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Showing posts with the label butcher

McCall's Meat & Fish, Los Feliz - Nathan McCall and the Pig

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"One man's junk is another man's treasure." By now in Los Angeles, it's not uncommon to see the words 'pig ears', 'jowels' or even 'trotters' on the menu. With this current dining trend, it's almost bizarre to find a restaurant that doesn't offer a beautiful offal. Just wait for the wonderful people at Olive Garden to offer the braised pig tongue ravioli with pig blood tomato sauce for $8.95 with coupon. Based on a ritual practiced for nearly centuries by almost every race in the world but Americans, a pig is finally consumed to the last piece of meat and thankfully it does not die in vain. When I had heard that Nathan McCall of McCall's Meat and Fish was offering a whole butchered pig that had been milk and acorn fed, I had to go in and see the butchering process. We've all tasted animals that had benefited from being milk-fed or acorn-fed. The latter being best exemplified through the mastery of Spanish charcuterie ...

Saigon, Vietnam - A Morning Market

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On the morning I went hunting for breakfast , I came across a morning market that was very much alive and kicking. It was now 7 am and life was going on here. People picking up breakfast, people shopping for groceries and vendors competing with their neighboring competition. A little more to eat wouldn't hurt I thought. While some locals run their businesses at a farmer's market or stall, there are vendors on wheels. Two wheels to be exact. Most of them sell fruit but I've seen something as wild as a guy riding with a hot deep fryer filled with oil on the back seat of his bicycle. I named him "Mr. Deep Fry-cycle". If the LA health inspection gets riled up over a taco truck on a street, imagine what they would say about the "deep fry-cycle". He would be sent to prison! No matter where I am, the sounds and smells of a farmer's market are all part of the experience. Your senses are put to the test with each step that you take. In a sense, it i...

McCall's Meat and Fish Company, Los Feliz - A Tale of Two Butchers

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It's 6 am and a husband and wife wake up and begin their morning routine. But unlike most people that put on a shirt and tie or a dress, carry a laptop or a messenger bag and head out for their commute, Nathan McCall and Karen Yoo are doing something entirely different than most married couples. Instead they are putting on their chef coats, grabbing their knife bag and walking out together for work. They are on their way to one of Los Angeles's newest culinary-related business, their very own McCall's Meat and Fish Company located right in Los Feliz. McCall and Yoo both did not intend for this to happen in their lives. Nor did they know that they would ever fall into cooking, and that it would bring them high regard on the Eastside. Hailing from Fresno, McCall was pressured to find a job right out of high school and found himself at a local restaurant as an expediter. He then had the option of staying with the 'front of the house' or going into the 'back of...