Eugeapalooza IV: PigEat Fest

great weather at lake merritt, alsmost no clouds. i waited almost an hour to put my sunscreen on, and i got burned.
lots of old school Unilocalers. good people. i was here about 6 hours. we were the biggest of many groups in the area that day. parking kind of sucked, but we made spots where there were none.
they started the two pigs at 7 am, and they were ready at around 2 or 3 pm.
euge brought his cute puppy. and soju. tiffany brought her baby son.
there was tons of alcohol, and numerous sides. the sides pretty much disappeared shortly after they were put out. ok, they lasted a few hours, but many people arrived after that. i heard there was cake and walked over, and it was already gone. probably a good thing, since i had over imbibed the night before, so i wasn’t really eating. i did eat a few chicken drumsticks. and dug a few of them out of euge’s puppy’s throat.
really the only leftovers was a bunch of pork from the second pig. bella loudly took over the role of doling that out to everyone.
it was well organized. there was a little booth for signing in to verify that you paid.
the piñata was full of condoms, candy and mini bottles of alcohol.
all in all, a success. a fun filled day for all, family friendly.

great event. the $ 20 admission went to a great cause and was well worth it because i completely stuffed myself at the event. i was so full and drunk, that i didn’t eat or drink at the ufc 100 party i went to afterwards. and, as usual, i didn’t even touch the main attraction (2 whole pigs). but there were 50 pounds of jerk-​chicken wings at the event (seriously), and i easily had a couple dozen. i also had mac n’ cheese, pasta salad, chips, fried chicken, brownies, korean noodles, etc. and of course i had numerous amounts of beer, a cup of sangria, a couple swigs of grey goose with euge, and a few puffs of you know what with T. about an hour into the event, i was already bleeding.
the weather wasn’t the best for awhile (foggy), but it got better as the day wore on. i ended up getting sun-​burned yet again as my neck continues to get darker and darker. i enjoyed playing with all the dogs. i refrained from the piñata, for safety reasons, but i was able to hand out candy to all the little kids that were also at the park (non eugeapalooza). we also watched a hawk grab a mouse and then eat it. the raffle prizes were awesome (ad hoc dinner, $ 100 sports basement gift card, etc). we didn’t win, but congrats to all that did. i think that’s about all i can remember, but it was definitely a memorable day. i’ll definitely be there next year.

This was our second Unilocal Event and may I say it was fantabulous?! Euge and all other organizers did an awesome job on orchestrating this charity. A ton of donations were made by a lot of people for the raffle prizes. There were also a lot of food and booze contributed by everyone. They were not just food, they were all yummy good food for/​from the foodies. The best part was of course the two hogs… need I say more about AJ’s hog cooking skillz?! A picture is worth a thousand words and how many pictures do we have?! Here’s the link to our photos:
We want to thank Kevo M. for sharing the grill space with us.
We want to thank Andrew C. for helping and finished grilling up the rest of the drumettes for us!
Seb and I got a pleasure to meet a lot of friendly hardcore Unilocalers and handsome doggies. We look forward to more Unilocal events in the near future!

I should have known when walking through Bevmo and noticing all the alcohol that was getting thrown into the cart, that Eugeapalooza was going to be a very interesting but good time.
The weather was perfect, the food was good, and the sea of a hundred or so faces that were sprawled were all having a great time. Unilocalers are fun folks indeed. The two pigs and their roasting boxes was something ive never seen at a bbq before. It was awesome. AJ truly is an Iron Chef. There is nothing better than people getting together to help a good cause. Euge and all the organizers and sponsors deserve a big thank you and a big pat on the back for giving back to the community.
Highlight of the afternoon, besides the freestyle rapping going on after one too many cups of soju and beer… was the my little pony piñata filled with booze, condoms, and candy. Let me repeat that, BOOZE, CONDOMS and CANDY. Now thats my kind of piñata! Who does that?! A bunch of adults crowded around to break the thing apart was truly a sight to be seen.
It was a very good time and im glad to have been a part of it. Oh and i have to give a special shout out to Kristina for keeping me warm towards the end of the day. Thanks for letting me climb into your jacket while you were still wearing it… body heat, its all about the body heat! :)

20 bucks for food that you can eat till you’re a bloated fat-​ass. Everyone’s super friendly and hilariously drunk. And if you have good food where there’s drunk people, what can get better than that… Well, the fact that this is actually a fundraising benefit for the food banks in SF! That’s what!
You’re eating, drinking, playing games, hangin out, making friends, PLUS doing a good deed for it?! Hellz-​to-​the-​ya!

Now I’m pretty new to Unilocal,and very new to this group of people, and this was my first event out in the non-​internet world of Unilocal and it was a huge success!
I met so many great people, ate waaaay too much amazing food (I think my favorite was the chicarrones that Simone and Seb brought… I still want to know what made that sour cream so great!), and even though I didn’t get a chance to hit the My Little Piggy (a pony with vaguely pig like features) piñata, I think it’s hilarious that it ended up getting karate kicked open to reveal the candy, condoms, and little bottles of booze inside.
I’ll only be in the bay area for a few more weeks, but I’m so glad I got a chance to do this while I was around.

Crazy things happen at Eugeapalooza…
Not crazy is the fact that once again, the SF Food Bank was the benefactor for all the $$ as they are Euge’s (
) favorite local charity. Over the past few years, these events have raised a ton of money.
Not crazy was the fact that there was an amazing turn out at Lake Merced. It, it turns out, is the perfect location for Unilocalers and non-​Yelpers alike to get together for a great cause. Our blankets were all joined together and I got to be entertained & serenaded by the likes of Ed M, graceypoo, Todd, Faithy & Omar (who did NOT try to bust open a watermelon at this event (
). Crazy.
Not crazy was the almost over abundance of food. Between the pigs, fried chicken, mac ‘n cheese, potato salad, etc, etc., there was enough food to feed a small village. That’s just how we roll at Eugeapalooza!
It wasn’t even crazy that Euge got neked. At least I heard he did. Also not crazy was the fact that I saw him drinking Grey Goose, though, I don’t think it was his signature 3-​Grey-​Goose-​1-​cup of the past.
Nor was it the piñata… the My Little Pony/​Piggy piñata. Though how crazy was it that it was stuffed with candy, booze and condoms?!
What was so crazy? So different from the years before? Well… the last Eugeapalooza was where I luckily grabbed a certain handsome chicken-​fryin’ guys eye. And because of that particular Eugeapalooza, this time we have a sweet little nugget of a baby who is sure to get a kick out of his crazy, Grey-​Goose swiggin’, Food Bank fundraisin’, piggy roastin’ Uncle Euge. One day maybe he’ll be roastin’ a pig alongside his Uncle AJ? ;)
Amazing and crazy things happen at Eugeapalooza and I can’t wait to see how the next one will go down. Hopefully you’ll be there, too!

When I first joined Unilocal,I heard about this clam bake. I couldn’t go because it was a race weekend but I purchased some raffle tickets because it was for a good cause, the SF Food Bank. Turned out the organizer was a friend of my roomie. And that began our wonderful friendship. (Awwww…)
Since then, I’ve been a part of the organizing team for every single fun-​filled event. We’ve also done a BBQ, a fried chicken cook-​off, a B2B team, and now this!
Thanks to everyone who donated raffle prizes… Ad Hoc, Tiffinie McEntire and Nest Integrated Health and Fertility, Jennifer Simpson Private Chef,
, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, Sports Basement, Doe-​SF, Jason Angeles UPS store, Derek Powzak,
A special thank you to Spiffee,
who won the Ad Hoc dinner for two twice but gave it up for someone else.
A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who purchased tickets, raffle tickets, and brought food, Without you, these events couldn’t be done. (Thanks Toni M
for donating directly!) Seb and Simone
hooked us up with a ton of food.
Please give a shout out to my fellow organizers: AJ
, Euge
, Guri
, Kate
, Ryan
, Tinna

Helping to organize these events is so much fun. It’s touching to see everyone come together for a good cause. We hope that you enjoyed our event. We all love to eat and we love to cook.
I can’t wait for the next one!

Some folks got together for the fourth year in a row to make merry and bow at the altar of porcine pleasures on the banks of Lake Merced.
Two pigs, taken down at Summit Farms just a day earlier and injected with brine for maximum tenderness roasted slowly under raging coals, emerging four hours later, meat juicy and skin browned to a crispy golden perfection. AJ cut off big hunks of meat with his butcher knife and others stuck their forks right in.
These Pig Eat Fest folks takes potlucks seriously. A few hours in I had already had 1 pork bun from AJ’s family bakery, 1 Korean pork and eggs breakfast, 1 cup of white sangria, 2 fried chicken legs straight outta the turkey fryer, 1 brownie and 1 Anthony’s Cookie. Totally stuck with the pig theme. Oink, oink!
I may never eat again, but hey, at least we raised some good moneys for SF Food Bank. Huzzah!

I’m pretty weak when it comes to consuming alcohol, but I figured it all out at the PigEat Fest. If I space my alcohol consumption apart well enough I can go all day without any ill effects.
Euge L’s email earlier in the week requesting attendees to bring booze worked wonders as there was tons of booze in beer, in soju, in wine, in vodka and probably other happy liquids that I missed. My morning began with some fabulous sangria brought by Simone n Seb F and continued into countless bottles of Stella, Peroni, Corona and Fat Tire. I was even presented with a shot of vodka in Euge’s drinking cup from the man himself.
Don’t let me paint the wrong picture of this event though. PigEat Fest was all about charity with proceeds from the event being donated to the San Francisco Food Bank which states on their website that among mostly children and seniors living in San Francisco 1 in 4 struggles to feed themselves and their families on a daily basis. I know that for a fact volunteering at the food bank at least twice every month and helping to distribute food to low income seniors at other organizations.
PigEat Fest was also about bringing together old friends and new friends, Unilocalers and non-​Yelpers and an amazing spread of fabulous food. I met a lot a people for the first time including some Unilocal legends that I had only read about in the past. We not only had a roasted pig, but we had two! Long before I even arrived AJ and Nicole G had each prepared a whole pig roasting inside its own roasting boxes.
If pork wasn’t your thing though that was not a problem because there was so much more. JeFF T brought his secret recipe of herbs and spices and fried up some fabulous chicken for some of the earlier attendees. Kevo M was grilling chicken and steaming clam shell buns for the pork, and that was in addition to the huge pans of steamed rice and delicious potato salad that he had brought. Simone n Seb introduced me to the fabulous flavor of freshly fried chicarrones (Mexican pork rinds) and later grilled up an immaculate portion of chicken drummettes on top of the two roasting boxes. Euge brought bags and bags of Super Tittees (garlic chips) that Bella W fried up in the turkey flyer. Arnold G and his wife prepared some fabulous homemade pastrami.
There were contributions left and right from other attendees also. I’m not sure who brought what, but everything else I tried was fabulous — creamy mac and cheese, pasta salad, Caesar’s salad, pancit and various desserts including Anthony’s Cookies, dan tats (Chinese egg custards), brownies and a decorated strawberry cake brought by Jessica T. I missed a bunch of other stuff too as I heard somebody had brought some amazing pulled pork.
Besides the eating and the drinking there was a prize raffle with some incredible prizes donated from generous individuals and local businesses. Tinna H and Ryan V brought a heavily stuffed piñata to the event that blindfolded kids and adults took their whacks on. I was watching over the cash box at the time and didn’t get to see the goings on closer, but I’m told the piñata contained an assortment of «candies, condoms and booze». All that and Euge managed to drop his pants only once! Yup, sounds like a party involving Unilocal all right!
Thanks to Euge and his planning committee for putting this event on. I think most people in attendance had a fabulous time!
I only took a few photos, but here they are: