Dino's "Big Pig" event

In a culinary tour de force, Dean Gold offered a tasting menu of several dishes featuring the Mangalitsa pigs that originally hail from Hungary and which a local farmer is raising.

The pigs are odd-looking because they have curly hair that looks like sheep's wool. Dean explained that Bryan Kerney, who was at the dinner, has been raising them at Truck Patch Farms.

Every one of the 11 dishes was excellent, though I liked some more than others. The portions, of course, were quite small, but as long as you keep in mind that a tasting menu is more like a culinary seminar than a meal, it works fine.

Serving some 50 people with such an elaborate menu clearly challenged the capacity of Dino's kitchen. The evening stretched to three hours, which was simply too long, especially if you don't want to drink with abandon on a school night. Fortunately, we had some good table companions -- a father and son who each in his own way was a certified foodie -- and the time passed pleasantly enough.

A charcuterie trio featured a pig liver terrine in pancetta, a mushroom and pig terrine, and duck fat hock rillettes. All three were terrific, though my favorite was the one with pancetta -- it had an earthy, pate flavor and robust texture that I like. The rillettes was very good. Dean explained he used duck fat (from D'Artagnan) to lighten the otherwise porky menu.

A second set of starters was the chicharrones -- crispy pig skin (cracklins, pork rind) -- and burnt ends with Tuscan barbecue sauce. Both good but Arthur Bryant has nothing to worry about.

One of the stars of the evening was the grilled radicchio leaves wrapped in a Tuscan bacon made with pork belly that was braised, sliced then cooked to crispy. Here's where you want to exit a tasting menu and just get a large order because the single serving per person was frustratingly small.

The cheesy Calabrian meatballs, Dean explain, had a lot of bread filling because traditionally it was a dish for poor people. These were very tasty, but had a tendency to fall apart. What stole the show was the San Marzano tomato sauce.

Duck fat matzoh balls in spiced pig stock would probably be my top candidate for the ax if you wanted to lighten the menu and shorten the evening. The matzoh balls were a bit heavy, and the dark, spicy broth was not at all bad, and probably fine on a winter evening as a starter. I get it that this was a way to introduce some starch into a menu that otherwise was almost pure meat and fat.

The head and neck stewed in chickpeas would be second on the list for the ax. I like chickpeas and the little bits of meat were tasty enough, but the presentation was unappetizing and this was the only dish that was not fully eaten.

The Tuscan tomato sauce with trotters and spices on shell pasta (canestri), on the other hand, was a big hit. The pasta was terrific and perfectly cooked, and dressed nicely with the by now familiar taste of these Mangalitsa pigs

The pork shoulder pot roast with vinegar and herbs -- called the jailhouse stew in Italian -- was the crown of the meal and appropriately delicious, though I would fault the planning for not making this a bigger portion. At least one dish should be more than a tidbit to give the illusion at least of a meal, and this was the obvious candidate.

The pork from the Mangalitsa has a rich, deep flavor. You would never call this the "other white meat." Dino's is offering the choicer cuts on the menu this week, though I'm not sure I'll go back right away. Truck Patch Farm sells its products at the Mt. Pleasant market starting in May, so that is probably where I'll get my next Mangalitsa.

For this tasting menu, Dean offered an optional Sicilian wine flight. I'm sure the wines were quite good, but at $30 for three 3-oz. pours, seemed a little pricey to me. We opted instead for the 8-oz carafe of the open reds, taking a Corte alla Flora "Giugiolo," a 2010 Prugnolo Montepulciano described as "explosive" and which opened up very nicely, and the 2009 Per Alessandra Barbera d'Alba described as "delightful," which was quite smooth. At one of the neighboring tables, a group of six men had the genial idea of each ordering a bottle for the table to sample. That is probably the way to go if you don't have to work too hard the next day.