Cheap Eats: Rain Shadow Meats Squared

Russ Flint’s Pioneer Square butcher shop (the first Rain Shadow lives in the Melrose Market) is an expansive carnivore’s wonderland: beautifully marbled steaks and portly pork chops, plump sausages and house-made mortadella. And with so much space, there’s room for making sandwiches. At lunchtime the shop fills quickly, with folks on bar stools at the tall wood-slab table in front (there’s room at a marble bar farther back, too) biting into the shattering crust of the romesco sandwich ($12), that crust giving way to a gooey, melty middle—chèvre, romesco sauce, arugula and pickled onions with house roast beef. That same French bread is also the vessel in which the loveliest porchetta imaginable is heaped, dressed just with a lively salsa verde ($12); simple, true. Add in a white bean salad tangled with duck confit ($8) and a marinated kale and oil-cured olive salad ($8) that stands out amidst the myriad kale salads on every menu in town, and, well, this place is at the top of its game. I sure hope Salumi is paying attention. Mon.–Fri. 11 a.m.–6 p.m., Sat.–Sun. 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Pioneer Square, 404 Occidental Ave. S; 206.467.4854; rainshadowmeats.com