Where's the Beef? At Meat One!

Meat One provides a clean and spacious setting for its customers 

In the days of the caveman one would have to hunt for their meat rather painstakingly and then butcher the entire animal, also rather painstakingly. Not much had changed in Pakistan either. We are not a nation of vegetarians, let’s be upfront about this. We love Nihari (shank stew), we love sticky Paye (mutton or beef trotters) and boy do we love our kebabs and botis!

Makes you nearly forget all the pain you have to withstand at the butchers to make sure he isn’t cheating you on the weight, quality or price of his goods. You would have to see your chicken clucking about in its confined cage before it even resembled what one would associate with meat that was ready to go into a pot. The horrid smell of going to your meat guy was bad enough to turn your stomach and the overall experience was not pleasant. Same with the butcher that would have mutton and beef and the decapitated heads of the goats would also be on display, usually for goat's head cheese. It’s not new to Pakistanis to step over pools of blood to give our orders to the butcher.

A Meat One butcher prepares my filet mignon order

A fairly old trend in the western world has finally arrived in Pakistan. Clean, pristine and neatly packed meat.

In the age of the double income home, where the husband and wife are working and the mother-in-law is too old or for the people who will pay for convenience (this is my category), there is Meat One. Convenience food isn’t new to Pakistan since K&N’s started packaging chicken into half kilo and one kilo packs and making them available at all grocery stores. It was a start and K&N’s does it well. Breast fillets, boneless handi, karahi cut, mince, etc are all there. The only difference is the meat is frozen and they only do chicken. Meat One offers cooks, like me who just want to be in the kitchen and create, the chance to have fresh meat, made to order with no hassles. If you don’t have a special request you can just take your pick from the shelves; priced and with the expiration date on the package. Beef, mutton, chicken are all available fresh. There is also a line of deli meats and marinated foods with the addition of fish, unfortunately customers won’t find unmarinated fish. Personally, I’m also a seafood lover and I hope Meat One has unadulterated fresh fish with which you can do as you please. The marinated meat is breaded or skewered and available in the local style of kebabs or western like the breaded chicken. I have tried the breaded chicken and found it a bit bland since I like some extra oomph added to my chicken which it usually needs.

The environment makes you come back to the shop, with trained butchers and courteous staff you will find what you’re looking for. I found the staff not as knowledgeable at the Bhadurabad branch as they are at the flagship Khayaban-e-Shamsheer outlet. Specialty cuts like T-bone steaks need to be ordered in advance which can also be done by phone and they'll help you pick the right cut of meat too. The shop is clean lines with steel finishing, wood floors and a brick wall for texture and red accents to tie in with their red logo. Overall it reminds me of a steakhouse which is never a bad thing. Seats are available for you in case you have to wait for an order. Meat One also boasts that their products are free-range and organic. The franchise has yet to open outside of Karachi at this time. 

Sure it sounds like a singles bar and it is a meat market but its great for a cook with time constraints. 

For more information check out the official Meat One site here.

Note: The pictures were taken at the Bahadurabad branch.