Good meat is good eating
There was a time in my life when I would have assumed that, boutique products like Kobe beef excepted, meat was pretty much meat. One sirloin tastes pretty much like another, and chicken is chicken.
Bonetti’s singlehandedly de-commoditized meat for me. Yes, they’re all the way out in Aldergrove. Yes, you’re going to have to drive a ways. Yes, you’re going to have to give up vegetarianism. It’s worth the trouble.
There’s nothing especially wrong with the taste of grocery store meat, it’s just that Bonetti’s stuff tastes so much better. Flavorful, as if actual animals were used in the making of the meat.
The shop is unprepossessing. As you can see in the photo, it looks like nothing. Inside, it’s just one long meat case, the back freezer, a bit of shelving, and a cooler at each end. The “store” part of the place takes up about a tenth of the building. The rest is devoted to meat-cutting, the freezer, and whatever other mysterious functions a butcher requires. The decor is a couple of meat cut charts, the price boards, and right beside the entrance, the health inspector’s report on the premises. That’s confidence-inspiring.
But seriously: the cuts of meat are why you come here. The staff is friendly, very helpful, and I’m pretty sure they’re all related. Every time we go in, we see the same three people behind the counter, and I just assume they’re the Bonetti siblings, probably children of the founder. Yes, I’m just making stories up, but there’s a definite family resemblance. The stock is deep: in general, there is no part of a cow, chicken, or pig they cannot supply you with, and rabbit, lamb, and other specialties are often available. Amazingly, their meat doesn’t cost much, either: we make a monthly run to stock up the freezer, and it’s clearly cheaper than buying meat from any local grocery store.
Better meat, less money. I told you it was worth the trip.
Where: Bonetti’s Meats, 3986-248th Street, Aldergrove. 604 856 2187
When: Open, um, regular hours Tuesday-Saturday. Closed Sunday and Monday
Why: better meat for less money. You do like meat, don’t you?
“Flavorful, as if actual animals were used in the making of the meat.” Haha. Sounds like a visit might push me over to the strict vegetarianism side. =P
Hey, vegetarianism is the correct option if confronting where meat comes from is too much knowledge. But it’s not like they butcher the meat in front of you while you wait. You can see into the cutting room, but you have to try to see it, and the worst I’ve seen there were hanging carcasses and chop-making.
The meat is flavorful, that’s all. And yes, I’m not likely to go vegetarian anytime soon.
we buy a cow every year from a local natural raised dairy, send it to the slaughterhouse and then have it butchered at Bonetti’s or Karls meat market in Abby. The main reason we only use these two shops is because we can trust that the cow we bought off the farm is the one we are putting in the freezer… no switcheroo’s going on. (It happens too often, you pay premium price for a young natural beef and end up getting a 4yr heifer back) Bonetti’s is honest and the quality is always apparent.