Since I had a credit with Carnivore Club, I ordered a regular box. The quality is once again incredible. Take a look at the unboxing below. This time I had four sausage items from Charlito’s Cocina:
Inside, there is a card that tells you all about the meats you are about to eat, along with suggested pairings like cheeses.
Here’s what they look like unwrapped – like shriveled penises:
While a shriveled penis is admittedly not the greatest look in the world, I’m pretty certain that these taste much better than a shriveled penis. If any of you have had both, give me your opinions.
So as I was going over my note card along with my packaged meats, I noticed something. The “salami picante,” #4 on the note card, was swapped out for “campo seco.” It seems the provider ran out of the salami picante and substituted the campo seco instead, but Carnivore Club was unaware and unable to update the note card in time for the shipment.
No bother to me, really, other than the fact that campo seco and cerveza seca were somewhat similar in both look and flavor. Cerveza seca was a bit leaner, however, while campo seco had large blobs of delicious fatty white spots throughout – most of which were surprisingly tender.
The chorizo was good. Not too potent and garlicky, as some can be, and it had a mild heat to it that didn’t overpower.
The clear winner by far, however, was the “trufa seca” truffle sausage. It was coated with a sea salt and was vibrantly flavored with that earthy and robust truffle flavor. Absolutely delicious. I’ve never tasted something so unique in this kind of product.
I highly recommend purchasing meat from this supplier, Charlito’s Cocina. And if it isn’t obvious, I am a big fan of Carnivore Club. This box alone would cost WAY more if all items were purchased separately, so you’re getting a good deal along with such great service. I let Carnivore Club know about the swapped sausage issue for #4, and they, along with Charlito’s, insisted on sending me the salami picante even over my protestations. Good people!
So after keeping a close eye on this supplier, I noticed they set up shop at the Union Square Holiday Market (I am always stalking their Instagram feed) for the 2015 Christmas season.
I went down after I was all out of their delicious sausages and picked up three packages of trufa seca. While I was down there I got to meet the owner and founder, Charles (left). He threw in a package of chorizo for me to sample!!! I am really excited to bring this sausage out to my folks for Thanksgiving!
I follow Carnivore Club on Instagram due to the high quality images of incredible meats that they post. When I’m telling you that they post some of the best quality foodporn, I’m being dead serious…
They’re located somewhere far, far away from NYC, so I figured I’d really never get to try one of their boxes of products unless I spent big dough and ordered something online to have it shipped. Well, to my surprise, they were offering a Groupon deal! There was a massive discount on a premium box of meats (along with a $15 credit to use on your next purchase).
A premium box is a real wood humidor of sorts.
A subscriber can get monthly deliveries of high-end meats at their doorstep. This is what the unboxing looks like:
There are generally four meats per box, though not all boxes are this amazing. Mine was filled with iberico shit:
Again, mine was a premium box (which is generally much more costly), made of real wood, nice hidden hinges, ultra high quality meats, etc. The regular packaging is a faux wooden box, still very smart looking. But take a look. Mine even came with the humidity gauge and shit.
“Satisfy your inner carnivore” is printed on the box, as well as an image of their logo.
Okay so let’s get down to the goods here. The box came with four meats, and I’m going to review each one and provide some pretty pictures.
The first thing I did was to slice up some of the chorizo, which you saw in the video above.
If you treat your meat like you would treat your own dick, you’re always going to enjoy it. This stuff was super flavorful. It wasn’t overly spicy to the point where you couldn’t keep shoveling slices down your throat. The fat content was soft and malleable, melts between the heat of your fingers. Really nice.
This next shot is everything together. The chorizo, plus the other three packaged meats.
The top left is the chorizo that I sliced, so we will skip that, since I already talked about it. The top right was another type of chorizo. This one was softer, a little more moist, had less fat content and a more smoky flavor. Clearly they had different diameters too. I really thought I was going to get jipped here with two of the same type of meat, as far as flavor goes, but the two chorizos were very different from one another. The bottom right was the salchichon. Like the chorizo, this had good melty fat content, but it was a more mild and more pure flavor. You could taste the meat, unencumbered, because it wasn’t laden with spices. Very crisp. The sparse peppercorns really made it pop too. The bottom left was the dry cured ham. This was really soft. It had the texture of a very high quality prosciutto, with a clean flavor. Really nice meat, excellent non-stringy fat. It wasn’t paper thin, but the flesh was so soft to the touch that it was difficult to get each slice up in one piece. That’s freaking tender shit!
Overall this was a great buy. If I didn’t get a Groupon deal, I might have thought it was a little overpriced, but then again I am not a rich bastard. Some of you bank-makers out there might find this to be a good price given the supreme quality of meat that you get in each box. So give Carnivore Club a try. I think you’ll like it.
UPDATE
Since I had a credit with Carnivore Club, I ordered a regular box. The quality is once again incredible. Take a look at the unboxing here:
Inside, there is a card that tells you all about the meats you are about to eat, along with suggested pairings like cheeses.
Here’s what they look like unwrapped – like shriveled penises:
While a shriveled penis is admittedly not the greatest look in the world, I’m pretty certain that these taste much better than a shriveled penis. If any of you have had both, give me your opinions.
So as I was going over my note card along with my packaged meats, I noticed something. The “salami picante,” #4 on the note card, was swapped out for “campo seco.” It seems the provider ran out of the salami picante and substituted the campo seco instead, but Carnivore Club was unaware and unable to update the note card in time for the shipment.
No bother to me, really, other than the fact that campo seco and cerveza seca were somewhat similar in both look and flavor. Cerveza seca was a bit leaner, however, while campo seco had large blobs of delicious fatty white spots throughout – most of which were surprisingly tender.
The chorizo was good. Not too potent and garlicky, as some can be, and it had a mild heat to it that didn’t overpower.
The clear winner by far, however, was the “trufa seca” truffle sausage. It was coated with a sea salt and was vibrantly flavored with that earthy and robust truffle flavor. Absolutely delicious. I’ve never tasted something so unique in this kind of product.
I highly recommend purchasing meat from this supplier, which was Charlito’s Cocina. And if it isn’t obvious, I am a big fan of Carnivore Club. This box alone would cost WAY more if all items were purchased separately, so you’re getting a good deal along with such great service. I let Carnivore Club know about the swapped sausage issue for #4, and they insisted on sending me the salami picante even over my protestations. Good people!
The delicious world of KBBQ has exploded in New York. In the last few years new places have popped up all over, and not just within K-town in NYC. I’ve seen several joints pop up out on Long Island, deep into Suffolk County. Long Island still has no Vietnamese restaurants, and the discovery of pho and banh mi by ordinary white folks started years ago. But there’s something about KBBQ that took hold fast and quick. Perhaps it is the fact that a grill is involved. The invigorating smell and smoky visuals of raw meat hitting a red hot grill just resonate with Americans. Burgers, dogs, steaks… we understand.
So all that crap aside, this place is a welcome addition to the panoply of KBBQ joints. Really nice quality stuff, not overcooked, treated just right. Let me get down to what we tried:
On the beef angle, we had a large order, which comes with three items for $99 (a bit pricey, but I promise it is good). Sliced prime rib eye, boneless short rib, and brisket. Here they are, in that order.
Rib eye:
Short rib:
Kalbi marinated short rib:
Brisket:
On the pork angle, we also got a large (3 items for $99), which consisted of jowls, thick belly and thinly sliced belly (which came out separately, pre-cooked and dressed in sauce – not for the grill).
The sauced, pre-cooked item was a bit over-sauced and heavy to eat, but it was also last in the meal, so maybe that’s why it felt heavy. We were getting fucking full.
Aside from all the meat, we had the usual starter items that come in millions of little dishes. Kimchi, fish cakes, tofu, salad, pickled radish, etc.
The grill even had these neat little side-channels where egg and corn + cheese were cooking as side items:
We also ordered kimchi stew and seafood + brisket stew, both of which were a tomato base with really awesome flavor.
And a rice “lunchbox,” which is crispy rice with kimchi, seafood, egg and sauces/spices that they shake the fuck out of for you, table side, to mix it all together:
Lastly, I will share this pic of some of the booze we had with dinner. We must have had three bottles of the glass one (soju), and one bottle of the thing that looks like soda (bubbly, sweet rice wine). Both were awesome.
UPDATE 7/31/17
The only thing new and different that I tried on my second visit, which was an influencer event for Instagram, was this really tasty cold spicy noodle dish. Delicious!
KANG HODONG BAEKJEONG
1 E. 32nd St.
New York, NY 10016
