Prime Smoked Meats will be tap dancing across the stage today. This dancer is an old pro. They have been smoking meats since 1958. Sit back and enjoy the show.
Prime Smoked Meats is located in an Industrial/commercial area near Jack London Square in Oakland California. They are a block away from the wholesale produce markets. When you arrive at Prime Smoked Meats, you may wonder if they have retail sales. Luckily a sign welcomes and directs you into the meat factory. You enter through a climate control door and walk directly into the meat processing plant. A pleasant odor of smoke will hit your sinuses. There is an office with a small window. You place your order and one of the butchers will return with your goods. This lack of old style butcher store ambiance is made up with price and quality. You can, "purchase premium meat products at unbeatable wholesale prices". They have great Ham. We picked up a picnic ham for Easter. We also picked up a slab of bacon for research purposes.
This bacon has a great meat to fat ratio. When you unwrap your slab a wonderful smoke smell will prevail. Prime Smoked Meats uses applewood smoke for flavor. Everything looks and smell wonderful so far. Oh, wait a minute. The rind is on. A sharp knife removed this transgression. A cast iron pan was used to fry this cured pork to the crispy stage. The first bite was heavenly. This bacon has great balance. Salt was present, but not overpowering. The same for smoke and sweetness. There was a nice chewiness to the meat portion of the strip. I have not even mentioned the price yet. This bacon will receive a good rating of 3.85 stars. It was very balanced. Nothing stood out and grabbed your attention on this bacon. Very good, but not a Gold Standard.
Rating: 3.85 stars out of 5
Price: $2.98 / pound
Where: 220 Alice St. Oakland, Ca. 94607 510-832-7167
5 comments:
ohwow... that is some NICE looking pigbelly. I wish we had more places like that around here. The best you can hope for is the local store meat department bacon, which I seriously doubt ever sees a particle of smoke.
I just wrapped up putting down about 20 pounds of homemade bacon this weekend myself. It was pretty darn good. I think I'm about to get a handle on bacon curing.
Next up is some serious sausage making, if my birthday present sausage stuffer ever gets here.
I know you have a serious knife for cutting up your cured pigbelly. Take lots of pictures and share.
Dand, I never heered of that one, nicely done, hey.
I wonder what it'd be like if we bought the slab, and put it in our smokers for a bunch of hours. Smoked Bacon Roast?
Biggles
Prime Smoked Meats is my neighbor, the owner is a great guy who really cares about his smoking and curing. It's a really treat to have a place like this next door to where you live - occasionally in the summer when the wind is in the right direction we can smell the smoking from home. Mmmmm, tasty, tasy bacon!
Hello The Editor, I have been going to Prime Smoked Meats since the 80's. Being a close neighbor, I hope he shares some bacon and ham with you every once in a while.
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