Can anyone recommend a meat shop that sells good grade ground beef that has been properly butchered? Can't seem to find any ground beef that does not have bits of cartilege in it. Tried purchasing the best cut of beef available in particular shops and having it ground separately, but unless the butcher actually pays attention to detail even that cut has some cartilege. Gives a bad mouth feel. Even at McDonald's and Jollibees' you never chop down on their hamburger (though mediocre at best) and have it bounce back on your teeth!
I bought my own meat grinder for that very reason. Buy decent cuts of meat and remove any gristle then you have control of what gets minced
My wife get ground beef at Hypermart. She picks the meat and they grind it. If she doesn't like what's on display they will bring out a carcass and cut pieces from it as requested.
That's where we have been shopping and doing exactly that. Still the meat is not properly butchered. Perhaps the previous suggestion of getting our own grinder is the answer, but I'm not a butcher, either.
I don't think you have to be. Get a large cut, cut it into smaller pieces at home, trim the excess grit and fat, and then throw it in the grinder. Feed the grit and fat to do the dogs/cats.
I was fed up with all the rubber bits in the ground beef from Hyper and Robinsons so my wife went to the local market in Valencia, picked out some nice looking beef and got them to grind it, turned out to be the worst ever, very high % of rubber or whatever. I asked her if she watched them grinding it and she said she did. The only thing i can think of is that there must have been a snout or something already in the grinder. So the quest goes on..... As i have posted before about the only thing i miss from the UK is the food.
We just buy the beef round from Robinsons debone and trim it, if necessary, then dice it and grind it ourselves. But don't buy the Robinsons "Butchers Choice" as this is likely to be something akin to a well travelled Tibetan yak that's been fed on Goodyear retreads (sounds like you've already tried it?).