Yeah, really, what’s with this vampire syndrome? Some distant ancestors of ours lost a lot of fingers figuring out fire, and this is how we thank them? 
I had a sandwich tar-tar.
Oy, I had to open this thread, right? :smack:
Okay, it’s 2:47 AM, and now y’all got me pissed off. Where the HELL am I gonna find a succulent hamburger at THIS time of night?
Bastards.
Last week I had dinner at a restaurant in Pittsburg where the default doneness for steak was medium rare. They got it right, too. In fact I don’t remember eating at a restaurant better than a Ponderosa where they screwed it up, and I’ve eaten steaks all around the country. Last night I was in Vermont, and those who ordered medium rare steaks got it that way. (I had bunny.)
Hamburger is another matter. I know that California requires hamburger to be medium at the least. One reason I mostly have hamburger I cook at home.
I always ask for the 7 second grill. I want my steak placed on the grill for 2 seconds then turned to get the “diagonal diamond” grill marks for another 2 seconds, then flipped for the remaining 3 seconds. If it’s not mooing I’m not OooHHing. This usually gets me the steak want. It is blue and it is fantastic! Now my only problem is keeping all of the servers off my table while they look at the local carnivore.
Roast beef lovers: If you’re ever in Arlington, Virginia try the Stars and Stripes restaurant for dinner. Bigass 14 ounce roast for just USD$17.00 (pricey, but you get a salad bar). When they say rare, they mean RARE. Big, fatty, pink slab the size of my grandma’s V8 Electra.
There is no finer, anywhere in the world, ever. If you’re visiting here, it’s on the corner of 23rd and Fern, in Crystal City. Tip: Do NOT park your car on 23rd Street! Pulling in and out is a total bitch on a two lane street that sees more traffic during rush hour than most highways see all day! Leave your ride at home and walk over.
Thanks to this thread, i decided to try cooking a rare steak
i’m no chef, but i do okay, i figured i’d give myself a challenge, went to the local grocery store, picked up an Angus Filet Mignon steak (damn that cut of beef is expensive!, it was a very small piece, i had never cooked FM before and i didn’t want to frell up a perfectly good steak, i figure start small and see if i can do it right, i’m pretty good at stir frying and making my own Maki rolls, so i figured it was time to test my (lack of) skill on a good cut of beef
i went to 8 legged entertainment’s website and cliked on the “Steak” link, followed the directions there
Filet Mignon steak
dash of pepper and salt
fine coat of oil
slap it on the Foreman and cook it to 130 degrees, pull it off and keep the thermo in it just to make sure it hits 140, let it sit for 5 minutes
now the moment of truth, did i frell it up…
Nope!, it was delicious! (and i didn’t even have to use the Blue Gleeb Salsa 
), amazing, it was easier (and more delicious) than i thought it would be
now i know when i order steak at a resturant, to order it rare, medium rare at the worst
previously, i had ordered all my steaks and burgers “medium”, i now know that’s cooked too much…
MacTech, my work here is done. Us proper beef eaters aren’t a proselytizing bunch. We just follow the golden rule and and convert the heathens by being a good example. Go and overcook no more.
‘Course if steak or prime rib is your thing, head over to Tom Saris’ Orleans House at Wilson Blvd & Fort Myer Dr., just steps from Rosslyn Metro.
Heh, i’m the same way with Sushi, i’m always trying to get people to try it, most respond like this;
Ever tried sushi?
what? raw fish, eeeewwww! that’s gross
no, it’s really delicious, doesn’t taste “fishy” at all, heck, a good cut of Tekka or Maguro tuna melts in your mouth like butter*.
i just don’t like raw fish
well, have you ever tried raw fish?
no, but i don’t like it
how do you know you don’t like it then?
i just know
<MacTech sighs and walks away, shaking his head>
*salmon’s the same way, i find it ironic that people who like smoked salmon claim they won’t like Sake (Salmon) because they “don’t like the texture” of it, uhhh…hello, smoked salmon has almost the same texture as raw salmon
JT, i hope you’re a fellow fan of the Japanese delicacy that is sushi, i just wish it wasn’t so bloody expensive…
in case anyone’s interested, the term “sushi” actually refers to the seasoned rice (seasoned with a light touch of rice vinegar and sugar) (Su=vinegar Shi=rice) Sashimi is just the raw fish filets
and they’re both sooooooo gooood!
dammit, it’s 10:15 PM, and i live in Vermont, the closest sushi place is 45 minutes away and will be closed by the time i’d get there, GRRRR! 
MacTech, I’m quite the fan of sushi and sashimi. Have you tried seared ahi tuna, rare? It’s orgasmically delicious, especially when it’s encrusted with black and white sesame seeds.
BiblioCat, that’s for the reccommendations. I’ll give them a whirl.
I’ve been trying to get my wife to go out with me for Sushi since we married, you’d think I offered to stuff her face with live nightcrawlers or something. We have a great place here in Oakland for Shusi called Yoshi’s that I highly recommend if you’re ever around these parts.
JT, i’ll have to try that, but i’ll have to get over my feeling that applying any sort of heat to tuna or salmon, in an effort to cook it, is sacrilegious ;), tuna is best eaten raw, it tastes the best, and none of it’s nutrients have been cooked off
plus, i’ll admit it, part of my love of sushi is also the “gross-out factor” newbies to this delicacy have, i like freaking them out eating sushi
This is a big pet peeve of mine, too. If it weren’t for the fact that people would be puking all around me, I’d never get anything cooked. I’d eat it all raw. Chicken, pork, beef, fish, I can’t think of anything that can be made better by cooking it.
Anyway, because of that I order everything rare, if only to appease the people around me. And it invariably comes out medium. And I just choke it down, because I hate making a big deal. Even so, it simply amazes me how people simply don’t know how to cook.
One problem is that the guy/girl cooking the steaks is usually not the top banana in the kitchen, since in theory the job entails the ability to flip things and watch a clock. So you wind up with a trainee working your steak. I personally prefer to skip the steak unless I’m at a place that has some good beef and go with something like pasta. Sauciers generally have some experience and/or talent.
And if I want a steak, I can cook myself a steak, rare as I like it. With a nice demi glace. At a healthy discount, I might add.
My wife has recently taken to ordering her steaks “as rare as you are allowed to cook it”. But not her hamburgers; that’s just too risky.
I once ordered an ahi tuna steak at a restaurant here in town. The waiter, obvoiusly following orders, asked “is rare ok?” (In case you are unfamiliar, ahi is served seared on the outside, and basically raw in the middle.) I wanted to tell him “No, well done please” just to see his reaction, but unfortunately I had already answered “Yeah, that’s fine” before I though of it.
Okay, I’m mollified :D. Sorry about the accusation of blasphemy–I was just coming down from a Zambra’s kick. (To be fair, the tuna I ordered was deliciously rare, albeit inexplicably served on a revolting bed of mashed turnips and carrots).
Daniel
Actually, the problem is usually the same problem that divides all restaurant cooking from home cooking: your steak is not the only thing the cook/chef is cooking. When you cook a steak for yourself at home, all you have to concern yourself with is that steak and whatever accoutrements you’re preparing to go with that steak. It’s extremely easy for you to give that steak all of your attention.
In a restaurant, however, there are usually several people, from other tables, who ordered immediately before you and at the same time as you. Unless you and every other customer is willing to wait a ridiculous amount of time for your food, that cook has to have many different orders going all at once. His attention is of necessity divided between all of those individual meals, and each of those meals is likely at a different stage of preparation. In one steak house where I cooked, it was not uncommon for me to have up to fifteen porterhouse steaks on the grill at the same time - all started at slightly different times, and cooked five different ways, going to four different tables. I had to keep track of every one of those steaks, and how each one was supposed to be cooked. I also had to keep track of the potatoes, salads, chicken dishes, seafood dishes, hamburgers and sandwiches that are interspersed with the steak orders. It’s quite a mental load, but fortunately I was very very good at it. There was another steak house in town, The Windmill, with the reputation for the finest steaks in town (We were #2, but The Windmill had been in business about 70 years longer than us so was better established. It’s one of those places that only opens for the dinner hour and doesn’t take reservations.) I cooked an order for five rare porterhouses for one table one night - afterward the people told me “Better than The Windmill.” Made my day 
Anyway, there are a lot of cooks who are probably better than me, but there are many more who are worse. Experience has a lot to do with it.
Now, aside from the cook screwing up, there are some other reasons why your steak might be overcooked (all of which I have seen many times):
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The server wrote your order incorrectly or illegibly. (I once had a waitress bring me an order for a medium-rare porterhouse, which I of course cooked perfectly. Then she brought it back - she had meant to write “cheeseburger”. Mmmmm… free steak for the cook!)
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The server brought you the wrong plate. This happens a lot, especially when the restaurant is busy and there is more than one of the same item in the window. An eagle-eyed cook will spot the server grabbing the wrong plate and offer correction, but if he’s very busy too, he might not notice.
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The server took too long to get the food out of the window, and it sat under the heat lamp and kept cooking (the heat lamp is required by law). You may have been in a restaurant and heard the server-call-bell going ding-ding-ding-ding-ding instead of the usual single ring. This is the cook signalling to the server to get his or her ass to the kitchen and pick up the food because it’s been sitting there too long.
In each of these instances, of course, the server is going to blame it on the cook, because the primary concern of most servers is the size of their tip and admitting their own mistake might reduce their tip.
My father’s favorite Thanksgiving vegetable! He gets a little bowl of it, all to himself.
I think many things are better cooked, such as any fatty meats. Also searing does add an excellent flavour. Best I have had was in a Japanese resteraunt which seared the steak without in any way cooking it, as if they had just layed hot pokers accross either side of the steak, then sliced it finely and served it with an exquisit dipping sauce. Of course if you don’t like the flavour of fat then msot things are fine (though potentially lethal) raw. I love the none heat methods of ‘cooking’ such as smoking the meat, or seeping it in lemon or lime juice.