Steak help! Calling all Americans

[crazy canuck]

I am ordering a steak from an American restaurant. They offer sauces: wild mushroom butter, cajun cream sauce or demi glaze. Which to choose??????????

When you hear them offer those sauces get up and go to a real steak house.

Or even better, go to a good butcher and go cook it yourself. Do you really need to pay a massive mark up for something that's so easy to cook.

For some reason I just cannot replicate the perfection that a good steak house can achieve.

[Martim Silva]

I must say that having eaten quite a lot of different dishes, I still consider mussels, with a side of thick fries with mayo, and a cup of nice dark Belgian beer the pinnacle of culinary endeavors. 

For me, the best thing is Roasted Wild Boar. With lots of beer to go along.

I agree. Cuisine of Russians, Jews, Japanese, Indians, Arabs, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese etc. is all crap

Japanese cuisine can be excellent, as long as you know what you're ordering. Too many people concentrate on the fish and forget that Japan's actually includes quite a few meat dishes.

Sukiyaki or Yakitori are good, Shabu Shabu and Katsudon are quite good, 'Ghenghis Khan' (lamb specialty of Sapporo) is fabulous.

[DGuller]

For some reason I just cannot replicate the perfection that a good steak house can achieve.

On the other hand, when I cook the steak myself, I can experience a lot of variety.  I can try to make the medium-rare steak five times, and I would get five different steaks, anything from rare to well-done.

[sbr]

I am ordering a steak from an American restaurant. They offer sauces: wild mushroom butter, cajun cream sauce or demi glaze. Which to choose??????????

When you hear them offer those sauces get up and go to a real steak house.

Or even better, go to a good butcher and go cook it yourself. Do you really need to pay a massive mark up for something that's so easy to cook.

For some reason I just cannot replicate the perfection that a good steak house can achieve.

Very true.  I am a decent cook and even with a comparable piece of meat I can't come close to what they are able to do.

[crazy canuck]

Japanese cuisine can be excellent, as long as you know what you're ordering. Too many people concentrate on the fish and forget that Japan's actually includes quite a few meat dishes.

Sukiyaki or Yakitori are good, Shabu Shabu and Katsudon are quite good, 'Ghenghis Khan' (lamb specialty of Sapporo) is fabulous.

Did you pause to wonder how Marti even knows how Japanese or Chinese cuisine tastes?

[Caliga]

For some reason I just cannot replicate the perfection that a good steak house can achieve.

The reason (assuming food distribution in Canada is similar to here) is that you can't go to a normal market and get a cut of meat that's as high quality as what the nice steakhouses get.  I had a friend in Boston whose father managed a famous Italian restaurant in Manhattan (forget the name of it now, but it's one celebrities eat at) and he was always getting stuff from him that was either impossible to buy as a private consumer or absurdly expensive.  One time he cooked us dinner and used a bottle of white truffle paste that would have cost him like $500 or something had he actually paid for it.  I think he used it in a sauce he served over rabbit, but I'm not quite sure at this point.

Now that you can order so much stuff online, though, maybe you can get steak from the same places steakhouses get it, I dunno.

[Martim Silva]

Did you pause to wonder how Marti even knows how Japanese or Chinese cuisine tastes?

I suspect the odds are local restaurants. Which aren't a good place to start.

First, they tend to adjust their food to the tastes of the nations where they are located (don't think for a second that the food a Chinese restaurant serves in Europe actually resembles that served in China proper).

Second, westerners often don't know what to order and often ask for the most common dishes. I lost track of the times I saw locals 'going for sushi' at a Japanese restaurant, simply because they believe that's the most common food there. And making the Japanese wonder why are they fixated on raw fish when there is so much good meat avaliable (the Japanese actually prefer meat over fish in almost all circumstances, it's just that meat is quite expensive there).

Third, owners of those places often aren't exactly the best of the crop when it comes to culinary... and if they are good, odds are they'll serve small portions to maximize their profits.

[Darth Wagtaros]

This inspired me to have some steak.  I got some ribeye and some goat cheese and chives bu forgot to put the chive-cheese on.  I cheated myself and now have this stuff that I can't think of any other use on.

[DGuller]

I'm going to have a steak as well in about half an hour.  Right now it's dry-rubbed with meat tenderizer and pepper in the fridge.

[Darth Wagtaros]

Steamy Kitchen says that ifyou have a cheap cut of meat you can improve it by encasing it with salt for aabout a half hour, then washing it off thoroughly and drying it prior to cooking.

[Razgovory]

For some reason I just cannot replicate the perfection that a good steak house can achieve.

On the other hand, when I cook the steak myself, I can experience a lot of variety.  I can try to make the medium-rare steak five times, and I would get five different steaks, anything from rare to well-done.

So would it be fair to say you know less about cooking a good steak then the average person.

[Caliga]

I had a vegetarian dinner.   Vegetable korma that I cooked myself.

[DGuller]

So would it be fair to say you know less about cooking a good steak then the average person.

Not sure.  The average American person seems to think that steaks should be cooked well-done.  Obviously that already makes me a better steak cook than them.  My steaks may occasionally come out well-done, but at least I have enough judgment to not intend to cook them that way.

[Razgovory]

So would it be fair to say you know less about cooking a good steak then the average person.

Not sure.  The average American person seems to think that steaks should be cooked well-done.  Obviously that already makes me a better steak cook than them.  My steaks may occasionally come out well-done, but at least I have enough judgment to not intend to cook them that way.

Really?  I thought only pussies ate it well done.  Or people who enjoy eating ashes.

[Ed Anger]

Gullers Steak NKVD is on the trail of naughty cooks.