Nothing in Italy has brought me more unhappiness than porchetta, which is boneless, rolled-up, seasoned pig. Sounds good and looks better, but to the list of characteristics I add the following: overcooked, not fresh, clumsily prepared. I’m the dumb tourist who walks through an outdoor market, gazes with growling stomach at porchetta sold by some farmhouse lady in a pilled sweater, and buys a huge chunk to munch as I stroll.

Sounds romantic. Three or four bites later, into the garbage bin it goes.

There’s not much in my culinary life I trust less than porchetta. (A corollary: almost all rolled-up, cooked meats served in restaurants aren’t as good as they sound.) Sometimes porchetta contains a few too many innards for my taste, but the real problem is dryness and toughness. Porchetta makes me wonder why Italians, who almost always make sense where food is concerned, bother with it at all.

There have been a few stabs at porchetta in New York. A place by that name opened in Brooklyn more than a year ago, but it was gone almost immediately. The fine restaurant Il Buco makes a porchetta sandwich at lunch—I had it once, again a victim of my inability to resist the stuff. It wasn’t memorable, to be kind.

Now come two new places with porchetta, the modern, white-tiled, six-stool restaurant Porchetta in the East Village and Murray’s Real Salami, a salumeria-style take-out shop in Grand Central Market. At the restaurant, Sara Jenkins is the cook and her partners Dave Herman and Matthew Lindemulder the countermen, and a tiny menu is highlighted by the porchetta plate ($12), possibly the best under-$15 serving of food in Manhattan. Bonus: It’s served on piece of cheap, cheerful chinoiserie made in Falls Creek, Pennsylvania.

The plate includes greens, mostly broccoli rabe that’s been pre-boiled and is sautéed on the spot with an almost indiscernible dash of chili oil; cannelloni beans cooked with parsley and olive oil and almost impossibly perfect in texture; and big chunks of Jenkins’s designer porchetta, the best I’ve tasted by far.

Seems simple, her version: Working from the center out, the torpedo-shaped tube of meat contains pork loin, an herb mixture dominated by rosemary and thyme, pork belly, and crisp skin. It’s soft, juicy (from the fat of the pork belly self-basting the loin), and nicely porcine. The meat is kept moist and warm in a decidedly non-artisanal device called a Henny Penny Heated Merchandiser. Seems almost unimaginable that an apparatus by that name could be the salvation of Italian cuisine.

The only way to improve on this impossibly toothsome feast is to order a $5 side dish of “crispy potatoes and burnt ends.” In fact, should you have to stand in line at Porchetta, as is common, I recommend getting an order of these roasted potatoes to eat while you wait. The roasted potatoes are cooked in olive oil and pan drippings, and the burnt ends are flavorful, crunchy, leftover bits of porchetta.

At Murray’s, porchetta is an entirely different economic and culinary animal. It costs $24.99 a pound, which seems a tad piggy to me, and it’s kept in a cold-cut case that’s even less visually appealing than a Henny Penny. Sliced thin, like prosciutto, Murray’s version tastes a little like Italian-style pastrami, although it’s softer, silkier, fattier, and creamier than the delicatessen beef. Unlike pastrami, which has to be warmed to be worth eating, Murray’s porchetta is equally good hot (more porky) or cold (more elegant). The only drawback is that the skin isn’t crunchy on Murray’s porchetta, however you take it.

Both versions are noteworthy accomplishments in the field of well-cooked—meaning not-rare—meat. If that’s how you generally order yours, you should find either Porchetta’s or Murray’s porchetta far more satisfying than a tough, well-done steak. If you tend to order your meat on the bloody side, you now have a reason to believe there is more to life than “medium-rare.”

Porchetta, 110 East 7th Street (near First Avenue), New York, NY; 212-777-2151. Murray’s Real Salami, Grand Central Market, East 43rd Street & Lexington Avenue, New York, NY; 212-922-1540; www.murrayscheese.com