Who needs Porter Road, Creekstone and all that?

[rickgregory]

Not me. I owe Red Man a beer or something once this pandemic is over for turning me on to Haggens. What's a Haggens? It's a 15 store chain in Washington that focuses on local stuff esp meat from the PNW. In a thread months ago about finding good meat, Red Man mentioned that if I had one near me I should check it out. So I have been.

Well, I landed a new client today and wanted steak to celebrate. So off to Haggens I went... and this is why, though I respect all of the online meat guys, I wont be using them. Cuz I don't need them anymore!

I grabbed 3 things:

For dinner, an SRF Wagyu Bavette

I've been hankering for some good burgers but I was faced with a terrible choice... Double R Ranch Wagyu ground beef? Or the Certified Angus Prime? BOTH!. The CAB prime was $5/lb and the RR? $8.

I was thinking about curing a flat or two for corned beef and pastrami, but hey... they have both Double R Ranch corned beef in a vacuum pack or the SRF Corned beef. Decisions decisions. I'm actually going back for that later.

The loot...

The SRF bavette, S&Ped.


The Bavette, seared on high heat for 2 minutes a side and in a 325 oven to finish to medium rare.
Tender, tasty and just incredible.

[JoeSousa]

The supermarket I frequent has some SRF stuff. Not a huge selection but they regularly have the Amweican Wagyu ground beef for $5 a pound. And there is another store close by that has their Black Grade ny strips and ribeyes for around $15 a pound. Sometimes less when it is on sale.

I made one of their bavette into bulgogi last week and it was excellent. I have cooked a couple of them like what you did too. Such a great cut of meat.

[Troutman]

Yea SRF stuff is showing up everywhere of late. We get their briskets pretty regularly in a couple of places here.

[JoeSousa]

Troutman I have never seen their briskets in the store here. I will have to ask one of these days and see if they can get them in.

[RonB]

Looks great to me.

[Red Man]

Yeah, that SRF bavette is really fantastic! I always stock up on SRF and Double R Ranch corned beef as well.

[rickgregory]

I'll go so far as to say the the Bavette was a steak I'd prefer to NY choice. Just stupidly good.

[jerrybell]

We've purchased a side of beef the last two years from a local ranch and the cuts included a Bavette steak. This was a new cut to me and I wasn't really sure how best to prepare it. Yours looks terrific. I'm going to try your method on the next one I cook.

[Andrrr]

Cool. Does it say what percent of the patties is wagyu?

[rickgregory]

Sadly no. And this isn’t on their site. Hmm

[DavidNorcross]

Looks great and nice to have a store like that close by.

[DavidNorcross]

Closest Wegmans to me is in Charlottesville. Not horrible, but an hour away.

[rickgregory]

DavidNorcross - you could move.

[DavidNorcross]

Ha...Nah, I will stick where I am. There is something to be said for living in the middle of no where....

[DogFaced PonySoldier]

Am I the only one who had to Google "bavette"?

It's a flank steak for us not-so-fancy boys.

[Huskee]

I had to Google it and picahna too a couple yrs ago. Don't see those terms where I live. But I say brisket "flat" and "point" and the meat counter ppl here look at me like "whuh?"

[rickgregory]

Nah, when it's wagyu it's 'bavette'

[Red Man]

It’s weird, when you google bavette all the results seem to talk about a French word for flank steak. SRF bavette is not flank steak and neither is any bavette I’ve ever seen. It’s flap meat, also known as sirloin flap. It has flank steak beefiness but is more similar to skirt in fattiness and is thicker than skirt.

[fzxdoc]

I loooove bavette steak. Fat-averse husband, not so much. The first time I made it for us, he took one bite, chewed a couple of times, and rolled the meat out of his mouth back on the plate (!). He is such a well-mannered person that his unusual reaction was duly noted. More for me. He can have beef filet while I enjoy bavette.

Nice haul there, rickgregory . Enjoy.

Kathryn

[fzxdoc]

Yeah, Troutman , I was really surprised. But we each have our own idea as to what tastes good, and to my fella, a lean piece of meat is far preferable to a fatty one. Live and learn. I still buy a bavette steak whenever I see one. And I don't even try to share. He gets a nice lean cut of filet mignon instead.

K.

[Dr. Pepper]

Very late to this post, but.....We were at a reception, and the tenderloin or whatever on a bun slipped out of my wife's slider, and landed on the top of my shoe. Well, I had that in my mouth before my wife could kick it off to the floor. Faster than superman. No meat should go to waste!

[fzxdoc]

Good save, Dr. Pepper !

K.

[rickgregory]

So, aside from going "holy crap look what I found" I posted this to encourage folks to check out the markets near them, esp indie or small chains. None of the other, larger stores here carry stuff like this... some of the carry nice choice cuts, but not SRF etc.

[rickgregory]

ha. I was just at the Woodinville Haggens (I'm in Shoreline). Rainshadow is excellent but Cap Hill is a bit of a drive just for meat. Not tried The Shambles.

One nice thing about Haggens is that they routinely have SRF and Double R as well as Atkins lamb. it's not always on sale so the Bavette I got today was $19/lb but... if you want special stuff (wagyu, prime cuts) and from good sources... they're a good place. And of course they're a full supermarket so you can do a full shopping trip

[rickgregory]

Googled the Shambles. I take it back, went there once just before covid. Decent place but tiny selection at the time.

A friend likes Beast & Cleaver though I've not tried them https://beastandcleaver.com.

There's also Better Meats (305 NE 82nd) Which is an old school butcher shop and rocks if you want them to cut thing special ("I'd like a 2-1/4" steak...") and has high choice from eastern WA. But they're only open weekdays, during the daytime so it isn't convenient for some folks.

[rickgregory]

And of course there are the farmers markets. Pork from Olsen's kicks your tastebuds into gear, etc

[Porkies]

My local butcher doesn't have the stock, nor the grass fed, pasture raised choices. If they ever carry ar least grass fed meat, I would give them money. Nashville (Porter Road butcher shop) is only 45 minutes, but ordering online saves some of my gas.

[rickgregory]

Yeah that's the great thing about the online options. If you can't get stuff locally, you can still get stuff.

[SheilaAnn]

We had a Haggens here for about 3.5 minutes. It’s now turned into that big brother Amazon store. Not open yet, but you see employees going in and out, presumably training.

I know I’ve mentioned it several times, bavette is the bomb.com!

every now and again, I will find SRF at either HMart or Mitsuwa (Asian markets here in SoCal).

[rickgregory]

Yeah they did an expansion push years ago, then pulled back. Amusing that you mention Hmart, I just drove past one up here and I didnt even realize they were here at all.

[Troutman]

rickgregory Actually I tend to agree with you, if you can get it local by all means do so. I like to look at what I’m buying.

I also wanted to thank you for turning me on to Marxfood.com where I did place a rare order for some Iberico pork spare ribs. Not a bad deal at $10/#. I ordered 6 racks, chose the day I wanted them delivered and got them overnighted via FedEx for free. Came perfectly frozen, doing a couple of racks this coming week. Thanks again for the tip, best order I’ve had in a while

[rickgregory]

Happy to have helped. It's funny, no one talks about Marx, but they have a lot of stuff like that. They used to have a storefront in Seattle. VERY dangerous.

[tamidw]

We used to have Haggens down here years ago, but they all went out of business.