Tag Archives: raw

Dry-Aged Tenderloin Tails

June 23, 2019 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THESE ARE LIMITED AVAILABILITY ITEMS!
As of now, we are sold out unfortunately.

These are a big seller in my shop, and I just realized that I never featured them until now. My tenderloin tails are dry aged for at least a month and they pack a wallop of earthy flavor. Here are a couple of ideas for what do do with them:

A tartare preparation, and a sous vide + sear to medium rare situation, which is great for steak sandwiches or serving with a mild horseradish cream sauce.

ORDER HERE!!! You’re gonna love these tasty fuckers. Just $50!

American, Brooklyn, Commentary, Product Reviews, Queens, Restaurant Reviews

Rockaway Brewery, Meat Hook & Stagg Jam & Marmalade

February 1, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I recently went to a release event for Rockaway Brewery’s newest beer, “Meat in the Middle,” with the man behind The Dishelin Guide.

“Meat in the Middle” (4.8% abv) is a rauchbier that’s brewed with slow-smoked NY State barley. What makes it special and “meaty” is that it’s smoked with cherry wood at Brooklyn specialty butcher and sandwich shop, The Meat Hook.

The beer itself is pretty good. You get a hint of that smoke in there, with a malt-forward beer flavor. Very nice. I tried it in a flight of some other goodies. In this photo, it’s all the way on the left:

The porters and dark beers here are really fantastic:

After working up a little buzz, we hopped on one of the brewery tours and picked up some additional info about the brew process:

By then we were hungry, so we ventured upstairs to try some of the sausages that The Meat Hook was selling.

We tried both the Long Dong Bud and the Beet & Onion sausages.

Check out the color on the Beet & Onion. Incredible! It was really nice, and topped with a kale kimchi type of slaw that really made the flavors pop.

Long Dong Bud was topped with some shredded cheese, and a pineapple relish. It definitely had more of a traditional German type flavor profile, other than the relish.

We were torn on which we liked best. I went one way (Long Dong Bud), and Jay went the other (Beet & Onion). In any event, if you can get over to The Meat Hook and try these, I highly recommend them.

Ben Turley, a butcher from The Meat Hook, gave us a demo of how he breaks down a “rear quarter” of a cow – a beef shank (a back leg).

As he explained what he was doing, he trimmed off various specialty cuts within, like the oyster steak and merlot steak.

Here’s a shot of the oyster steak:

And some various other items like portions of the top round and eye of round.

He parted out the femur bone, too.

The coolest thing about this was that they were just slicing up parts of the lean beef sections and passing it around to eat raw, with just a little bit of salt on top. Awesome!

One of the thicker cuts benefited from just a quick, hot sear:

So this day was basically a dream come true. Good beer, Good food and a dead cow. And Ben basically has my dream job.

On my way out, I picked up a jar of this really crazy banana jam too, from Stagg Jam & Marmalade.

They had a table set up where you could try all four of their jams on crackers. This bacon jam has a hint of citrus and vanilla that really explodes with flavor.

ROCKAWAY BREWERY
46-01 5th St.
Long Island City, NY 11101

THE MEAT HOOK
100 Frost St.
Brooklyn, NY 11211

Hot Pot, Korean, Queens, Restaurant Reviews

Sik Gaek Seafood Hot Pot

February 9, 2014 Johnny Prime 3 Comments

Me, my wife, and some of our friends went to this pretty crazy Korean restaurant in Woodside called Sik Gaek. Good luck reading the website if you can’t read Korean. However the pics are nice under the “Delicious Table” drop down menu. They have some nice looking meats and fish.

I say “crazy” not to be judgmental of other cultures, but rather to demonstrate the purely subjective boundaries which I needed to cross to actually partake in the ingesting of food here. It’s crazy for ME, in other words. I typically eat my food cooked (with the exception of sushi, ceviche, shellfish and tartare). Not only that, but I usually eat my animals and fish AFTER they are good and dead (again, with the exception of shellfish). Also – my food usually isn’t MOVING. As you’ll see below, these western culinary conventions are thrown out the window at Sik Gaek. And that’s a good thing.

This place (the Flushing location rather than the Woodside spot we went to) was actually featured on an episode of Anthony Bourdain’s show on the Travel Channel called “No Reservations.” The show is now off the air, as he has moved to CNN with “Parts Unknown” (it’s essentially the same show). In the “No Reservations” episode clipped below, he was in the midst of doing a tour of various “hidden” Asian food and culture spots around Queens with renowned chef David Chang. Watch as he eats still-moving, live, marinated and chopped octopus:

It makes me think of a shocking scene from the Korean film Old Boy, which has one of the most fucked-up twist endings ever, and is one of the most fucked-up but excellent movies of our time. No doubt this film will garner even more attention when Spike Lee fucks it up upon the release of his remake later this year, starring Josh Brolin:

Anyway… on to the actual food that we ate. It turns out there was a huge disappointment. They were out of live octopus. So after all that babble above, I didn’t really get to test the limits of my culinary tolerances. We did enjoy some delicious food though, and some of it was still moving while it cooked in the hot pot. Check out the pics below.

First, the drinks. Two types of beer, two types of soju, and a watermelon full of vagina juice (watermelon punch):

Almost forgot the Psy shot glass:

Next, the starters. First up, eggs and veggies:

Then rice cakes and tofu skin with spicy sauce, along with some pickled items and dips:

Then we had some thick cut pork belly:

Then we moved on to the seafood hot pot, which contained lobster, blue claw crab, shrimp, clams, mussels, razor clams, abalone, baby octopus, squid, udon noodles, bean sprouts, and cabbage. They even give you a trash bucket beside the table to throw all the shells in.

And YES – the lobster was still moving at our table while it cooked:

Since they knew we were there for the live octopus, and we had made the reservation and tried to reserve a ‘pus for the table way in advance of getting there, they felt bad and gave us a plate of bacon wrapped mushrooms on the house: