Urban Butcher: The people have spoken, and they love meat

Urban Butcher
Georgia Ave & Ripley St, Silver Spring
7.5/10 on my bangin' scale

Despite my enthusiasm for Silver Spring, I'm the first to admit that I was completely surprised to see a packed house at 7pm on a rainy Wednesday night in April. Surrounded by hanging cured meats, happy hour goers chatted (probably after a few $6 lavender margaritas) and diners oohed over pans of roasted chicken.  Apparently, people love meat.

To start, my party sampled a selection of meats and cheese, and Urban Butcher impressed us with presentation.  No more trying to remember which meat was which--the names of the meats were written onto to butcher board! So simple, much wow. Maybe this is a thing now, but I haven't seen it. We particularly enjoyed the spiciness of the chorizo, but would probably skip the spreadable pork 'Nduja next time.

Meat and cheese board - five selections.

For the main course, by far the best dish I sampled was the ox brisket ($24). Served with a potato puree, the meat was ridiculously tender. I also thoroughly enjoyed the hanger-cut steak frites ($24) and the butcher's burger and fries ($12). In these solid staples, the quality of the meat at Urban Butcher was the star. A misstep was the pork blade steak "Bulgogi" ($26). When I think of bulgogi, I'm looking for soft, juicy, sweet pieces of meat. The steak was overcooked to the point of being dry, and was served with three different sauces, none of which evoked bulgogi for me.

Ox brisket with potato puree ($24)

Pork blade steak ($26)

Urban Butcher recently reopened this winter after an electrical fire on its roof. I'm glad to see that herds of meat fans are coming to Silver Spring to support its reopening.