OLIVIERS BUTCHERY

We travel to the Dogpatch district in San Francisco, to visit Oliviers Butchery. The Dogpatch (Meat Packing District) is located at the waterfront of the eastern area of the City. Once a gritty industrial and working class neighborhood this area has rapidly gone through a transformation. Trendy coffee houses, restaurants and now Oliviers Butchery.  The only reason I bring this up is because of the parking situation.  The parking here is horrendously impossible. My parking karma had totally vanished today. This was an experience in frustration and humility. I finally found a very small spot five blocks away. A red flag arose immediately. If I had such a chore finding parking, how can any other customer of Oliviers park?

Oliviers is very small shop located in a large industrial building. Their front door is an industrial roll up door. Once inside a couple of refrigerator cases and a wall shelf with sundries is it. What is inside of these cases is a collection of high end meats that Oliviers has for purchase. Oliviers considers itself an old fashioned ‘French’ boucherie.  There ‘Credo’, philosophy embraces and uses all the  buzzwords that hipster love; sustainability, grass fed, healthy environment, natural humane and etc. They do offer beef that is grass fed and grain finished. The cuts are displayed in refrigerated cases. They do offer pork, sausage, lamb and free range chicken.

Oliviers offers some non-traditional cuts of beef. I rolled the dice and took a chance on the “100 % Grass Fed Beef Surprise”. This was a grass fed and finished cut of beef that came off of the shoulder. The butcher recommends cooking it hot and fast. It was very lean. I seasoned it with salt & pepper to prepare it for a very hot mesquite charcoal fire. Here is the million dollar question. How did it taste?

This cut was called ‘Surprise”. The surprise was I actually liked it. It had a beef flavor that I would compare to the sirloin. The texture had a little tug to the bite which also compared to a sirloin. Another question to ask myself is will I return to Oliviers?. The answer is no because of the parking and the premium prices demanded for their products. The butcher did tell me people will park on the sidewalk right in front of the store. If you know San Francisco you know you are rolling the dice with the meter maid patrol. I pass.

Oliviers Butchery