Off The Avenue: A Family Butcher Shop Grinds On

In New York City, a phrase like ethnic market can often feel, for all intents and purposes, obsolete. Having said that, there’s still much to be discovered in the aisles of small markets, “ethnic” or otherwise, that dot Northern Brooklyn, and such remains the case with Melinda’s Halal Meat Market, a businesses owned and run by a family whose roots go back to the small Balkan country of Montenegro. For someone like myself, not intimately familiar with all the cultural complexities of the Balkan peninsula, the products that cram Melinda’s shelves project an intriguing otherness. Many of their flavors, however, would eventually prove accessible, even familiar.