Publican Quality Meats =You Must Go NOW!

 

I just did a shoot at Publican Quality Meats.  Two words:  GO NOW!  It is AWESOME.  I thought they were going to have to kick me out of the shop.  I soooo didn’t want to leave.

So they have all kinds of stuff.  They’re a full butcher shop, plus they do AMAZING sandwiches with all handmade everything including the bread, plus they’re a little grocery that carries only the best of a bunch of random stuff like condiments to span the globe, wine, beer, intelligensia coffee, in house made stock, Frontera frozen pizzas, fresh Burrata and other fabulous cheeses, farm fresh eggs, and the list goes on.  Seriously, these guys are doing amazing things.  I think I’m in love.

Here are just a few pics which do not even come close to doing this shop justice:

The fresh meat case.  They only deal in whole animals and break them down themselves.  The cooler was awesome.  I could have climbed inside the enormous pig that was hanging from his feet.  Whole sides of beef, curing sausages, dry-aging steaks… the whole shebang!

 

Here’s one tiny section of the salumi case.  Most of it is made in house with a few exceptions.  I got to taste several of these.  All delicious.

 

This is the adorable head butcher that gave me (and the cameraman) a full tour.  He tried to get me to wear a hard hat (which apparently is necessary when sawing into a hanging cow) but after I convinced him that my hair was helmet enough today, he gave me a demo of the table saw instead.

He also tasted me through a ton of their products.  I was (clearly) in heaven.  One of my faves was a smoked sable fish that simply melted in my mouth.  Here he’s holding a couple of terrines.  I tasted both… they were delish!

 

I’d never had blood sausage or head cheese before.  After hanging with Erling for a bit, I’d tasted both… at once.  This is a terrine that’s made by boiling a pig head, picking off all the meat (that’s the head cheese part), then reducing the pig’s blood until the proteins start to coagulate (apparently one can feel the correct consistency when rubbing it between your fingers), then mixing it together with some red curry.  Crazy, right?  It was actually really good.  I don’t know why everyone freaks out about blood sausage…it’s tasty stuff!

 

Like I said, aside from the meeeelion meat product, PQM has a bunch of other fun stuff.  Unfortunately, I only got a shot of the bread baskets.  Every night the baker comes in and creates these beautiful loaves for the store and the restaurant (The Publican).  All the sandwiches are served on them, too.  I got to watch one of the guys baking off some very delicate looking flatbread-like rounds for the sandwiches.  He was doing a damn fine job of it, too.

 

You’ll just have to watch for the segment to get the whole scoop… or take my advice and GO NOW!