Exactly! 
Oh indeed! I traveled through South America in the '70s. We had Argentine steaks at a roadside place in Colombia. You couldn’t call it a restaurant, it was just a big fire pit with some tables around it. Best beef I’ve ever tasted.
A close second was when hubby traveled to Montana and bought a prima rib roast from a local butcher. It too was grass fed beef.
Kobe is crap anyway. A couple of weeks ago I had a flight of steaks at Wolfgang Puck’s CUT restaurant. Identical cuts of Nebraska beef, American Wagyu and imported Kobe. Identical preparation.
The Nebraska cut won hands-down. The wife and I both preferred it to the others. Now, I’ve had American Wagyu that was almost transcendent, but in a side-by-side matchup, domestic beef rules.
Good book on the subject: Steak: One Man’s Search for the World’s Tastiest Piece of Beef
I found this true of beef in Brazil also, and it is hard to articulate the difference. The flavor is stronger, richer-- maybe a bit closer to what we think of as “gamey”? Although gamey has a negative connotation (at least for me), and I love the meat in Brazil.
My beef tastes like cow.
Huh, my cow tastes like beef.
Go figure…
**I’m curious about the taste of beef in other places. **
I held a piece under my arm for 20 minutes and didn’t taste a thing! I’m discontinuing this experiment.
If you are in Vegas try the Rio for great Argentine beef steaks.
The best place I’ve ever had beef was in Hermosillo, Mexico. During the year I lived there, I think I started getting gout in one of my feet! I never did have a good hamburger in that city, though.
I hate menus that brag about their hamburgers made with “only lean sirloin” or some other non-sense. No fat, no mix of scrap cuts? No flavor.
Recently I was surprised by a Chinese cut. I had bought a half rib primal, no bone, thinking it was Australian. I hadn’t paid much attention because the vacuum packs are usually Australian. It was also quite pricey compared to normal (note: I now look). When I started cutting my ribeyes out of it, my God! It was the most beautifully marbled piece of ribeye that I’ve ever seen. Several minutes on the grill and it was easily the best beef I’ve ever had in China. Still not as good as Hermosillo, though.
In general China does very little themselves. All of the mass-market expertise comes from overseas. To me, Chinese meat tastes like American meat tastes like Canadian meat tastes like Mexico meat tastes like imported-into-China Australian meat. You know, speaking for mass market corporate farmed meat. When you can avoid the mass market meat the differences really are noticeable.
Did you know that Wagyu is the Japanese word for beef cattle?
I grew up on a ranch in South Dakota and the grass fed home raised beef has a stronger and better taste to my tastebuds. I think it may also depend on what grass the animal ate since they typically don’t slaughter the best animals for themselves. It is short grass prarrie there which usually isn’t very lush but has high protein. Yearling steers can put on 2 lbs a day on just grass.
Closer to “Japanese Beef”
Wa refers to something Japanese
Gyu is cattle or cow
Ugh. I generally hate sirloin for burgers. Maybe if it’s mixed with something else. My favorite cuts for that are (in this order): short rib, chuck, brisket (particularly the point cut.) You need a good bit of fat for good burger flavor, anywhere from 15%-30% in my opinion.
Moooooving thread to Cafe Society from MPSIMS.
I don’t know if I’ve ever had a memorable steak in the U.S. Had good burgers, though. I almost never cook hamburgers at home. I have had Kobe beef, in Kobe, and it was delicious. For what I paid, it ought to have been delicious, too. I had excellent beef recently in one of those “fire pit” places in Mexico. Overall, perhaps the best meat I’ve eaten. And I had an outstanding steak in Paraguay once. Those South Americans know how to do steak, no doubt about it.
Uh-oh. I think we’ve been herded.
I’ve eaten beef in Mexico but I’ve never had any that was remarkable there. They favor flank steak so much that sometimes I wonder where all the other cuts go. And I’ve never found a really good hamburger. It does taste a bit gamey to me, being accustomed to corn-fed beef. But generally I do my own shopping and preparation so maybe the better cuts go to the restaurants.