GRDine

Quarterfinals- Matchup #2- Ralph’s Food Market vs. 20^th Century Market

Ralph’s Food Market

I went in Ralph’s on Friday night.  I’ve always been hesitant to go in this place due to its surroundings looking a bit rough.  It was the weekend of the super bowl which also coincided with the first of the month.  Wow, were they moving meat.  Narrow aisles, family size everything and some cashiers who wouldn’t make it through harassment training.  Ralph’s was highly recommended by a few people for doing custom meats but they don’t even have a meat counter.  They had lots of variations on sausage available: kielbasa, kielbasa in a family pack (over 4 lbs of kielbasa in a sack), kielbasa with beer, kielbasa with mustard, bulk chorizo, bulk Italian sausage, breakfast links and bulk breakfast sausage.  They also carried a rich variety of other ‘questionable’ meat products one example being whole rabbits (which are imported from China for some reason.)  I went with the standard fresh kielbasa.

20^th Century Market

Saturday morning 20^th Century was hopping.  There were about a dozen people packed in this tiny little store front that is made smaller by the long meat counter.  Again, the place and the clientele were questionable.  One thing that made my wait a little better was the sample offered on the counter.  I’m not sure what I was eating though I’m pretty sure it was standard kielbasa but I had no idea how long it had been out, how it was cooked or if it was going to make my intestines explode.  It was good though.  The staff was friendly enough and they seemed to have quite a large variety of meat products like other sausages, fresh meat and jerky.

I prepared the kielbasa in the same way I had the others, in a pan with water.  The Ralph’s specimen was very flavorful with spices.  Other than that it was all fat.  The kielbasa from 20^th Century Market was less flavorful to start, but then intensified.  I found that this was a clear advantage over Ralph’s.  The other factor that propelled 20^th Century past Ralph’s in this round was the fact that it was actual meat.  This isn’t some junk that got shoved into a casing, it is actual meat.

So, after the second matchup we have eliminated Ralph’s and Parkside Marketplace.  There were two different reasons for their loss but also two clear victors in Frank’s and 20^th Century.  It will be interesting to see how they match up against each other in the semifinals on March 20.

The next matchup is on February 20th between Lewandoski’s Market and Kingma’s Market.  Both are unknown with regard to kielbasa.  Lewandoski’s is what started all of this so I hope it lives up to the expectation.  I’ll be the judge.

Future Matchups:

Lewandoski’s vs. Kingma’s- Feb. 20

Sobie vs. Vanball’s- Mar. 6

Frank’s vs. 20^th Century- Mar. 20

-John Chapman

Tags: 20th Century Market, chorizo, Grand Rapids, Keilbasa, Ralph's Food Market

This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 4:53 pm and is filed under On a Side Note. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.