- Patricia Unterman
The marriage finally had to happen: a ham and oyster bar, breezily called Hog and Rocks.

I’m glad it happened in the laid-back Mission district, and that the idea occurred to Scott Youkilis, whose nearby Maverick is one of the best eating spots in town.

Youkilis, a native of Cincinnati, cooks unabashedly American. He first tasted country ham growing up near the ham-producing states of Tennessee and Kentucky.

Using hams at Maverick, he developed relationships with families that have been producing them for generations. Youkilis figured out that the best way to serve these salt-cured hog legs is like prosciutto, cut into thin, silky slices. At Hog, he offers four or five different hams each night. They include G & W from Murfreesboro, Tenn., aged nine to 11 months, at $11 a portion, a white plate covered with dewy pink slices. A frisee and cherry tomato salad garnish provides a wet counterpoint to this moist, fruity ham that’s balanced with a whisper of smoke.

Yes, you can choose San Daniele prosciutto ($10) or 15-month-old jamon serrano ($10), but why, when you can try ham from Caw Caw Creek ($14), a masterpiece aged in St. Matthews, S.C., and made from acorn-fed black pigs?

Very salty with lots of pure white fat and not a hint of smoke, this country ham tastes like the country — piggy and truffly. You need the buttered slices of soft, crusty bread that come with it to cut the salinity.

On the flip side of the ham menu is the oyster menu.

Though summer is not the best time to eat oysters, a few from the most-northern locales — crisp Summer Ice from British Columbia ($2 each), briny Wiley Point from Maine ($3) and firm, full-bodied Clavedon from New Zealand ($3), where it’s now winter — actually take the salt level down and the juiciness level up after eating the ham.

A select and blessedly edited list of beers, wines and cocktails, many at friendly keg prices, slake a mounting thirst.

Though his brother, Kevin, may be a baseball hero in Boston, our Youkilis bats a thousand with his clam dip ($7), a glass jar of smooth, gently clammy, chile-spiked sour cream surrounded by deliciously salty house-made potato chips.

And Youkilis’ jar of pimiento cheese ($6) accompanied with white bread, of course, made me sad about what I’d refused to eat all these years — once I tasted his.

If you long for vegetable matter, consider sharing the large chopped salad ($13), a colorful heap of little bits of radicchio, endive, beans, pickled peppers and cured meats in a piquant vinaigrette.

Or, you can gluttonously go for it with a grass-fed beef patty melt ($10), served on soft rye, crisp and buttery from toasting in a skillet, slathered with lots of sauteed onions, melted swiss and special sauce.

The set up of two long, raised communal tables in the center of a small room surrounded by tables and chairs on three sides, and a bar on the other, produces a terrible din during a packed house. Youkilis promises some sound-proofing soon.

In the meantime, savor those hams, plunge into dips and slurp down a few oysters. Who needs to hear with eating this good?

Read more at the San Francisco Examiner

Your New Spot for Shellfish and Swine in the Mission
Bacon was, understandably, the beginning of our pork obsession; it makes everything from ice cream and donuts to candy deliciouser.

So when we heard that new Mission restaurant Hog & Rocks, opening Sunday, would be pairing tasty swine with mouth-watering shellfish (in the form of ham and oysters), it seemed like a very logical eating step.

Diners can sample artisanal ham and bivalves from around the globe, with an Oyster Club in the works for frequent slurpers. The dim sum-style menu from chefs Scott Youkilis (of Maverick) and Ray England also includes crab and artichoke dip, fish pie with coho salmon and smoked trout, and corned beef tongue with crispy onions.

The vibe is straight-up laid-back: canned beer, chalkboard menus, specialty cocktails by the pitcher, and wide communal tables. Who knows what other happy pairings might emerge?

The City’s First Ham and Oyster Bar

This Sunday, you might be tempted to enjoy a few burgers, brats and beers.

Our advice: don’t. Well, okay, you can keep the beers.

Introducing Hog & Rocks, the city’s first ham and oyster bar, opening this Sunday in the Mission.

Basically, it’s a hangout for when you want to grab a late-night bite and a couple of cocktails with your buddies.

When you enter this temple of pork and oysters, take a stool at one of the communal tables across from the bar. Get things going with a round of Tequila Sunrises, mixed by Tres Agaves’ tequila-loving barman. Then, dive into a dozen oysters on the half shell paired with a plate of G & W Hamery ham—served with whiskey-glazed peanuts, as all ham should be.

And since Maverick’s chef/owner Scott Youkilis (brother to the Red Sox’s Kevin Youkilis) is behind it all, you’ll want to try his heartier dishes. We’re talking corned beef tongue with crispy onions—which, incidentally, is what Thomas Jefferson served at his July Fourth cookouts.

Oh, and in a few months, come back and scope out their oyster club (in development), which’ll track your tasting notes, your order history and any awe-inspiring feats of bivalve consumption you may achieve.

It’s like a baseball card for eating oysters.

Stoking the city’s obsessions with pork and old-timey libations is Hogs & Rocks, a casual, self-billed ‘ham and oyster bar’ in the Mission (from the talents behind Maverick and Tres Agaves) with a midpriced, American comfort-fare menu served till midnight; a boozy lineup of classic cocktails with retro pricing provides additional reasons to knock back the rocks, either at the walnut bar, communal tables or on the forthcoming patio.

There’s more to Hog & Rocks than its name intimates

Naming a restaurant can be problematic.

Take Hog & Rocks, a moniker referencing the new Mission restaurant’s genius commitment to serving both country ham and oysters on the half shell.

So much has been written about that clever combination that you might think the casual spot begins and ends with hog and rocks. Wrong.

Chef-partner Scott Youkilis and his chef de cuisine, Ray England, have assembled a collection of bold, reasonably priced plates meant for sharing–and pairing with the restaurant’s classic cocktails, keg wines and smart beer program.

The first section of the menu comprises superb jarred spreads, including zippy pimento cheese ($6) and chunky crab and artichoke ($8).

From there, the list swerves from sea to land with a rich oceanic incarnation of shepherd’s pie, with steelhead trout and fava beans ($13), and a lively salad ($10) of spinach with crisp wafers of corned beef tongue.

Even a local cliché such as the fancified burger ($10) is transformed into fresh meat: Here, a patty is pan-fried and served as part of a smashing patty melt on rye bread with Emmentaler and Frisco sauce.

A name, it seems, isn’t everything.

- Carolyn Alburger
Well look at the changes that have taken hold at the Hog & Rocks space since we last spoke. The first ever ham and oyster bar in San Francisco has turned out to be an 86-seat masculine boite, balancing candy-apple-colored chairs and cool slate walls in an Adamson-Molina design. Chef partner Scott Youkilis has brought on Ray England as chef de cuisine and Dave Esler as partner…because you can never have too many of those. The classic cocktails on which Tres Agaves’ Eric Rubin and GM Christine D’Abrosca consulted will comprise a refreshingly low price tag (still TBD), slapped on classics like the Vesper; made from gin, vodka and Lillet. Alcademics has the full list. And if you purchase a hurricane, $1 from the sale will be donated to the Greater New Orleans Foundation’s Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund. Not pictured here: a 16-seat outdoor patio to open mid-July.

- Jay Barmann
The new 19th Street eatery and watering hole, Hog & Rocks, allowed in its first Mission faithful last weekend, and it’s looking like the kind of concept that will be easy for most of that demographic to like: it’s airy, a little loud, the food is cheap, and the drinks are strong and fairly cheap ($6 wine on tap, $7 for cocktails, $9 for the New Orleans-style Hurricane, with a donation to the oil spill cleanup included). Beyond the oyster and ham bar offerings, chef Scott Youkilis’s menu is simple but still inventive and tasty, with a fish pie we wholeheartedly recommend, and a few nods in an East Coast direction like an Italian grinder, and a griddled patty melt. See all menus here, and below, check out our slideshow of the interior.

4. HOG & ROCKS
3431 19th Street, San Francisco
415-550-8627
When in the Mission, do as the hipsters do: Go to Hog & Rocks (the name refers to the section of the menu that features various types of ham as well as oysters).

Click here for the entire article and more from Chow.com

Brought together by random chance and inspired by the flavors they love, Lisa Gallinger, chocolate maker at Dandelion Chocolate and Michael Lazar, bar manager here at Hog & Rocks, are teaming together again on the afternoon of Saturday, May 11th to lead a tasting of single origin chocolates and barrel strength bourbons. This will be an opportunity to learn about the production of both chocolate and bourbon, understand how to best taste and evaluate each product and then experience the alchemy of tasting both together.

BUY TICKETS HERE

Lisa and Michael have worked together to pair three of Dandelion’s chocolates with three bourbons from Hog & Rocks’ extensive offerings. Highlights are recently released Cumboto, which Lisa herself developed, and the long sold out 2012 release of George T. Staff bourbon. Tickets are $40 each and space is limited to 40 participants. The event starts promptly at 3:30pm in the Hi Lo BBQ Mezzanine, across the street from Hog & Rocks. The tasting will run a little over an hour and participants must be 21 years or over.

Off the Grid recently launched their second six-month run of Picnic at the Presidio where we will be shucking oysters and serving other bites from The Hog every Sunday through October. Located on the Main Post Lawn in the Presidio, find us alongside SF’s favorite restaurants vendors and food trucks, as well as a collection of local farmer’s market vendors and a full cocktail bar to round out the perfect picnic.