Personally, I think ordering the filet at a hibachi grill is a waste to begin with. Looking down on somebody for how they order their steak at a hibachi grill is kind of looking down your nose at somebody’s menu choice at Chuck E Cheese.
You go to the Hibachi grill to catch shrimp in your mouth see the flaming onion volcano, the Choo Choo train, and eat lots of buttery fried rice.
All I know, if for some reason I’m in the mood for steak tonight.
Oh yes! Me too! I’ve been in that mood ever since I started reading this thread.
I’d be happy with a nice steak or filet or brisket or pot roast.
I don’t want a steak, but for some reason I’m hungry for a Doc Marten.
I can’t believe no one has brought up* Kitchen Confidential* where Bourdain noted that someone ordering a steak well done got the crappiest cut they had in the kitchen, since that person clearly doesn’t care about the nuances of taste.
Filet Mignons are relatively lean, unused muscle tissue, and as a result, they’re tender if cooked hot and fast, (not overcooked), and relatively flavorless.
Something like a strip or ribeye has more fat, with not much more intramuscular connective tissue, so they’re much more flavorful, and slightly less tender.
Filet’s main claim to fame is the tenderness that’s possible if cooked right. I suspect that cooking a filet to well-done pretty mucn negates the reason for getting it in the first place, and is likely a sign of someone who doesn’t really know how to order steaks, but knows that filet mignon is an expensive high-end steak that you don’t often see at the grocery store.
I’m partial to strip steaks cooked medium rare, but that’s me. If someone wants to buy a filet and intentionally overcook it, that’s fine, but what it says to the people in the know, is that he/she isn’t in the know. Overcooked filets are kind of like the white zinfandel of the steak world.
I had steak fajitas made with filet at an upscale Mexican restaurant. It wasn’t overcooked and was delicious, melted like butter in my mouth.
More time is not required but in general, yes, the longer it’s cooked the better. A good restaurant knows this and will take a little longer to cook a well-done steak. Except for a filet; low-and-slow makes no difference for a filet because it has no fat or collagen.
More time is certainly required. Have you tried this with a porterhouse? One side is strip, other side is filet. Cook it well. The filet is more tender. Try cooking a chuck steak well done and see what happens. It’s an inedible, chewy mess unless you cook it for a couple hours slowly.
Yes, a chuck has so much collagen that it needs more time (I cook chuck 48-72 hours). But a sirloin strip cooked well-done will have more flavor than a filet with a similar tenderness and be cheaper.
“Wow, the service here is really slow, Martha.”
What are you doing with the cup of water at work?
It’s not uncommon for a chef to surreptitiously and deliberately substitute a quality cut of beef (ordered by the customer) for a lesser cut of beef (chosen by the chef) because the chef refuses to destroy a quality cut of beef by cooking it well done. One may lavish handsomely how well you like well done but you might actually be eating the chef’s shoe leather and you are none the wiser.
One begins to wonder whether “well done beef tastes dry and overcooked” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy on the behalf of chef snobbery.
I knew guys that would do something similar when I was bartending. Some tasteless jackholes wanting to flash their cashloaf (cashloaves?)came in from time to time ordering Remy Martin and coke. My friend gave them well brandy and coke. Never once did they complain, and left good tips.
Maybe only one person in ten can tell the difference. But if they do, I would guess they would make a big fuss about it. I know that I sure would.
So, on average, someone may be able to get away with cheating like that a few times. But eventually they will likely get caught and when they do, they’ll have to find a new job and maybe even a new city.
I must admit that it would probably be a lot easier to get caught selling an inferior cut of meat than it would be to tell if a bartender is selling an inferior drink. But if it was easy to get away with that, I would think bartenders everywhere would be selling swill to their customers and I doubt that is true.
What do you think?
It’s easy to get away with it when you know who the customer is already. And those particular customers where truly tasteless jack holes. To drink Remy martin with coke screams “Look at me! I have money for top shelf! But I don’t like the taste of it, so fill it with cheap sugar water.” And if you are gonna drink that, you might as well save your money and drink the swill. Or at least the cheaper stuff.
But you certainly wouldn’t do it to some customer whom you’ve never met before. And you certainly don’t pour it right in front of them. The bartender I was referencing did get fired eventually because he was a grade A prick to everyone about everything.
well that’s just fine except it’s a waste of money to buy an expensive cut of meat known for it’s tenderness and then cooking it to fine leather. That would be the op’s point. Start with a cut that is cheaper and less squishy.
Sorry, what is a “butterflied Pittsburgh” style?
And i always order my steaks medium rare, but don’t really care what other people eat. If you want to burn your expensive steak to a crisp, well, whatever floats yer boat.
Butterflied Pittsburgh style:
That’s good. The issue really wasn’t that the customers were douchey pricks who couldn’t tell the difference between Remy Martin and E&J Gallo brandy when mixed with Coke (it’s relatively strong flavors run roughshod over the subtleties between brands of liquor), but rather that this bartender guy decided to be even more dickish and substitute cheaper liquor without them knowing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he pocketed the difference as well.
I don’t see why a chef would serve anything but what the customer ordered. I could totally see them finding the cruddiest filet or strip or whatever to cook well-done, under the theory that it’s still a filet, and it’s ideal for cooking well done because that will obliterate whatever made it cruddy. But I can’t see them carving a hunk of chuck into the shape of a filet and serving that; it’s deceptive, it’s arrogant, and on top of that, it would take more time to scheme up this deception than to just cook a filet well done and get it out into the dining room, and typically time is at a premium for those guys; much more so than being snooty about the meat.