Found Treasure: The Meatery Sausage Program

May 31, 2024 – The sausage selection at The Meatery proves so vast it may inspire a punch card. 

Yet, despite an inventory with 20+ different sausages, a number of them could be a Found Treasure on their own. 

Put it this way: If the fermented garlic miso sausage was the only sausage sold here, perhaps from an unpublished menu, handed to you in an unmarked paper bag out the back, it might make The Found Treasures Hall of Fame. 

But chef Todd Fisher and company can’t do that to the people. 

They’re compelled to get his flavors to as many peeps as possible, in as many permutations as practical. 

Which means Monterey Bay has a new destination for gourmet sausages. 

The depth, range and pedigree of weiners now available  ($10-$13/pound) reflects the wider operating approach with The Meatery. 

Nearly three years ago, Fisher left top-shelf dining—and a career that spanned Hullabaloo, Tarpy’s, Pebble Beach Food & Wine, and 7th & Dolores—to more fully determine his own destiny at The Meatery.

But that doesn’t mean abandoning the intuition for popular lunch and dinner specials. Instead it means packing them into a single brat. 

We’re talking pork or chicken adobo with all the spices and prep, now appearing in a single sleek tube of meat. 

It means sweet Italian sausages with aged provolone, and hot Italian sausages with sun dried tomato. 

And tandoori chicken sausages. And elk with dried cherry sausages. And corned-beef-and-cabbage sausages, and veal bangers, mash on the side. 

Spanish chorizo and Oaxacan chorizo, smoked blood sausage, kielbasa, linguiça and andouille too.

As lead sausage whisperer Dan Simoes says, “There’s a lot that goes into them.”

I’ve tried six different brats, so I’m about a third of the way through my imaginary punch card. 

Another free suggestion, to go with the card: Sausage souls who punch out all 21 could win a free sandwich from The Meatery’s ripping lunch menu of Reubens, Goombas, pork belly banh mi, chili hot dogs, fried chicken sandwiches, smoked chopped hog, 18-hour smoked brisket and The Cali Cheesesteak.

Turbo tasting notes from the sausages I tried:

The jalapeño cheddar is an indulgent—and literal—burst of yum that approximates pork-jalapeño nachos in pipe shape, only juicier.

The truffle Toulouse seduces with simplicity and earthiness, serving a reminder that they can play the classics with precision. 

The artichoke-spinach-feta-preserved lemon proves as good as it sounds. When Friend-of-Found-Treasures Stuart Thornton hosted a Memorial Day Sausage Fest highlighting Meatery fare, this was the surprise crowd favorite, thanks to a texture Fisher manages with intentionality, and a sublime spike of citrus.

It will do gangbusters at June 8-9’s Artichoke Festival. 

The chicken chili verde tracks a similar hmm-that’s-interesting-and-dang-good arc as does the artichoke-spinach—both seem great in theory, albeit ambitious, then deliver above expectation. The CCV provides a surprisingly moist and dynamic body within, elevated by the chili pepper shards. 

The fermented black garlic and miso came last from this list, which is good, because it mind-erased those who came before it.

You know the face you make when something’s wow good? A furrow of the brow, pinch of the lips. 

Maybe you’re making it now.  

That’s this sausage, sweet and tangy and mysterious and familiar. Mmmm. 

Cooking by myself in a remote research kitchen, I looked around to ask, “You try this?!” 

No mustard needed. But The Meatery sells that and a bunch of other picnic-friendly provisions too.

Non-meat eaters that read this far deserve a medal, but I have something better. 

The Meatery—with no irony, only flavor-forward frankness—also does a limited edition seafood boudin. 

It changes in composition based on what’s fresh. The one I tried starred a scallop mousse base—that provides the fattiness and richness you’d get from pork—plus salmon, halibut and crab. 

Yum fun all over again. 

That was a goddess-send for my pescatarian partner, as was a fresh and crunchy salad with a variety of cherry tomatoes, lettuces, artistically sliced snap peas and watermelon radish. 

And a tub of roasted cauliflower laced with golden raisins and long-grain rice, another reminder that the name on the outside of the Seaside spot betrays how much diversity of product awaits within.

Yes, this wonderland of sausage tastes emerges from Fisher’s three decades of experience, but doesn’t happen without a clear zeal for the form. 

Fisher drips meat-tube fluency around emulsification without oiliness, grind at the right gauge, and casing with mandatory snap. (He goes with Dutch pork liners because they hold up to their hand-twisting operation best, while not breaking.) 

“Texture is major,” he says. “The main idea is that we’re not creating sausages that need to go into something like a pasta or a soup, though ours work great for that, but sausages that can be center-of-the-plate.” 

That gets at the most flavorful thing for local food scene obsessors: Seeing Fisher in his element, running his own shop, spreading a zeal for combining ingredients that transcends what a butchery can be.

Major texture is correct.

The Meatery | 1534 Fremont Blvd. Seaside | TheMeaterySeaside.com.