otello

It's hard to tell which restaurant you are asking about, but at "Ray's: The Steaks" (but not at "Ray's: The Steaks at East River" yet), over the past six months we have been developing a pilot program of purchasing entire cattle from local Virginia farmers and having them dry-aged as entire sides to our specifications (right now, 35-40 days is our standard). The cattle are pasture-raised on natural grass and finished with an enriched grass diet featuring spent beer grains (yay!!!) and natural silage.

This involves a long process of developing relationships, trust, production capacity and processing and aging capability and has just recently begun bearing fruit, with supply steadily increasing as the project develops. Right now, we are concentrating on making available a decent selection on Saturdays, with possibly some limited availability on Sundays and Fridays. In all cases, though, people have been buying them up like crazy and they usually sell out early in the evening--so apologies in advance.

On our end, we have come up with some pretty amazing non-standard butchering techniques that allow us to produce some tremendous traditional dry-aged, bone-in cuts--Porterhouse, T-Bone--as well as some entirely unique cuts, like dry-aged, bone-in Chateaubriand, Long-Bone Cowboys, and the Chuck-Eye Cowboy (my favorite), with more on the way.

The real excitement from this program, at least for me, is that by guaranteeing a market for local farmers to raise cattle to our standards, rather than shipping off to feed lots, and by buying directly from the farmers, we will in time be able to keep entire communities of family farmers on their farms and engaged in low-impact, economically viable farming and stewardship of the land, as well as adding substantially to the local economies of the surrounding communities throughout the entire production chain. All this without having to charge our guests punitive, prohibitive prices or surcharges for moral superiority and/or guilt abatement.

In short (and numbers are just for demonstration purposes, so please let's not get all wonky), when selling to a middleman to be sent off to a feedlot, the farmer clears about $75 a head, just enough to die a slow death of a thousand small bleeding cuts. From me, between the farmer and the processor, they clear about $750--enough to survive and even thrive (in cases where it is not already too late).

So, as I mentioned, these cuts are available right now on a somewhat regular, but extremely limited, basis, with a steadily increasing supply as our investment in our local communities begins to grow and as the pipeline from already existing relationships increase its flow.

This is great news. I can't wait to try them.

Great story. Congrats.

I'm interested in Peking Cheers. I'll let you know if I can make it. Thanks for setting up, regardless.

Red Rooster, Damascus - enjoy

not pan-fried - but damn good eats a redskins tailgate.

Red Rooster, Damascus - enjoy

:addtolist:

to those that have been to both: is this place better than fogo?

And there was much rejoicing....

What they said.

[spoken to myself numerous times over the past year while eating a half-smoke with chili, onions and mustard]

Damn, this is good.

Can I dare ask...when is the next event?

If there is one, those on the waiting list should get a first shot.

is this event still fully subscribed?

This is very good news.

I am openly jealous of the lucky ones who will be attending this dinner for a worthy cause.  We just had our group's second annual birthday dinner at Ray's last night.  The House Special featured most prominently at our table, but I think next time I'm going to try that cajun ribeye (cowboy-style, of course).  Thanks, Michael, for an amazing meal.  As for the delicious wine we had, I will not tell the name, but rather give you a clue:

What follows the root-piercing drought?

Please PM me your guesses.

Good luck.

Heather was the first to get the reference, which is to the Prologue of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Here are the first four lines of it:

Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Now, for the answer. The root percing drought is in the month of March. March is of course followed by April. Aprile is the name of the great wine on Michael's list, a Super Tuscan-styled Napa gem. As of last week, it was set off on his list all by its lonesome. Choose this orphan on your next visit. A perfect compliment to the House Special.

If I could only shop at one store it would be Wide World on Wisconsin.  The staff, is as knowledgable as you can find, the selection is light on California wines, but one of the best Bordeaux, Rhone, Aussie, Champange, Spanish selections in country.

The free Saturday tastings are all done out of glasses, no plastic.  Also, the wines that are tasted can range in price from the low teens to over $100.  Also unlike Pearson's, CW, or Schneiders it is an easy store to browse, with a low pressure friendly staff.  I could go one, but I am drinking a free bottle of '04 Amon Ra that was left over from last Saturday's tasting.

I agree. Eliot and Hugo never steer you wrong.

I am openly jealous of the lucky ones who will be attending this dinner for a worthy cause. We just had our group's second annual birthday dinner at Ray's last night. The House Special featured most prominently at our table, but I think next time I'm going to try that cajun ribeye (cowboy-style, of course). Thanks, Michael, for an amazing meal. As for the delicious wine we had, I will not tell the name, but rather give you a clue:

What follows the root-piercing drought?

Please PM me your guesses.

Good luck.

Does this place have a website?