Testaccio’s Roman style porchetta was a hit among both pork lovers and shutterbugs.

An eclectic roster of 46 restaurants serving everything from bacon brownies and avocado shakes to Roman style porchetta and  Jamaican jerk chicken gathered under the gantries last night for the 5th annual Taste of LIC. “Long Island City is the greatest neighborhood in New York City,” New York City Council Member Jimmy Van Bramer said his in his opening remarks before pausing for dramatic effect and adding, “and so are Woodside, Sunnyside, and Astoria.” The gala event to benefit The Chocolate Factory Theater was held in Gantry Plaza State Park with the stunning New York City skyline as a backdrop. 

Adora Bacani matriarch of Ihawan loads up on miniature beef patties at GoldenKrust.

Like many a neighborhood in Queens, Long Island City has a truly international flavor and the event reflected it. In one corner alone there was Tropical Restaurant serving Ecuadorean cuisine, GoldenKrust with such Jamaican specialties as fiery jerk chicken, and Ihawan 2’s Filipino fare. The tag line for the evening was “LIC Your Plate Clean,” and boy did I ever.

Ihawan 2 had pork skewers along with chicharron manok and lumpia shanghai.

It’s real hard for me to pass up cracklin’ of any kind, and so it was with Ihawan 2’s chicharron manok. The crunchy sheets of chicken skin were served with a bracing pickled papaya slaw. Crispy rolls of lumpia Shanghai and pork skewers were tasty too. For dessert there was a slushy avocado shake that I returned to several times during the balmy evening.

Chef Hugue Dufour of the forthcoming M. Wells has seen the porktastic light.

I’m not quite sure what Quebeco-American food is, but Hugue Dufour plans to start serving it later this month at M. Wells Diner. One thing it isn’t is poutine. He refuses to make it here even though he’s from an area of Quebec where the mess of fries, gravy, and cheese curds comes larded with foie gras “The curds just aren’t squeaky enough,” he lamented. In the meantime his maple glazed pork will have to do.

A closer look at Dufour’s pork.

For some reason I think last night is the first time that Dufour uttered the words, “Eat it like a taco.” Which is exactly what I did, though with its green leaf lettuce wrap it was closer to Korean bulgogi. Delicious Quebeco-American bulgogi that is.

Testaccio’s little pig sandwich was magnifico.

I’ve seen bigger, sexier pigs in my day, but for some reason Testaccio’s pig drew me and many other guests like a moth to a flame—a delicious porky flame. The chef went through two pigs during the three-hour event. I’ll be attending the restaurant’s porchetta night sometime in the very near future.

El Ay Si’s pressed pork belly with caramelized apple butter.

El Ay Si’s tag line is comfort food. The words “comfort food” don’t do its pork belly justice though. Orgasmic is more like it.

Sage General Store made its opinions about bacon pretty clear.

Sage General Store went whole hog to promote its Bacon Brunch by serving BLTs, bacon mashed potatoes and perhaps the evenings most decadent offering: bacon brownies.

Next year room will need to be saved for Sweetleaf’s cupcakes.

While there was plenty of other food to be had, including meatballs served by Mario of Mario’s Deli, delicious octopus salad from Manducatis Rustica, and cute little cupcakes from Sweetleaf the pork dishes were tops in my mind. The real winner, of course, was the evening’s beneficiary, The Chocolate Factory Theater.