Jonathan Gold Discusses Lean Meat at Belcampo Santa Monica

This week, Jonathan Gold visits Belcampo Meat Co., Santa Monica's slaughterhouse-to-table restaurant that received the Rodell review only a few weeks back. The LA Times critic lauds Josh Goldman's cocktails, "which are the best in any restaurant in town at the moment," and touches on the "perfectly good" appetizers, but focuses his attention on the sustainably raised meat, which is much leaner and more unforgiving than the the steak most have become accustomed to:

And whether you like Belcampo's meat, all raised on the Northern California ranch, will have a lot to do with your attitude toward Fernald's grand project, whether your taste for humane, sustainable meat production can override the understandable yearning for char, salt and fat.

Do you like the beefy, sweet, browned taste of limp shoestring fries cooked in tallow, or do you wish they'd cooked the potatoes crisp in another oil instead? Would you prefer dripping, dead-rare meat on the Roast Beef Banquet to the thin, dryish slices Belcampo drapes over toast? Can you eat the stringy, intensely flavored braised beef short rib with pleasure, or do you long for the gushing melted fat you'd find in the short ribs at Odys & Penelope? [LAT]

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The Elsewhere: Deep End Dining enjoys the eclectic offerings at Edwin Mills, The Offalo sweats it out at Howlin' Rays, and kevinEats digs into Hong Kong-style Chinese at Elite.