Silver Sage Beef

In all honesty, the food was not bad. The burgers were acceptable but a bit dry. Fries seriously over salted. But I was watching how the staff were, and I wouldn’t trust them with a pack of McDonald’s French fries. I’ve been in the industry, and where do they find these guys?
Incompetence is probably the best way to describe it. Clients are screaming murder at the front staff and the manager just laid back talking to his buddies and pretended to ignore and even let the poor guy get walloped. It was a busy day and this happens? So much for a peaceful, enjoyable relaxing lunch?
My personal experience is that such lax management means there’s a lot of corners being cut somewhere else. Where are the standards? Are they being trained to be oblivious?
Just a few thoughts.

An awesome choice for producer direct beef, Silver Sage offers great quality products at prices that aren’t that far off the supermarket. While not certified organic, the humanly raised, pasture fed, grain finished beef has fantastic flavor and is available in a nice range of steaks and roasts, with custom cutting available if you ask.
Our go-​to buys tend to be the lean ground beef for everyday use and the incredibly flavorful ground chuck for burgers. The chuck is more fatty and gristly than your regular lean or regular ground beef, but the taste absolutely blows everything else out of the water. Large primals can be had as roasts or cut into steaks, though I tend to go for the more flavorful utility cuts of flank-​steak and flat-​iron. The flat-​iron steak deserves special mention as it features an almost tenderloin level of tenderness with a much beefier flavor (at a fraction of the price of tenderloin). My absolute go-​to has to be the short-​ribs however. These have to be some of the best cut, most beautifully marbled braising ribs I’ve found.
The only downside I find is location and hours. As some of the other reviews mention, they can sell out of popular cuts on busy farmer’s market days. Though if you place an order for the following weekend, they’ll make sure to have it ready for you.
Oh, and one more thing, they’ve started stocking beautiful beef marrow bones. I haven’t worked up the culinary gumption yet to try roasting these bad-​boys, but that’s on my list for the year.

Silver Sage Beef cares about how their cows are raised. At least until they butcher them and sell them to us to eat ;) For those who care about what the beef that you are eating was fed and injected with, you should buy your beef here.
Silver Sage cattle are raised primarily on grass, but if you are specifically interested, they can detail exactly what the cattle are fed as they are raised. They aren’t fed animal by-​products, and they aren’t injected with synthetic hormones or theraputic antibiotics. These guys care, and after the recent XL Foods issues, consumers are more and more starting to care more too.
They do tend to sell out of popular cuts early in the day /​weekend, but you can pre-​reserve anything you want ahead of time. Just pop by the booth and place an order for a future weekend, or give them an email /​call. We’ve found this very helpful, because showing up at an early hour on the weekend isn’t something we are particularly good at. They are also really helpful with cooking tips and recipes!
Review #21 of Unilocal’s 30 Day Review Challenge 2012

We wanted to have a nice Sunday dinner and decided on steak so off to Silver Sage Beef we went. It was Sunday. later in the day at the market and the pickings were a little more slim than they probably usually are. Still, we managed to pick up a few sirloin steaks. hey took our order fast and wrapped up the steaks but paying became a bit of a confusion point as they almost added our steaks to another order and a third woman was trying to pay in line ahead of us. If you aren’t able to see a customer through their whole order, the hand off should be a little more clear as to not cause confusion/​customer disputes. Thankfully we left with our correct order and everyone paid in the right order. They weren’t even that busy though so I’d hate to see the confusion at peak times.
They had a really good selection of beef and lamb products. I did notice some people were looking for items (prime rib) they were out of due to it being later in the day. My suggestion is that if you have your heart set on something, shop a little earlier.
In the end the steaks were AMAZING so despite the checkout confusion, I’ll give them four stars and will definitely keep them in mind for future trips to the market.

I went to the Calgary Farmers Market with a friend the other day, primarily for lunch at the food court. I didn’t spend much time at the CFM when it was at the old location, and I can’t remember what the old food court looked like. This new food court reminds me of the food court at Granville Island in Vancouver, of which I am a huge fan. I’m not normally a burger person, but I decided to try Silver Sage Burgers because the burgers coming out of the kitchen looked so good! Each burger comes in three sizes: two 6 oz. patties, one 6 oz. patty, and one 3 oz. patty. I chose the 3 oz. patty, I think this size is called the wannabe? Perfect for me, I want to be a burger lover, but I usually can’t finish a whole adult sized burger! I was worried that the smaller size burger would come out on a full sized bun, but I was happy to see my small burger come out on a perfectly proportioned bun.