Mister_Cutlets
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Posts posted by Mister_Cutlets
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So am I invited to this or what?
impatiently,
Mr. Cutlets
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That doesn't surprise me. Their bulgogi is the best too. I review
Kang Suh in Meat Me In Manhattan.
Mr. Cutlets
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It's on my list.
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Suzanne,
I don't think the place next to the Old Homestead is called Red Light. It has some hipster one-syllable name like "snack" or "good" although obviously it isn't either of those.
as for the dry-burger conundrum, I'm thinking that you could make a pretty good argument for it deserving its own class in the burger phylum. These flat little burgers have almost no moisture of their own; they depend on cheese and / or pickles for all their moisture, but present the most striking textual contrast with the cheese for that reason. Mr. Cutlets is a freak for browned meats -- I once even ate a well-done steak at Knickerbocker!
As for Veselka, you can see what their hamburger, which I like better than the Corner Bistro's, in the picture on the "Meat Mr. Cutlets" page here. I have found though that Veselka in recent months has been overcooking burgers, and you have to either stress to them that you don't want it overcooked, or order it a degree less than you want and then let it sit on your plate for a couple of minutes while it cooks that last degree. (That's a little trick I give in the book in the book's Doneness Ordering guide.)
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
p.s. have you or any of your society tried the hamburger at nice matin or Washington Park?
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I would suggest getting as much chuck as you can. Chances are the "hamburg" they will sell you will be composed of scraps. Get
chuck and grind it or grill it yourself. This is a tough question!
You can have anything you want? Why aren't you getting
some of the rib? In order of preference, I would ask for
1. Rib steaks / standing rib roast (your preference)
2. Hangar steak
3. Skirt steak
4. Flanken (chuck ribs)
5. flank steak
6. Skirt steak
If I were you, I would try to get at least one or two different sections
beside the short loin. It's rare that you can buy good artinisal beef, and
it's a waste to only have porterhouses to taste, as good as they are. (I doubt I would bother with the filet at all, but that's just me.)
Yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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It's a real problem, and one reason so many of us are so glad to be living in New York. If your supermarket butcher doesn't get a certain cut of meat, you can usually order it, though. And, though he might not be Sam the Butcher, you can usually benefit from developing a relationship with him. (Though not an Alice the Maid relationship.) Though he works with cryovac meat in the supermarket, chances are he knows more about meat than his twenty-something subordinates do; and between the two of you you might be able to get the meat you want cut the way you want it. Of course, if you're really in the boondocks, you might want to befriend an actual farmer, or a family whose child is in the 4-H club; small farms are the root-source of all meat culture, and you can bypass the commercial butcher decline entirely by working with them and their butcher.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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Chad,
The simplest way to make sausage is the way they do at Faicco's: grind up some pork butts (shoulders) with some salt and other spices, maybe a little fennel, and extrude it into the casings. Later, you may want to start adding in richer, gnalier elements like liver, jowls, and etc., but start with something easy. Practice with hamburger first...it takes some doing to make it work; you need to run some water through the casings, for one thing, and you have to practice twisting them off right. Visit http://www.sausagemania.com/ for more tips...sausage-making is a great thing to do at home, particularly with wierd variety meats and not-so-tender cuts of pork and beef. The hardest part is getting natural casings, but I doubt you'll have much of a problem getting them once you set your mind to it.
Good luck!
your pal,
Mr. Cutlets
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Suzanne,
I've only had kangaroo sausage (at the Sunburnt Cow, on Avenue C) so I can't speak to 'Roo, nor Emu either. Ostrich never did anything for me; it doesn't have a distinct taste one way or the other, and the clean, lean, dark meat seems primarily eaten for its exoticism and low cholesterol count -- neither of which strike me as good reasons to eat any meat. My old friend the Scrapple King wrote some interesting notes on Ostrich in the "raw meat" thread, though, which you might find interesting.
Your Pal,
Mr. Cutlets
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The scrapple king said it about as well as I could have, albeit in his stragely garbled typing. My raw-meat explorations have been limited to steak tartare, which I enjoy most at Lucerne, a bistro on First Avenue north of Houston street. Too often I find tartare overseasoned, and the only taste that comes through is horseradish. This has even been my experience in some of the city's best restaurants; I don't know why.
yours,
Mr. C.
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Jhlurie,
There's two things to remember about the USDA system. One is that its criteria for prime are subjective and have changed over time. Not just marbling, but color, firmness, and other qualities go into determining what is prime and choice. Primarily, though, it's about the marbling. In 1950, the USDA started its long history of defining deviance down by collapsing Prime and Choice into Prime, and calling what had been "select" Choice. Today's Choice is probably the Select of the 50s, and only Kobe meat really resembles the prime beef Jack Dempsey and Jackie Gleason used to enjoy.
Almost all the meat you buy in restaurants is either prime or choice; unless it's stew beef or ground meat of some kind -- and that would be in a seriously divey restaurant. In supermarkets of the kind I shop in, like C-Town, you see Select meat. But that's about it. I'm actually fascinated by the concept of Utility, Cutter, and Canner meat, which I've never seen, but which must be truly awful. And remember that all USDA grading is voluntary -- plants have to pay to get their meat graded. So you can only imagine how bad some of the stuff that doesn't get graded is. (Inspection, as opposed to grading, is mandatory.)
As for lean-meat pathology, that usually comes up more with cuts than with grading. People will buy choice or even prime filet, round, ground sirloin, and other lean cuts; but whether they wouldn't do just as well with lower grades of the same unmarbled meat is open to question.
To sum up: what they call prime today is a crime, but we can all agree that the more marbling there is, the better the meat.
Does that make sense?
Yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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Tryska,
I've written about this before, but it bears saying again. I am totally convinced by people who say, along with Morrissey, that meat is murder. I've seen the Sue Coe cartoons, I've watched the documentaries, I've read the exposes by PETA. What they do to animals is awful, a crime.
But I just can't stop eating meat. I just love it. If it walks, flies, crawls, moos, oinks, or baas, I want to eat it.
I prefer to think that my food has been humanely raised and killed, as with (say) kosher poultry or the biodynamic beef I get at the Union Square meatmarket. But that's all it is -- a preference. Ideally, you could scruple to your heart's content, and still keep hip-deep in steaks and chops. Save a thought for the poor animals, but stay the course at table: that is the counsel of Mr. Cutlets.
yours sincerely,
Mr. Cutlets
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Churrascaria Plataforma. I devote one of my most rapturous essays to the place in the book. I've never been to the one in Queens, but Plataforma is better than Plantation, its sister-restaurant on Central Park South.
yrs
Mr. Cutlets
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There's just so much good tripe available in the Enn Why See.
Just off the top of my head I think of:
trippa parmigiana at babbo
tripe pho at Thai Son
Tripe à la mode de Caen at Tour va Bien
Stewed tripe in red sauce at Tony and Elena's
braised tripe at Union Square Cafe
and that's not even touching on all the caribbean and Indian tripe curries available in Sietsema / Leff territory.
There's a stomach for every stomach!
Mr. Cutlets
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Well, it depends. I'm the only one I know who loves to grill and broil chuck steaks and chuck roasts; and I would have to say that, barring the addition of thick american cheese and a toasted enriched white bun, for pure meat flavor I prefer chuck eaten straight up. But sirloin, it seems to me, is seen to much better advantage as ground meat than as steak. It's strictly a second-rate steak -- and if the truth be told, second rate as hamburger. But ground up and moistened with sauteed mushrooms, onions, and peppers (and maybe even a little, yes, A-1 sauce) it makes a damn fine Atkins dinner.
Yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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The taste of "long pig," as it is called in the idioms of Melanesia, has frequently been compared to pork. (The rumor, invented by travel writer Paul Thoreaux, that their love of Spam owes to their former cannibalism, has been pretty thoroughly refuted.) But since I never tried it, I can't say. I could take a "Man Sought for Slaughter" classified ad like that German did, but I doubt they would accept it, even on Craig's List.
You should know though, Jason, that the phrase "man meat" is seldom used in connection with cannibalism. Please bear this in mind the next time someone offers you a taste of "man milk."
A word to the wise,
Mr. Cutlets
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Restaurant-business savants have been predicting the emergence of Rodizios as the next big thing for the past two years, but it hasn't happened yet. You would think it would be a natural: Rodizios are cheap, fun, and appeal to everyone from Atkins patients to red-blooded he men and the woman who love them. Plus, there's a whole bossa nova bounce to it as well that should make it attractive. The only thing that might be delaying it is the use of inferior quality of meat (always a temptation where strongly
marinated dishes are concerned) and the palate fatigue that sets in at
rodizios when you've had your fourth meat seasoned exactly the same way.
Other than that, they should be huge! Huge!
As for grass-fed meat, that's a non-starter for two reasons. One, it's a premium commodity, whose comparative rarity and cost make it an unlikely choice for any broad restaurant trend; and two, it's not that great. The next grass-fed steak I eat that tastes as good as the best grain fed steak will be my first. Even the antibiotic-free meat sold in big chains like Wegmans is noticeably inferior, on the whole, to conventional meat. A few places serve great grass-fed meat, but it's never as juicy and tasty as the cheaper, easier alternative.
yrs
Mr. Cutlets
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No agent, Chad. Just meaty merit (and a small press with an appetite for a niche product.) As for the movie Mr. Cutlets, Most of actors of choice, such as Peter Ustinov, Sidney Greenstreet, Joe Turkel, Ben Johnson, and Timothy Carey are dead. So I would have to go with Andrew Robinson, I think, or Burt Young.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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I've never been a big brains guy... sorry. They definitely don't make you smarter, or I would be all over them. No, eating BACON makes you smarter, with each bushel corresponding to 1 IQ point - or so they tell me.
Mr. Cutlets
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More's the pity! How could I have missed out on that sandwich! That mouth-watering post was from my old meat-brother the Scrapple King. Truly a man who belongs on E-gullet. Welcome him as you would me!
(And forgive him his shitty typing.)
Mr. Cutlets
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Those images are downright obscene...I wish I had been there!
(And on the piedmont trip, too!) As for Dinosaur, I've eaten plenty
of it, and it's mediocre. Virgils is better, and Blue Smoke is better,
and Biscuit is better. I haven't been to Daisy Mae's.
Other questions: I have only warm feelings for Burger King, as I
lay out in my Fast Food answer. Rick Bayless knows as much about mexican food as any white person in the world, although I can't vouch
for him a chef, having never eaten in Frontera grill. His opinions about BK's barbecue should be taken about as seriously as Orson Welles' commitment to Gallo wines.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
www.mr-cutlets.com
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I might add in the book's envoi:
Mister Cutlets’ Prayer
ON the long road of life, the journey’s full of bumps,
Troubles and viscissitudes, and a man must take his lumps.
Women bear the burdens of a thousand daily cares;
And disaster may at any time strike us unawares
But let us now be happy, at least while we eat
That’s Mr. Cutlets’ prayer, for people who love meat
Let your beef be always bloody,
and your soul as white as veal;
May your pork be pink and salty
With nothing wasted but the squeal.
May your sausage always be plump,
and your chicken always crisp,
May your stews and daubes be unctuous,
nourishing and rich.
Let your table always be covered
With the thickest steaks and chops
Let those who would restrain you
May themselves be stopped.
Let your bacon be well-cured,
As a kindly-tended patient,
May you your palate not get bored
Nor your restaurants complacent.
From Harlem to the Battery
On sidewalk or on street,
May Mr. Cutlets bless you,
Wherever we may MEAT.
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Lemonade is good too. As to this other business -- I've had plenty of Carolina BBQ outside of the State Fair. But it seems that the claims made for the best being typical, and the worst being unrepresentative, were (it seemed to me) belied by the fair, which had dozens of Manwich booths from all over the state. Let's turn this to the positive: what would you guys say are the best barbecues in the Carolinas? And what is the best ambassador of Carolina bbq in the north?
Mr. Cutlets
p.s. (The best I've had is Sweatmans.)
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My compliments on that too. I've had the kind of barbecue you describe in NC, Varmint, but it was few and far between. I attended the NC state fair in Raleigh one year, and it was one crock of saucy stew after another. I did get some of those great sandwiches with the "mr. brown" mixed in and only a dollop of sauce; but then I had to stress with all my might that I didn't want a huge lump of hideous, runny cole slaw on top. Why do Carolinians love vinegar so much?
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
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Chad,
I won't go so far as to call it an abomination, for sweets and meats don't mix. If you have to add raisins, plums, glazes, and the like, you're probably not a true meat-head. Sweetness if it comes at all should come from within -- via a brown-sugar cure, or the taste of caramalized vegetables cooked down in fat. When I see a date or raisin on the meat menu, I turn toward the exit. Life's too short to mask and emasculate good meat.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets
Large cuts of beef
in eGullet Q&A with Mr. Cutlets
Posted
The hangar is not part of a larger section, but the others are part of the breast / flank area, as are short ribs. Tri-tips are from the sirloin (which is not part of the short loin, but is far below, closer to the animal's hip.) Flatiron is a top blade steak, which is from the chuck and is quite tender, though withou any fat at all. (Which is why it is now fashionable.) For your sausage, I would suggest getting scraps from the toughest areas of the animal, which often have some of the most tubular tastes in the animal. (rump, tail, heart, etc.). The site I linked to in the sausage thread should prove useful.
Don't know what you mean about the big loin cuts.
yours,
Mr. Cutlets