Pork

With these tits I can't walk.
San Francisco, California - April 2005

As a Jewish guy, one of my longest-held philosophies is that any time I have the chance to eat more than five different flavors of pork on one sitting, I take it, even if it means travelling long distances to do it.

On Sunday, Tanja and I went to bruch at the Top of the Mark restaurant at the top of the InterContinental Mark Hopkins Hotel on Nob Hill (not to be confused with the much more famous and far less hilly Nob Hill section of Albuquerque, New Mexico), thanks to a gift certificate from Tanja's sister Robin, and her husband Steve. The Top of the Mark is the place that we've talked about going to a bunch of times since we moved here. We'd get all dressed up, and head up there for a night of martinis and dancing while the city passed innocently below us. When we got the gift certificate, we wondered how many martinis and glasses of port we'd need to drink to finish it off.

I'm not sure where the inspiration came from, but Tanja set us up with reservations for brunch, and there we were. They welcome you into their restaurant like you're a long lost cousing, and shuffle you to your table as the harpist plays her version of "It's a Wonderful World." It was the first sunny and clear day of the year, a gorgeous spring day, and we could see past the Golden Gate almost all the way to japan out the massive windows. It was a stroke of brilliance by Tanja, only made even better by our champagne-pushing waiter, Bryan, who also gave us a tip on the best dim sum around.

As it turned out, I managed nine different types of pork in that one meal.
1) Sausage; 2) Regular ol' American bacon; 3) Canadian bacon; 4) Some kind of salami; 5) Prosciutto; 6) Baked Ham; 7) Serrano; 8) The pork in the small selection of dim sum (not the stuff Bryan recommended); and 9) Average Joe omelette ham. On top of this, was a bonus of at least 5 different cheeses. All of it great, and I'm not even going into the shrimp coctail and oysters.

What a way to spend three hours. If you've got $75 a head to spend on brunch, I can't recommend it enough.