OK, folks, how do you like your steaks cooked? How 'bout your (beef) burgers? Why?
As a good friend of mine says, I like my steaks cooked so that a good vet and a band-aid could bring 'em back to life. You guessed it, medium-rare is as cooked as I’ll eat a steak. A good T-bone steak marinated in Adolph’s Steak Marinade cooked rare is positively orgasmic!
I’ll only eat my beef burgers cooked medium-rare. I’m not quite brave enough for rare burgers, yet.
I have eaten and enjoyed steak tartare so thats my starting point. I like your description with the vet- I’m going to steal it! I have always used “heat it till it stops mooing!”
Rare all the way, Medium rare if I’m not sure about the quality.
Medium rare steak here. It melts in your mouth. As far as burgers, I don’t mind medium, but nothing should ever get cooked well done. The food looses its flavor that way.
Steak - Rare
Burgers - Rare (though no one will make them that way for me in restaurants anymore)
I concur: medium rare is the only way to go for steak. For burgers I like medium well. Why get things well done? That’s nothing but expensive shoe leather.
Did I say “looses”?
:o
Rare. Yum.
I’ve never eaten steak this way, but I’ve been known to grab a few fingerfulls of hamburger before I put it in the pan (and yes, I know the dangers).
I’ve always been partial to the line, “just walk it through a warm room.”
Steak - Cut off their horns and wipe their ass.
Burgers - Almost Medium.
I had a friend who used to say “stun it, slice it and slap it on a platter.”
My father, on the other hand, couldn’t stand to see the slightest trace of pink in his meat. He would send back end cuts of prime rib if the juice came out with the slightest bit of red in it.
He’s cultured me against rare meat forever, although I can handle medium rare as long as it looks like the center has been at least somewhat affected by heat.
As for burgers, they’d better be gray inside.
Kunilou, that reminde me of a story. When my best friends dad met his mom, she cooked him a wonderful meal of steak, potatoes, etc.
He was raised in a “boiled for twenty min. then charred till black” household.
When he poured a quarter bottle of ketchup onto the meat, she burst into tears. She is still one of the best cooks I have ever known.
Anyone who eats steak cooked more than rare is un-American and should be forced to eat every meal at Denny’s. Non-chopped meat should moo when I cut into it.
Robin
Depends; my preference is rare to medium rare for steaks and burgers but…it depends.
Cheap steak is shoeleather no matter what, but almost always unchewable if eaten rare/med rare. You can almost cut if it’s cooked to death, but then why bother? I really, really don’t want my stomach eaten out with the tenderizers discount steak places use; they make me sick.
And I’m suspicious of hamburger unless I know it’s good stuff and has been handled well. Way too easy to get food poisoning from it. (Nothing like a fun-filled few days barfing your guts out and praying for death to teach you to suspect food sanitation in restaurants.)
Actually I rarely eat beef anymore, so when I do I’m willing to cough up some bucks and have it done right than eat more gray “mystery meat” hunks of derma.
Veb
The deep black searing marks should be just short of meeting in the middle, and the meat should be moist and the color of walnut in the middle.
“rare” is an excuse of hurried chefs who refuse to take the time to cook a steak correctly.
AHunter3, you should be banned from beef! 
The other evening, the hubby and I had T-bone steaks for dinner. When I took them from under the broiler and put them on the stove top to rest, the blood started to rise to the top. Oh, what a sight. I knew we were in for some good eatin’ that night!
[sub]And I was right![/sub]
Call me Un-American if you must but…BURN IT! My burgers and steak better have no pink. My first husband made the mistake of sending my extremely well done steak back one night for a rare one, he got that rare steak slapped upside his head too. My current husband is a food inspector and if anything pink is on the table I get a lecture for an hour about how dangerous it is. No need to tell me though because if it’s pink, I didn’t cook it!
Steak: Most cuts, very rare, everything else medium rare.
I don’t like hamburgers. I don’t like much ground beef stuff, period, I’m always wondering why did they grind this up, what are they trying to hide?
And when I used to work as a waitress, the one thing that could get my blood pressure going was fools who ordered their steaks well done, then wondered what the heck was taking so long!
Oooh, and I’m not saying this out of spite, but I think that you well done people should know just how pissed off certain cooks get at an order for well done steak (wether they are offended by the idea, or upset at having to cook it so long, I know not) and how they take it out on certain poor little waitresses. We’ll not speak of how they yell at the poor little waitress when she has to bring it back because of one tiny little drop of pink juice. 
I like my steaks done just long enough to get a good crust on the outside and just have the chill taken off the center.
You need a good thick steak and a blazingly hot pan or grill to do it though.
both steak and hamburger need to still be mooing when I get it. even better if I have to chase it around the place and stab it to death with my fork. I usually order it medium rare, closer to rare.
Chemical tenderizers are evil, but there are hundreds of great marinades you can use to tenderize almost any cut of beef. I’ve had great luck with an overnight vodka marinate.