Remember foie gras? Ah, that decadent, arguably inhumane, stupidly rich butter of the gods. I sometimes miss it, even if I'm fine with regular duck liver pate most days. A lot of chefs miss it too — and it is, of course, still available in every other state — and for a New Year's Eve dinner, Hog & Rocks chef Robin Song decided to slip a little foie onto the tasting menu, as a handful of SF chefs have done under the auspices of it being a "gift from the chef" and not for sale. As Eater reports, he had some left over, so he decided to throw it on a burger with some American cheese, just for kicks — charging $24 for the burger, with a free "side" of foie.

There was only a very limited supply and for all we know the restaurant may have "sold" out of the stuff last night, following Eater's mid-afternoon post. But then again, publicity has a way of motivating a chef to "find" some more surprise foie in the back of the walk-in.

Previously, Presidio Social Club was serving a foie gras slider, arguing that they could because they were on federal land. Chef Ray Tang may still be occasionally serving it, though he made a deal with the Presidio Trust back in 2013 that he wouldn't advertise it.

Various opponents of the 2012 ban tried to take their fight all the way to the Supreme Court last year, but SCOTUS quickly put the kibosh on that, refusing to hear their appeal.

There remains an outside chance that a CA legislator will back a repeal of the ban — previously the city of Chicago instituted and then later repealed a foie gras ban in the last decade — but that remains to be seen. Animal rights activists, who many argue should have been focusing their attention on factory farms and not on the extremely tiny foie gras industry, would no doubt cause a stink again if that occurred.

Update: Oh, one day later and the ban was struck down. Prepare for immediate foie saturation!

Hog & Rocks - 3431 19th Street between Mission and Valencia - 415.550.8627