Dear Mr. Gold:
On your recommendation, I frequent Alexander's Prime Meats in San Gabriel for beef, lamb and their great sausages. But to me, the cuts of pork there don't seem much better than what you can find at the supermarket. Where can I get high-quality cuts of pork in the SGV?
–Neel, Alhambra
Dear Neel:
Just a couple of days ago, I went to see a man about a pig. As you may have read in Squid Ink, Nathan McCall, of the Los Feliz shop McCall's Meat & Fish, acquired a lovely Berkshire hog from farmer Lefty Ayres, who had been raising it on milk and acorns on his farm in Lake Hughes. I showed up too late to buy a piece of the pig, but McCall let me look at the head and some meat he had stashed for a customer in his walk-in. The belly was especially amazing – meaty and almost lean, but layered with dense striations of fat that glowed like Cararra marble.
Anyway, I love Alexander's Prime Meats, which is one of the few remaining real butcher shops in the Los Angeles area, and I am always thrilled to see the hanging beef carcasses dry-aging in the rear. I think the shop's pork is much better than commodity supermarket pork – I buy shoulders and loin roasts there all the time – but you're right, the pork on display in the butcher's case may not be quite as special as the beef. There is always frozen kurobuta (Berkshire) in the back; mostly racks, but if you give them a day or two, they can get pretty much everything.
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