This place is not for the faint of heart. I was intrigued by the thought of the freshest chicken possible. I've done the CSA thing, made my own ice cream, and I've recently become an expert at cutting my whole chicken into eight beautiful pieces... so I thought that this the next step. I also really thought I could handle slaughtering and the smell of blood, but I think I am a little bit traumatized after coming here.
I was invited to go past the counter and the plastic drapes that led into the room with the live chickens and where the slaughtering occurs. It was like no other smell I'd smelled before. I wanted to be tough, but I just had to put my finger up to my nose to dilute the odor or else I was seriously worried I would throw up.
A man came to help me soon enough and asked what I wanted. "A 4-pound chicken to roast, please," I told him. He plunged his hand into one of the cages and proudly showed me a terrified white-feathered chicken that came in at exactly 4 pounds ont he scale. I nodded. Apparently you can watch them slaughter it, but I came back into the front room, safe with the canned items on the shelves and safely separated by glass from the butchered chicken pieces on display.
There were a couple other people waiting, and still it only took about 5-8 minutes for my chicken, warm and wrapped in a plastic bag, to emerge.
Word to the wise: You must indicate if you want the feet and head removed or else THEY WILL NOT REMOVE THEM FOR YOU. I had the pleasure of tearfully hacking off those vital body parts and then screaming at my hands, "What have you done??"
I'm not including my horror or trauma in the stars of my star-rating, but I thought that I'd add it to the review to prepare anyone similar to me for this... experience. What Antonelli does, they do well. Good service, and really decent prices ($10.60 for my fresh-as-ever 4-pound chicken).
I am docking two stars, though, because the chicken turned out to be pretty dry and sinewy. I've used the same method of roasting chicken for over a year, and the birds invariably turn out moist and wonderful. The only variable here was the chicken itself, and I was a little disappointed. It wasn't inedible, or even that bad. It just wasn't great. The breast meat, and even the thigh meat, was pretty stringy. read more