Afternoon Treasure Hunt

This afternoon my brother & I headed out to find a good place to find meat (preferably hormone-free & free-range) and spices (preferably Mexican). Man did we win big.

We went to two different meat markets, the first one - Meats By John & Wayne - smelled AMAZING. We were basically drooling as soon as we walked in the door. We picked up some beef sticks, New York Strip steaks and andouille sausage. The second one - Prime Cut Meats - didn't smell as great and was a little smaller, but they still had some great things to offer. We picked up some hot beef sticks (which are phenomenal), and a T-bone steak (for $6.99/lb!). Success.

Next we were on a mission for spices, stopped at an international foods store...no luck. Pretty sketchy at best. Then the broski remembered this place he's passed downtown before - Tochi. This place was AWESOME! It had such a chill vibe and lots of different organic and natural foods. They even had beer & wine making supplies. They have an entire WALL full of bulk spices, pretty much anything you can think of. Definitely going to be hitting that place up again next time I need to restock some spices!

At that point we had steak and fries (frozen Alexia brand from Tochi), we decided we just needed some bread and dinner would be complete.

With a quick Google search for a bakery, we stopped at Great Harvest Bread. The woman who helped us (I think she might be part owner) was so genuine. You could tell she loved her job. She gave us samples (which were basically a quarter loaf each!) of a few different breads we were debating over. That didn't help our choice, it just made us want them all. We tried the Mushroom Swiss, Tomato Basil  & Breakfast Blend. They were all delish! We ended up with a small loaf of Honey Wheat, which I'm sure will be excellent as well.

All in all today was a great success. Bye bye grocery store/big company products. Hellooooooooo fresh, local, quality items. =]