SADLY, PRIME MEATS IS NOW CLOSED.
The pretzels at Prime Meats in Carroll Gardens are not the ones you get on the street corner in Times Square and they’re not the crunchy Snyder’s variety that you get in the grocery store. However, these side orders are an interesting combination of both.
Each $3 order gets you one lightly salted pretzel along with a pad of salted Vermont butter and a side of Bavarian sweet mustard. Even though it was listed as “accompaniments”, we got the pretzel delivered first along with our appetizer salad. I had no problem with starting with a pretzel. It beats a loaf of bread. Except the bread is usually free.
What I loved about the pretzel is how it was puffy and buttery on the bottom and crunchy and crisp on the top. And the salt added just a bit more texture and strengthened the flavors. What I didn’t love about the pretzel was that it wasn’t even warm. Maybe it cooled down because I let it sit there a few minutes while I snapped some photos for the blog. But a pretzel like this should really come right out of the oven and be meltingly hot.
The mustard and the butter both worked deliciously with the pretzel. I wasn’t sure which to use when (would using both be condiment overload?) but eventually favored the sweet and slightly spicy mustard, since the pretzel was buttery enough. I can’t think of a better combination than pretzels and mustard. Well, maybe pretzel and pretzel – both hard and soft.
Would Prime Meats’ Housemade Pretzel make my Top 100 of the year? It gets a 7 out of 10, since this was definitely a good starter to a hearty meal (and would have been perfect with some flavorful beer) but it would have scored even higher if the pretzel was just a bit warmer.
