Richard of Rebuilding Space, the lovely Elise of Frozen Tropics, and some guy named Ken Firestone will be once again leading a tour of the Capitol City Market, so you too may discover the joy that is cheap meat and veggies. The tour, which Richard & Elise started back in 2006 (I think), gives the uninitiated a quick review of what’s available to retail customers. I’ve done a bulk of my regular shopping there since I’ve been familiarized with what’s there. The prices there have spoiled me, with beef tenderloin for less than $5 lb, blocks of butter for $2, lemons for about .22c and avocados for way less than $1. Tours end at Litteri’s, and that’s where I tend to wrap up my market shopping for some cheap and not so cheap wine, pasta, and a sub.
Anyway, according to Richard the tour will be on the 23rd of this month, starting at 10AM at the corner of 4th and Morse Sts NE. I’m guessing along the chain link fence on 4th St NE, where I joined one of their tours one time. Or, if you get there early at 9AM go to K Young’s at 300 Morse St (on the other side of chained linked vacant lot past the little guard shack) and join Richard for Korean food.
A few things I should tell you to lessen the culture shock when dealing with the market area. One, it is a working warehouse area not a tourist spot. It isn’t squeaky clean and watch out for the forklifts and guys moving boxes. Second, many of the businesses are cash only. Third, 70% of the time there is no price on anything. Trust me, most of the time it is way cheaper than the Giant. Lastly, for several places you will need your receipt checked by the guy at the door.
5 thoughts on “Filet Minon $5 a pound”
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Thanks for the mention and for your mention of the very practical stuff like cash. I will add that stuff to my entry.
And Paul Pascal, who is leading the market property owners and merchants assn. vis-a-vis the redevelopment proposal, is going to come on the tour and give an update of the assn’s perspective on what’s happening there.
How much of that $5 pound of flesh came into being as the result of Bovine Growth Hormone injections into the animal? As long as 75% of that pound of flesh is the result of natural biological growth prior to slaughter; you can count me in!
As far as moral food goes, I have no clue. The money I save at the Capitol Market gets blown at the Dupont Circle & Bloomingdale & Penn Quarter Farmers Markets.
As far as I know the cows were shooting smack before the slaughter. Regardless, I keep going back because I’ve made some great meals with that tenderloin. Also on meat, if one picks up the lamb, get the whole leg, not the pre-cut. I once bought the frozen sliced leg and it was stringy and tough. I’ve had better results when buying the whole boneless and chopping and re-freezing it. The downside was lamb fat stinks. Upside, it’s Australian lamb and I don’t believe they use a lot of hormones in general.
Another thing over there that is wonderful is the $11-12 tins of olive oil at Sam Wangs or US Beef.
Avoidance of ingesting bovine pharmaceuticals is often mistaken as a moral or political action. Such is the power of our cultural beliefs about food.
It is similar situation when someone doesn’t drink alcohol, and others assume that is because the non-drinker is an alcoholic, when in reality they just don’t like the taste or the feeling associated with drinking alcohol.
Sorry, I don’t mean to use your blog as a soapbox. Good blog, by the way.
It’s been a busy couple of weeks, so I’m only getting to this now. Thanks for the kind words. Here’s hoping we don’t all freeze this weekend.