Posts Tagged ‘Beef’

Local Hero #22 Fette Sau

Wednesday, January 4th, 2012

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Day two of me pulling my finger out is another local hero from our stay in New York late last year, and trades the buttery crusts of pies for another American obsession. Barbecue.

I’ve wanted to visit Fette Sau since I read about it three or four years ago. Last time I was in New York, I failed to get my ‘cue on, so this time I vowed not to fly home without coating my face in barbecue sauce.

Tucked away down a side alley in Williamburgh, Brooklyn, Fette Sau is a temple to meat. The walls are adorned with scrawlings of different cuts of various four legged beasts, knives hang behind the bar, the white tiled walls are all butcher shop, and they sell their wares by weight as opposed to portion, which is great from a trying everything point of view. It also exposed the tactical eaters we overheard rejecting anything on the bone as it’s “…dead weight, man…”, which means no ribs, which is crazy right??

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I wanted to try as much as I could, so after much deliberation I pulled together what I figured would be a killer selecta. Black Angus Brisket, Spicy Berkshire Pork Sausage, Pulled Berkshire Pork Shoulder, Duroc baby Back Ribs, Burnt-End Baked Beans and some green stuff to keep my digestive system alive. Now I was pretty pleased with the ribs that I made earlier in the year, but this was some next level business. The words that follow are not going to do what I ate justice, because I loved every friggin’ mouthful so much, but here’s a taster.

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In-N-Out Burger – Best Of A Bad Bunch

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

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Since arriving in San Fran, we’ve heard quite a few people say that In-N-Out burger are the cream of the crop when it comes fast food. In-N-Out are the originators of the ‘drive-thru’ phenomenon, having opened the first one ever in 1948, and as a result most of their outlets tend to be in not very handy locations to those without cars like us. So when we passed one on the way home from Tahoe last weekend, we seized the day.

When we got in there, the first thing that struck us was the size of the menu. They only really have 6 things on offer. Three kinds of burgers, fries, shakes and soft drinks. That’s it. It’s pretty refreshing to have such a limited choice, and must have been a pretty bold decision for a country like the US where people are used to having things their way.

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When Hand To Mouth Met The Meatwagon

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

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I first heard about The Meatwagon a few months ago on the BBC 4’s Food Programme, and subsequently on a number of blogs. It seems to have become the stuff of legend pretty quickly, and for those into their food, you can understand why. The story goes that the owner of the wagon, Yianni, quit his job and headed for the US to research the perfect burger. He toured the length and breadth of the country (I may be embellishing here) picking up recipes, tips and tricks until he thought he’d cracked it. He then returned to London, formula in hand, bought a food truck and then hit the road spreading the good burger word. Insane and inspiring in equal measure.

Until last week, his burgers had evaded my jaws, but when I heard that he was pitching up at The Ship pub near me, I knew I had a date with meaty destiny, particularly as Yianni had picked up ‘Best Sandwich’ at the British Street Food Awards the previous weekend. As we approached the wagon, for some reason we felt a sense of trepidation, the kind you get when approaching an illegal rave. Would there be a huge queue? Would there be any meat left? What were we going to do if we couldn’t get our fix?

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Hand To Mouth Meets The Ginger Pig

Sunday, January 24th, 2010

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To take some of the strain off last year’s Christmas shopping, my brother and I both decided that we’d buy each other an evening butchery class at the Ginger Pig in Marylebone as our Christmas presents. I’d been looking forward to it since we made the booking in November, and Last Friday was the day of reckoning. They do four different classes at the shop, pork, lamb, sausage making, and our class of choice, beef.

On arriving at the shop we were cheerily welcomed by Borut and Perry who were to be our guides on planet beef for the evening. After they’d kitted us all out in butchers whites, our hosts started off by explaining about the type of cattle that they rear on their farm in North Yorkshire (Longhorns), the difference between free range and organic, and how they actually go about preparing the beef for consumption once it’s slaughtered.

It was good to learn a bit more about the ageing process, and the rather underhand tactics that supermarkets employ when talking about their aged beef. The Ginger Pig, and most other quality butchers, dry age their beef. This means hanging the carcasses in cool ventilated rooms so that blood and moisture can leave the meat, thereby intensifying the flavour (the meat can be hung for up to 100 days, but the guys at the shop reckoned around the 35-40 day mark was perfect).

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