ottawa foodies

I bought coupons for both Aubreys and Dumouchel Butchers. Have a bit left on my Aubrey's coupon and planning a special finner. Thought I would get a standing rib roast. Price at Aubreys $12.24 a pound. Price at Dumouchel is $7.99 lb.
Very interesting.
BTW I have found the quality at both places excellent.

IMO at Aubrey's you are paying mainly for their prime real estate. Make your decisions accordingly.

You are exactly right. I guess I am more an Overbrook kind of person!

personally, i figure with my Aubrey's coupon ($55 for $175 meat), even if it is almost double the price, i am still getting a good deal, so i don't sweat the price. plus, the market on a nice sunny day can be a great outing.

Thats true, There is not much joy in a walk up and down Donald Street!

I have never been to Dumouchel Butchers and will have to check it out. However, I went to their website and looked at the photo gallery and it would appear to me the quality of the meat is not as high. That of course is a very superficial judgement on my part.

But even if I am right, that does not mean they are necessarily selling low quality meat. I buy most of my meat from Farmboy and occassionally Costco. I don't think its as good as what I have bought from Aubrey's but I am very pleased with the price. I see Aubrey's as being among the very top end of meat suppliers in Ottawa in terms of meat quality (I would probably put both Saslove's and the Glebe Meat Market in that category as well).

Would anyone who has shopped a both stores be able to offer a more informed opinion in terms of how they compare in meat quality?

Cheers

I am curious as to how some of you determine meat quality and for me I am not so sure I have an answer. Have bought expensive beef that was hung for 28 days in a climate controlled cooler. Angus beef to boot and was not overly impressed with it. Sometimes I have bought great beef from Loblaws. Farm Boy is hit and miss too. For the most part now I either raise it or get it from a farmer locally. My little calf wont be ready to eat for another 1.4 years and in the interim always appreciate a great chunk or red meat :)

There are others that are much more knowledgeable than I am about these things but here's my two cents.

I think the better quality meat comes from local farmer using the best practices and not simply trying to crank out as much as they possibly can, and who take greater care and pride in raising their meat.

When I get meat at either Aubreys, Saslove's, or the Glebe Meat Market I would like to think this is what I am getting or if its coming a reasonable distance, it is still being raised in a more careful manner than the true mass production cuts I assume I would get from Food Basics.

It certainly looks a lot better than what I see elsewhere and I would like to think that I can taste the difference too but I have never done blind taste tests.

My suspicion is the beef you raise yourself is probably going to be a lot better than I what I will be able to buy. But as I say, many people on here know much more than I do about this.

Cheers

Quality to me comes down to taste and quality of the trimming- not too much waste, some fat on a steak but not too much etc. I am considered a good cook but I do simple stuff. Grilling, roasting etc.

My ratings:
Cosco: Good to excellent (Resent paying membership!)

Sasloves, Aubreys, Dumouchel all excellent

FarmBoy: Good to excellent on MOST things. Dislike their boned chicken as its badly butchered and lots of waste. BUT yesterday I had some Boned lamb loins (like small steaks) that were excellent and I have never seen elsewhere.

Loblaws Poor in the case, good at the counter.

There is a free range chicken place in Val des Monts - Sauveur des Monts I think. Is a 30 minute drive. Excellent chicken and a decent selection of local, but frozen lamb, beef pork and game, but it IS a trek.

But to clarify many here know more about meat than me, Thinking of Zyg...

BEEF
=====
Myself and a friend spent a significant amount of time comparing cuts of beef from vendors. Loblaws, Superstore, Farm Boy, Sasloves, Aubreys, Costco, Metro, and Sobey's.

We compared the AAA Prime Rib, and the AAA T-Bones.

Sobey's Sterling Silver branded AAA won, and wins consistently for marbling and meat quality. Comparable was the Sasloves cuts, but at 3-4x the price. Sobey's usually has a 4.99/5.99/6.99 sale for these and is usually when I stock up a few times a year. They also don't charge more for the Porterhouse cut, whereas butchers like Aubreys and Sasloves do. 1.20~ or so at Aubreys.

Aubreys meats are tender, but don't have the same level of marbling. And as you foodies know, this is generally how meat grading is done.. a few people have been telling me that aubreys is no longer selling AAA. Since this coupon business picked up. But perhaps because the product is "supposedly" organically raised.. it is as tender as AAA.

I'm currently shopping at Aubreys only because the coupons bring in the beef I buy for less. At retail costs, I'd be back at Sobey's on sale dates freezing a few months supply.
To give you an idea.

Aubrey's price, which is similar to Saslove's
Steak, Porterhouse 13.38
- coupon = 4/lb
4/lb is cheaper than the 4.99/lb sales from Sobey's. And I don't have to buy a boatload and freeze it.

So with a coupon, aubrey's makes sense. Otherwise. No way. I've also tried their Dry aged.. it left very much to be desired. My second batch of dry aged from them smelled very off. I pitched it.

Chicken
==========
I only tested boneless/skinless as this is pretty much my staple.
Costco, Loblaws, Metro, Aubrey's, Sobey's, and Farm boy.

I buy from farm boy regularly at the 2.99/3.99lb sale price and stock up. The jumbo breasts from there are excellent and are a great size for 4 portions.

If you look at the insane prices at Loblaws its crazy, sometimes I see 15-19/lb for small single cuts, costco is like 8.99/lb.

It blows my mind, how much money the average consumer wastes on chicken breast. I haven't found much difference between the retailers on it, save for foodbasics that sells this utter garbage frozen in a slimely brine solution.

Aubreys pricing on it is 12. So with a coupon 3.60. That's assuming you're using a 70 off coupon like I have from Kahoot. The newer ones aren't quite that high, I see them range from 55-65%.

Anyhow, a friend of mine told me some pretty bad stories about Costco meats.. He worked in a abattoir. Let's just say Costco doesn't get the choicest meats lol.
His uncles is also a cattle farmer, and grows organic beef. By far the tenderest beef was from him. Usually from younger cattle too when I had it. Sadly the butchering and packaging costs are too high to buy a half or a full cow. Plus I have no need for a boatload of ground and roasts.

In my opinion, the best tasting and the best value meat, beef, lamb, chicken, pork is from buying direct from the farmer, e.g. Fitzroy Beef Farmer's co-op, O'Brien's, Lavergne Western Beef... a very close second and often a better option since you can get all 4 meats at the same time and doesn't have the same butchering problems as some of the farmer's meat is Manotick Village Butcher.

Just my $0.02.

Whoa! Lavergne is not buying directly from farmers by any stretch. They buy the same meat that the supermarkets do.

Then sadly, I have been misinformed. I was told by several butchers that Lavergne is a slaughterhouse that uses local meat that is antibiotic free etc.

Nope, not even close to true. But oddly I have heard those rumors from a number of people now.

A long time ago the patriarch used to raise (and I think slaughter) his own animals but that is at least 20 years ago if not more. Today they get their pork on auction like everyone else, hung beef too. Their pork is all Ontario for sure, and their swing (hung) beef as well, but they also get a lot of boxed beef from out west (same stuff that Farm Boy uses almost exclusively). IIRC it is Cargill but don't quote me on that last bit. And just like mostly everyone else, they don't really care about how the animals were raised, antibiotics or whatever.

Lavergne's poultry is from Lyon's somewhere around here down south - not exactly sure where.

Don't get me wrong - it is a really great shop with a lot of great people who are collectively keeping a trade alive that not many people are doing anymore. But what you mentioned is without question something they do not do.

If you want local animals from a local butcher shop go out to Packenham to Mr Beef. They are a slaughterhouse and butcher shop, and get all their animals locally. No pork though, since it is a Muslim shop.

Here is one of the main providers of Lavergne's box beef and pretty sure this is who Farm Boy uses www.excelfreshmeats.com/

I say "pretty sure" because when I was at Farm Boy I saw the stacks and stacks of boxes and noted that it was the same provider that Lavergne uses, but I don't recall just now which provider. Lavergne had 2 main brands of box beef, Excel and one other which I do not recall just now. I do recall that one of the two was owned by Cargill.

EDIT: looks like Excel is the one owned by Cargill. Will try to recall the name of the other one

www.cargill.ca

I used to deal with Heartland Farms until they closed and now deal with L.J. Helferty in Douglas (west of Ottawa) through his website at www.totallynaturalbeef.ca

There is a long wait time because of their backlog but he raises some of the best beef I've had. Prices are comparable to higher end butchers (ie. $12.50/lb for a rib roast) but I'm happy to bypass the middleman and put all the money in the pockets of local farmers.

Totallynaturalbeef is already in the Forum - the localvores' thread. Anyone wishing to source local meat or other food should check there.

What is "boxed beef" exactly?

That's how supermarkets get their meat. The sub primal cuts are wrapped in plastic and then a number of them are put into a box. The boxes are about 2 feet x 2 feet x 1 foot in dimensions. The boxes come from enormous factories like those owned by Cargill and the likes.