# Do very nice steakhouses actually have temps like "med. rare plus"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 13, 2009, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120 "2009-12-13T18:14:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/61 "2009-12-16T02:09:12Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > But ‘medium’ steak is by definition, by culinary standards, and nominatively the perfectly cooked steak… it is not overcooked. On the other hand, anything that is below medium and hence ‘rare’ (hrēre (OE)- boiled lightly) is by definition not cooked fully and is incomplete. Well done, sir. But, if you look at it from the standpoint of the most popular choice… ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/62 "2009-12-16T02:10:54Z")
> [@](#): > > But ‘medium’ steak is by definition, by culinary standards, and nominatively the perfectly cooked steak. Do you have a cite of that being a culinary standard? ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/63 "2009-12-16T02:21:45Z")
Steak done-ness report from Roots Steakhouse, Summit, NJ: I ordered my 16 oz prime NY strip medium rare. It came out done just a little more than I might have liked, but was still very very good. In the interest of science, I did surreptitiously poke my finger in the center to confirm that it was indeed warm. Next time I have the opportunity to eat prime beef, I’m ordering it rare, though. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/64 "2009-12-16T02:21:55Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > But, if you look at it from the standpoint of the most popular choice… But the most popular choice is relative to time, place, and meat. The MR beefsteak has not always been the most popular choice in America. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/65 "2009-12-16T02:40:28Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Here is a pretty good set of pictures. Do we all basically agree on those > [http://www.hilltopsteaks.com/images/degrees.jpg](http://www.hilltopsteaks.com/images/degrees.jpg) I agree, but how can I pretentiously order a steak that’s halfway between the pictures medium and medium well? 😃 Because really, the medium well pictured is too brown, and the medium too pink. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/66 "2009-12-16T02:41:44Z")
> [@wolfman](#): > > Do you have a cite of that being a culinary standard? No, I don’t. But I’ve always thought that this “rareness” phenomenon, and dare I say snobbery, in modern cooking is an imported culinary ideal mostly perpetuated by the aristocracy and wide ranging culinary arm of the French (and uncommon Japanese tastes, in more recent years). It is a modern propagated myth and purely a forced matter of preference that Americans prefer rare meat. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/67 "2009-12-16T02:55:20Z")
> [@Enderw24](#): > > I’m like you, though I’ve moved down a scale. I grew up on medium well to well done and didn’t know any differently for a long time. Then I adventured out to medium and liked that a heck of a lot better. I’ve tried rare steaks but I honestly don’t prefer them. > > What I want is a medium rare steak that’s just a twinge over medium rare. The problem is ordering it. If I try medium, what usually comes back is something closer to medium well, which is entirely too overdone but edible and I feel like a jackass for returning a steak for being, what? 5 degrees too warm? And if I ask for medium rare I risk it going the other way of being closer to rare. > What I want is a nice, warm, somewhat firm red center. That should be a medium/medium rare hybrid. > So to get back to the OP, yes, if I could, I’d order my perfect steak to be medium/medium rare, but I doubt most restaurants I go to would be able to handle it or care all that much. After looking at the linked pictures, I think I want a steak halfway between medium rare and medium, too. “What I want is a nice, warm, somewhat firm red center. That should be a medium/medium rare hybrid.” sounds just about right. Maybe I should order it like that in the future. I always just order medium now because anywhere between medium rare and medium-well is fine with me, but this would be my preference for the ultimate steak. A little geographical bragging - I live in the middle of Alberta beef country. That is some nice beef. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/68 "2009-12-16T03:01:06Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > No, I don’t. But I’ve always thought that this “rareness” phenomenon, and dare I say snobbery, in modern cooking is an imported culinary ideal mostly perpetuated by the aristocracy and wide ranging culinary arm of the French (and uncommon Japanese tastes, in more recent years). It is a modern propagated myth and purely a forced matter of preference that Americans prefer rare meat. It isn’t forced, nor is it modern. A lot of people who grew up with overcooked meat think medium rare is some kind of trend when they grow up and move out of the house and are exposed to different tastes. The rarer the steak, the jucier the steak. That’s all there really is too it. Plus, the texture is softer, and the flavor is beefier. Med rare is the most often ordered doneness at high-end steakhouses, with medium a close second. ---
**Author:** ![Who\_me\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/958977/32.png) [@Who\_me\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Who_me_1)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/69 "2009-12-16T03:19:44Z")
I don’t see the point in saying one opinion is more right than any other. Eat steak cooked the way you like it and let everyone else do the same. I’ve has blue steak and liked it, although I prefer it cooked a little more. If I get a medium rare steak, I’ll eat it and like it although I prefer it cooked a little less. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/70 "2009-12-16T03:23:38Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Not true at all. Sear the outside, and place it in the oven. No burning at all. It will be drier, but that is true for any cut of steak. Sure, but like you say, it requires special treatment and not all places are going to know the special trick. I’ve no doubt that decent not-dry well done steaks are possible, but more likely than not you will get a dry cinder. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/71 "2009-12-16T03:24:16Z")
> [@Who\_me\_1](#): > > I don’t see the point in saying one opinion is more right than any other. Eat steak cooked the way you like it and let everyone else do the same. I’ve has blue steak and liked it, although I prefer it cooked a little more. If I get a medium rare steak, I’ll eat it and like it although I prefer it cooked a little less. Only a rare person says things like that. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/72 "2009-12-16T03:27:24Z")
> [@Who\_me\_1](#): > > I don’t see the point in saying one opinion is more right than any other. Eat steak cooked the way you like it and let everyone else do the same. I’ve has blue steak and liked it, although I prefer it cooked a little more. If I get a medium rare steak, I’ll eat it and like it although I prefer it cooked a little less. I don’t see the point in it either, but I’m going to challenge anyone who says that a popular doneness is “forced” or trendy, or any other number of inaccurate assumptions. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/73 "2009-12-16T03:30:03Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Sure, but like you say, it requires special treatment and not all places are going to know the special trick. I’ve no doubt that decent not-dry well done steaks are possible, but more likely than not you will get a dry cinder. We’re talking about a steakhouse in this situation, not some restaurant with filet mignon on special tonight. I’d say 99.9% of all US steakhouses know how to cook a filet above medium rare. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/74 "2009-12-16T03:53:40Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > The context given was a large company dinner, and from a cooking perspective that’s very different from a normal, one-order-at-a-time restaurant situation. When you’ve got a set menu with a large number of people all getting the same thing, then everybody’s getting it cooked the same way. My current cooking job is in a banquet facility that does no restaurant business at all - we strictly do banquets. If the entree is steak, the steaks are all marked/seared on the broiler well ahead of time, and placed on large sheet pans. Depending on the size of the steaks, this can be up to 60 steaks on a pan. Shortly before the meal is to be served, the sheet pans are put in the oven to finish cooking. They’re cooked to medium rare in the oven, and then we plate everything up assembly-line style. > > When you’re feeding 200+ people all at _the same time_, it’s logistically impossible to allow everybody to have their steak done “to order”. It would be sheer chaos. A banquet or “company dinner” situation is not a “fine dining” setting where the whole purpose is to savor the food. The meal itself is usually of secondary importance, usually being simply a part of a larger event/agenda, and trying to customize individual meals just ends up screwing up the schedule. Regarding your boss’s preference for WD Prime Rib in a banquet setting: You know those electric insulated heating carts for stacking, transporting, and storing banquet plates at a safe temperature before service?.. Shit! can’t think of the restau-lingo term for them. We had a simple one word description for them…kinda like ‘fridge’? Anyways, usually the first cuts of prime rib we put into the heating cart we saved for the people who preferred more “well done” temperatures. First in, Last out, got the most well done pieces. If we needed to, we could add a bit of hot jus to a medium piece and get a medium well with some time in the heating cart. Or we just found them a good end piece and gave it the same hot jus treatment to attain a Well piece. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/75 "2009-12-16T04:00:45Z")
Cambro ---
**Author:** ![dzeiger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/46a35a/32.png) [@dzeiger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dzeiger)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/76 "2009-12-16T04:26:46Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > I’ve said that for years about both steak and eggs. With eggs, I’ve had countless customers order “over easy” when it turned out what they really wanted was “over medium”. FWIW, it was only fairly recently that I learned that there was “over medium.” I thought that over easy was just the name of the style of flipping the eggs over. ---
**Author:** ![Recliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e57/32.png) [@Recliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recliner)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/77 "2009-12-16T05:26:08Z")
> [@Rex\_Goliath](#): > > Hi, there. I’ve worked in Steakhouses either as cook or waiter for a few years now, but never in any sort of super high end restaurant. The most expensive place sells a N.Y. Strips for about $26 or so. I’m a steak snob, and while you can find people that will charge you whatever you want to pay for a steak (especially with silliness like Kobe beef), the best steaks I’ve ever had (Sparks in Manhattan) aren’t too much more than that. Of course, that’s _just_ a steak. Regarding doneness, my understanding is that a given steakhouse will have a standard method of cooking, and they just “shade” up or down based on the customer preference. This varies widely…if you’re at a chain, they tend to be liability-oriented, and hence they tend towards “more done”, whereas non-chain steakhouses tend to be fiercely against the higher degrees of doneness. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 5:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/78 "2009-12-16T05:43:31Z")
> [@Nzinga\_Seated](#): > > You are serious business about your steak. You want to talk serious? A few years back I’m with my boss at our client, a law firm in Dallas, TX. We speant the better part of the afternoon with the client (at a rate of anywhere between $200-$400 an hour) studying one of those butcher charts before going out for steak dinner at III Forks. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/79 "2009-12-16T05:51:26Z")
> [@WarmNPrickly](#): > > Filet Mignon is a particularly thick cut. Not only would cooking it through be extremely time consuming, it would effectively be charcoal on the outside. I’m sure there are places that do it just fine, but IMO there is a clear reason for this policy. My wife only wants her steak well done. I have successfully cooked a filet mignon for her one time. I usually forget that it is on the grill and make a hockey puck that even she wont eat. > > That’s fine, because like most people I’ve met that prefer steak well done, she doesn’t like steak. > [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > Not true at all. Sear the outside, and place it in the oven. No burning at all. It will be drier, but that is true for any cut of steak. **Labrador Deceiver** is correct it can be done. Restaurants will avoid that option however. It simply takes too long. If its a single dinner they might do it but a member of a party its going to make everyone else have to wait in order to send all the meals out at the same time. My experience at Mortons a few times with a friend who orders fillets well done is they inform him they will have to butterfly(slit it in half like) the steak in order to prepare it well done which he is ok with. I’ve eaten at a number of top steak houses, I’ve never known them to offer specific categories like ‘med rare plus’. If you want to invent your own category you can, simply explain exactly how you want your steak cooked and they will do so. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [December 16, 2009, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120/80 "2009-12-16T06:04:54Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > It isn’t forced, nor is it modern. A lot of people who grew up with overcooked meat think medium rare is some kind of trend when they grow up and move out of the house and are exposed to different tastes. I think it is just the opposite, people who grow up with no “culinary home or touchstone” assimilate foreign customs easily, and non-traditionally.. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-very-nice-steakhouses-actually-have-temps-like-med-rare-plus/521120.md?page=5)