Tomas Rahal,  local entrepreneur, restaurateur (owns Mas) and former UVa architecture graduate student, declares peace in response to the heated commentary in last week’s fancy Spanish Bellota ham post.  After reading his comment, I knew then and there that it had to be immortalized for everyone to see on cVillain’s front page.  This comment gives a terrific insight into a wonderful and carefree personality:

Make Jamon not war! Jamon Bellota is indeed rare and serves to illustrate the great divide between sustainable agriculture and agri-business. These pigs are the descendants of Europe’s arboreal forest pigs when acorns and hardwood mast were more plentiful before the armadas cut every dang tree down for warships and crucifixes. It is delicious, melt-in-your-mouth scrumptious with incredible marbling enhanced by years of aging. Years of aging, (not weeks like American hams which are injected with cure and whose production leaves indescribable bio-waste behind) and the patience to wait make it so much a treat. Our’s is aged minimum of two years but families and producers have been known to bust out the 5-10 year-old Jamon or Palleta which is the shoulder cut. We are still waiting for the thoroughly discredited USDA to approve chorizo made from these pigs. There is precious little fat left on the exterior but what’s there makes damn fine chiccharon (pork rinds). The Spanish pigs live out on the Dehesas, an oak-strewn savannah, where they range freely eating ‘corns, roots, letting their fur grow out, fucking and making more Jamon in the hot Spanish sun. Sounds good to me. Where’s the wine? At no time do they consort with squirrels but i have heard of massive parties amongst the free wildlife when the shepherds or Pastors go to bed. Come and get it, it’s pricey but we just want you all to taste the best Jamon in the world. Then the wine!

I don’t think we have ever received such a candid comment from a local business owner in response to a post about something they offer, be it good or bad. Tomas, I want you to know from the bottom of my and the rest of us villains’ hearts, we love you. In fact, I think we like you so much, we want you on here more often.

PS:  send us your ham!

[pic of pigs shagging from bryangeek on Flickr]

I have heard from a couple people that Mas is featuring a very exclusive type of Spanish ham.  It is called “Jamón de Bellota” (hamm-one -like hamburg and ramone put together + bay-yota). It literally means acorn ham. The upper class pigs used for this type of ham lead a happy life (until slaughter). AGRC Tropical Spain gives us more detail:

The feeding conditions of the hogs are just as important as the kinds of hogs used. Iberian hogs are long legged, range fed and eat up to twenty pounds of acorns/day. “Jamón de Bellota” is “ham from acorns.” At this pace, the hogs gain about two pounds of fat/day but maintain a healthy lifestyle, living free range, not cooped up in tiny shacks or pens. The combination of a high fat, acorn diet, with a free-range lifestyle gives the hams that special, nutty taste. The majority of Iberian hogs are raised in Southern Spain near Portugal.

Jamón de Bellota, then, is a slow and very costly process. This is why there may be up to a two-year wait from certain farms for a good ham. (Keep in mind, this is only the feeding and raising process. We haven’t even begun to talk about production and curing!)

Do not confuse this king of ham with lesser common varieties of Spanish ham. Apparently most ham comes from white hogs and aren’t fed acorns to speed up production times (sounds a lot like American industrial farming yes?).

While I haven’t tried this ham personally, I did see an entire leg of it at a friend’s apartment in Miami last December. His older brother put in an order two years prior. Besides waiting for the ham to cure he had to wait for customs to authorize this type of cured meat for import. I wish I had known what was sitting in that wooden crate in front of me at the time…

Has anyone else tried this? For those of you interested in throwing an acorn-ham themed cVillain party, you can do us all a favor and order an entire leg from La Tienda, and save us $1,500 (completely serious).
[pic from ABACERIA DEL SUR on flickr]

If you recall, we reviewed Si Tapas in Richmond a few months ago.  Our conclusion was “if Si Tapas can overcome a difficult location, a very large venue and do a par or better job with service, then Mas should watch out, in fact, everyone in Charlottesville should watch out because small plates with unique tastes are winners in this town.  I’m really looking forward to Si Tapas and I hope you are too.”

So, what’s going on at the Charlottesville Si Tapas?  

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A birdie just told us Si Tapas will open tonight!  Make sure you check it out and let us know how it compares to our Richmond experience.

You know you are a little crazy about food when you trap your friend into driving over an hour from Charlottesville to Richmond to eat dinner at a place called “Si Tapas.”  My companion goes “but Thor, why do we have to go to Richmond, can’t we just eat at Mas!?”  I told this one (who grew up hunting wild animals and knows how to wrestle bears, but barely knows how to use the internet) that it’s something I’ve been meaning to do and we can’t question my intentions.  I digress.

In case you didn’t know, Si Tapas will open in the old Star Hill space in Mid-Town within two weeks.  It’s an exciting competitor for Mas, which is loved and hated by Charlottesville for its food and service, respectively (despite the employee praise that happens on this site, it’s a common issue).  What better way to preview it for Charlottesville than to visit the Richmond location?

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Thanks to Frenchy for tipping us on a new Tapas place that he/she says could fill the old Star Hill Building.  Is it funded by a wealthy man from Richmond?  Who is the chef?  We are still curious about the details on this one, so please share.  No word on the service expectations.

Secondly, a birdie let us know that the executive chef Bryan has left Ten and left C-Ville.  Ten has recently hired a new executive chef.

[1st pic]