By the end of last night, our group (Blake, Steve, Anne, Vanessa and me) had a collective case of the meat sweats. Why? Because we attended the latest Petting Zoo meat fest at the Bloodhound bar in SoMa. In short, it is a celebration of meat, with whole animals grilled, cooked and carved in the bar or the alley next to it. Steve and Ann had been to a couple prior iterations and gave it a big thumbs up, so Blake, Vanessa and I joined them yesterday evening. In short, the Petting Zoo was awesome, although I don’t think I can take that level of meat consumption more than every six weeks or so.
Last night’s event centered on a pig roast and the cooking and carving of a goat, with some lamb burgers and various charcuterie (awesome beerwurst, blood sausage, chorizo, etc.) thrown in. Blake, Steve and I arrived right when the doors opened at 6pm so as to procure a seat–all that meat eating wears you out. There were bowls full of chiccarones (fried pork rinds) set around the bar, while servers walked with platters of charcuterie, chorizo on sticks, and little sausage sliders with great buns and sauerkraut. Blake and I started off the evening with a highlighted cocktail, an Old Fashioned made with maple syrup and infused with bacon. Normally I don’t want to have anything with whiskey or bourbon, but this drink was great, and not too sweet. I liked it enough to get another one later on in the evening.
[All the photos are up on Flickr. Slideshow below, or click through to see them larger.]
By the time Vanessa and Anne arrived, they started bringing out additional meat products, including a lamb burger patty on a stick that Vanessa liked enough to eat–the first time I can remember her having lamb. The takeaway is that if it is really good meat, super fresh and prepared right there, it is good enough for Vanessa! The center of gravity then shifted to the back of the bar, where the meat men started carving animals, beginning with a goat and ending with a pig. We kept an eye on the side window to watch for servers with new meat platters walking around towards the front door, near our location, so that we could descend upon them and get the pick of the meats.
After a couple of hours of meat consumption, we were all oozing lipids and ready to head home and detox. The event wasn’t cheap, at $42/person, but I certainly got my money’s worth in meats, plus admission included a drink ticket, which I used for that $9 Old Fashioned cocktail.
A note on the photos: despite the very fast prime lens on my Panasonic GF1 camera (max aperture of f 1.7) and large sensor size, the light was still too dim to allow for spontaneous shooting (“Please freeze for a minute so I can hold the shutter open long enough to get sufficient light”) without a flash, but I didn’t want to have the horrible flash look in the photos. So MacGyver Hopp in action! I wrapped a kleenex around the flash to diffuse the light, which worked like a champ. When Vanessa arrived, she gave me a barrette to clip the tissue on securely. Problem solved. I noticed a couple other folks using similar solutions last night.