ALTERNATE MEAT IDEAS
Beef tongue served at Willistead
Beef tongue, cheeks and heart. Pickerel cheeks. Even lamb testicles.
A continuing quest to be different and the high cost of meat has The Willistead restaurant in Walkerville using alternative cuts of beef and protein choices regularly on its menu. There’s beef tongue sliders, a beef tongue reuben, braised beef cheeks, and pickerel cheeks, yes fish cheeks, done as fish and chips.
The Rocky Mountain Oysters (that’s the testicles since there are no oysters in the mountains) didn’t prove to be popular with customers but the restaurant’s bestseller, the Willistead burger, is made from 100 per cent ground beef heart with no fillers.
“Just try it. If you don’t like it, I’ll buy it for you but at least try it,” Jim Renaud, co-owner of The Willistead, said he’s told customers. “Once they try it, most of these items go over well and they come back and it’s their favourite thing on the menu.”
During this week’s Winter Bites Restaurant Week, The Willistead is offering beef tongue reuben perogies as one of the options for the three-course meals and a beef cheek stroganoff mac ’n’ cheese on its $15 lunch menu and a beef cheek stroganoff on its $25 dinner menu. Winter Bites is a chance for both local restaurants and their diners to try new dishes.
When business partners Mark Boscariol and Renaud, who also run Snackbar-B- Q in downtown Windsor, took over The Willistead in December 2014, they wanted to keep the previous owner’s concept of incorporating different cuts of meat from local or Ontario suppliers. The Willistead’s website boasts it’s Farm to Fork — Nose to Tail. Renaud said he hasn’t tried oxtail soup but the chefs are using as much of the cow or pig as they can.
There are people who come in, look at the menu and leave but Renaud said he’s building on the customers who are trying and liking the eclectic menu that includes roasted bone marrow, tacos with grilled octopus and sometimes the more exotic like camel or kangaroo.
He’s noticing suppliers are offering alternative cuts such as a shoulder cut of beef called teres major that is becoming more popular. To him, it’s the second most tender cut next to beef tenderloin, is half the price and is used in steak sandwiches at the restaurant to help keep beef dishes affordable. Beef prices have jumped about 30 per cent over the last two years and almost 38 per cent of Canadians in one survey last year said they were eating less beef or cutting it out entirely.
“The regular cuts of meat, the prices are skyrocketing, so it’s finding cheaper alternatives,” Renaud said.
While the beef tongue, cheeks (from the front of the cow, not the behind) and heart are cheaper, chefs need to spend much more time trimming them and preparing them so they aren’t tough or carry an aftertaste, he said.
The tongue, which weighs about three or four pounds, is put in a pickling brine for a day or two and then boiled like corned beef. The ground beef heart for the hamburgers is a three-day prep. Getting the beef cheeks tender — and they are fall-apart tender when served — is a 12-hour process that involves trimming off the fat, cutting the cheeks in sections, searing the beef and putting it in a braising liquid for five to seven hours, said chef Heather Strong.
Renaud said they’re researching to find more alternative cuts in the next few months for value and for the more intense flavour. He said some customers come specifically for items like the beef tongue be- cause they can’t find them elsewhere.
The Winter Bites Restaurant Week runs until Jan. 17. The Willistead’s Facebook page is updated more often than its website and you can find the Walkerville restaurant at 1840 Wyandotte St. E.