Riverside-Area Merchant Says Lion Steak Sales Roaring

PERRIS (CBS) — An Inland Empire merchant says he has no plans to eliminate the import and sale of lion steaks, kangaroo roasts and alpaca burgers.

Anshu Pathak is the owner of Exotic Meat Market, a wholesale supply firm based in Perris that imports steaks, roasts and ground meat from hundreds of animals that are more familiar to viewers of the Animal Planet than the Food Network.

Available at his store are various cuts of bear and python, some of which are imported from a farm in Vietnam.

The merchant, who has federal import permits, says hundreds of customers across the nation come to him for such specialties as lion steaks at $60 per half pound.

"Some people loathe me," admitted Pathak to the Riverside Press-Enterprise. "I'm Hindu-Brahmin. In India, beef is sacred, Indian cow is sacred, right? But I'm in America."

One of Pathak's customers, a high-end taco shop in Tucson, recently made worldwide Twitter posts when they advertised a lion tacos special in the Arizona Daily Star. The Tucson taco shop backed down in the face of the publicity and resulting threats.

Pathak said he and his 10 employees have been threatened many times because they sell meat to gourmet butchers, restaurants and some celebrities' chefs.

Pathak's lion steaks come from farms in the Midwest, he told the newspaper, where lions are raised on farms and slaughtered for their fur. Until recently, he said, the meat was discarded.

And no, the meat does not all taste like chicken, Pathak told the Press-Enterprise.

"It all tastes different," he told the newspaper. "Chicken tastes like chicken. Python tastes like python."

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