Peter Luger's Thick Cut Bacon

Now, that's more like it. Every standard bacon experience has been lacking something, a certain meatiness that you just don't get with ultra thin slices. I've learned that crispy bacon doesn't do it for me, and being the type for soggy, floppy bacon has left me famously disappointed. Bacon that I truly enjoyed was literally a birthday gift.

My mom asked me where in New York I wanted to eat for my birthday, and my answer spilled out instantly. Peter Luger is arguably the best steak house in the city, and I'd only heard tales of their butter like steak from my brother, far more of a meat connoisseur than myself. My mom obliged her baby boy and just a couple of days before my 26th, I was at a table with her, my meat-loving brother, my very-soon-to-be sister-in-law, and my oldest-friend Jes-hyphen-hyphen. One of three appetizers ordered had to be the bacon.

There's some dispute as to where the bacon they use at Peter Luger comes from. There is unanimous agreement, however, regarding what makes it amazing. It's the broiler. You can try it a million times, but simple fried bacon just won't have the same result. While it was the tenderness of smoked pork belly done BBQ style that originally endeared me to this cut, this thick cut bacon was the best example of anything I've had that reaches that rubbery consistency in preparation. There are few foods more fun to bite into. As this stuff gets cooked, the contrast between the fatty and meaty stripes begins to blur. They begin to distinguish themselves past your teach, when the fat begins to disintegrate quicker. It's overall a much meatier eat, sparing the slight level of greasiness.

And then there was the steak...but this is a pork blog. You didn't think I would go into it, did you?