Have a craving for Eastern European sausages..this is the place. Mamma freakin' mia.

[weinoo]

Yesterday, my friends Judith and Jeff, of Aroma Cucina fame, joined me on an excursion to Queens. Specifically, we drove out to Elmhurst for lunch (more on that in another post), and then followed up our lunch with a drive to Ridgewood...not because we were still hungry, but because I was on a mission to check out a place I'd been hearing about for, well, let's say a long time...

Yes, the Ridgewood Pork Store, deep in the heart of Ridgewood, Queens...not that far from where I grew up, in Forest Hills. I love this part of Queens - there's something so Archie Bunker about it; 2 and 3-storey buildings, with retail at street level and apartments above. Of course, just to prove their point that they sell pork, they have lots of porkers in the window. Jeff and I particularly liked the "piggy-bank," though Jude thought we were acting like 5th graders...

Upon entering, we were warmly greeted, and almost immediately the samples started appearing. We tried shouting "uncle," to no avail...

Now, J & J are no neophytes when it comes to pork. They spend more than 1/2 the year in a house they own in Montone, which is a little town in Umbria. They owned, opened, cooked in and managed a restaurant in Montone, which is entered via this gatehouse...

Umbria is, of course, pork-centric. But even these two were impressed by the offerings, which, to be fair, also included sausages of lamb, beef, head cheese and on and on. By the time we were done, we had sampled over a dozen styles of cured and smoked or cured and cooked meats. We walked out with a nice bagful of treats (hey, Significant Eater has to try 'em too) and vowed to return. Only next time, I'm going before lunch.

[vice]

Is that a capicola stuffed with forcemeat (left-hand side, between the ham and slices of belly)?

[weinoo]

Is that a capicola stuffed with forcemeat (left-hand side, between the ham and slices of belly)?

Yes. It was similar to capicola stuffed with another sausage.

[vice]

What will they think of next? Needless to say, I'm very jealous.

[hathor]

Is that a capicola stuffed with forcemeat (left-hand side, between the ham and slices of belly)?

Yeah..I think so. It was salumi stuffed sausage. By this point we had lost our marbles...

[David A. Goldfarb]

Archie Bunker wasn't too far away. The house from the opening credits on "All in the Family," I gather is in nearby Middle Village, on 80th St. around Metropolitan Ave.

[weinoo]

Archie Bunker wasn't too far away. The house from the opening credits on "All in the Family," I gather is in nearby Middle Village, on 80th St. around Metropolitan Ave.

Exactly!