The Million Dollar Butcher
A new suburban butcher shop is the subject of a glowing profile in the Inquirer. Ardmore's new Main Line Prime is aiming strictly for the deep-pocketed yuppie (suppie? suburban yuppie?) set of the western 'burbs:
There's an improvisational quality, wire shelves loaded with gourmet sauces, a few crates of apples, a side of produce, crab meat and organic poultry, pre-frozen Natural Acres grass-fed steaks (from Millersburg, Pa.) thawed and iron-rich-red in their packages.But it is the prime stuff (only two percent of beef is graded USDA Prime), frankly, that's Main Line Prime's meat and potatoes - the $29-a-pound, dry-aged Charolais steak, for instance, that Davis once served to great acclaim at his Kansas City Prime steakhouse in Manayunk. (He closed it four years ago.)
This is trophy meat. Maserati meat. Bragging-rights meat, testosterone fairly wafting from the cases. I'm in the door just minutes before Davis shares the story of competing sales teams that would hold an annual feed at Kansas City Prime - the winners chowing down on authentic Japanese (not American-raised) Kobe steaks with twice the marbling grade (12) of even prime sirloin, the losers relegated to humble-pie plates of baked beans.
That same white-fat Kobe is in the case now, $199.99 a pound. "For the man who has everything," Davis says with a smile.
Now, here's the thing. If meat costs $199 a pound, we'd personally like to eat it at a restaurant where the chef who prepares it is trained in getting the optimal taste out of it... Because most home cooks, well, they can't really cook. Just sayin'.
Main Line Prime [Official Site]
Succulent, 24-karat meat [Inquirer]
[Photo via Inquirer]
