Some pink is OK, red gets sent back. Pefer medium-well to well.
Guess I’m unAmerican too.
Un-American beef eaters unite!
For steak, I prefer medium well, but can handle medium, if forced. For a burger, has to be cooked all the way through. No E coli for me!
And while we’re at it, I like my burger with mayo instead of mustard. Don’t like it? Bite me!
Rare. Even medium rare is more than I’d like it. Burgers as well as steak if possible. I found heaven the day I found the one restaurant in the universe that will serve rare hamburgers.
Medium well. Big time. Its the point where you lose negligible juiciness and maintain original flavor.
Honestly, though, I’ve never tried raw, rare, or medium rare steak. Meduim rare hamburgers are nasty, though. I don’t like the consistency…
Rare hamburgers are a bad idea. It’s one thing to sear the edges of a slab of unintruded meat and eat that, but ground meat has to be at least cooked a little bit all the way through or you might get Seriously Ill.
Steak should come off the grill when the echo of the cow’s last moo can no longer be heard. Prime rib should be pink but not (very) bloody and hamburger should be just barely gray all the way through.
Yeah, I know it’s a bad idea. 
I’ve only taken the risk a couple of times. I balance it out by not bungee jumping or hang gliding.
Steak had better moo if I’m going to eat it.
Working in a restaurant, however, I frequently have to take steaks back to the kitchen to be cooked to a temperature that can only be described as “hockey puck.” Mmmm…how about some charred cardboard washed down with a bottle of ketchup?
Speaking of hockey pucks, I made the mistake of ordering a hamburger from a restaurant in Dallas once. The object I was served was far more suitable for use as a hockey puck than as food.
Bravo, this is the ultimate secret of great steak. How rare (as it were) it is to find a good grill cook who can give you the legendary;
Charred Outside Rare Inside Order
This gives you all of the flavor (read; nitrosamines) of well done and all the tenderness of rare.
Because of the aforementioned protestations about the hygiene involved in its production any meat that I do not grind personally had better be done medium (sigh). I suppose that there a few burger shacks that I would trust with medium-rare, but none of the major chains would get my vote of confidence.
I like my steaks rare, but prefer my burgers well-done, will tolerate a little pink in them though.
There was a steak place in Arizona (might still be there) called, I think, Pinnacle Pete’s, where they would serve you a boot if you ordered your steak well done, so the rest of your party didn’t have to wait for their food.
[The Cowboy Way]
“Just smack it’s nasty ass and put it on a plate”
[/The Cowboy Way]
Seriously, a steak should be pink on the inside. A burger should be thin, a little crunchy, and garnished with onion and mayo only. But I’m a little strange.
jesuslynch, I love it. It’s exactly how my friend orders her steak.
Call it blasphemy, particularly because I grew up in the Land of Corn Fed Beef, but I don’t like rare meat. Hell, I don’t like even slightly pink meat.
Medium rare. Pink not purple. If I order a steak I don’t want tartare.
Once I was so hungry in line at the store that I ate half a pound of hamburger before I rang out.
Read an article from a book, name and author escapes me, about kitchen escapades in fabulous restaurants. Right next to the trashcan was the SFWD can (Save For Well Done). The nastiest oldest chewiest gristliest hidey pieces of scrap ended up in that can. Once it was cooked well done who could tell? Chefs may hate well done because there is no artistry or flavor: why not order charcoal? I recommend ordering at most medium-well to avoid being served garbage.
Finally, someone else who understands me. I love raw meat but I can only eat a little bit…not so much out of fear, but that my husband will catch me and tell me how gross I am. Darnit.
Last year, I found a restraurant (Barnstormer) in Albany, NY that cooks offers this choice on the menu. They call it Pittsburg, charred on the outside, raw on the inside.
The way I get this at home is to dip the steak in butter before throwing it on the grill.
Rare for both steaks and burgers here, too. I worked with a gentleman who grew up on a dairy farm and he absolutely refused to have lunch with me if I ordered either a steak or a burger. The sight was just too much for him. I, too, grew up on a farm and remember helping to slaughter and butcher steers but I still like my meat very rare.
My ex-wife, on the other hand, would order a steak medium-rare and then cover it in A-1. To think that a poor cow gave its life to be covered in A-1. What a shame.
A nice filet mignon - medium rare. I’ll eat it medium, though.
Cheap steak - don’t know; I don’t eat cheap steak.
Burgers - medium to medium well.
And I have had carpaccio, which is by definition raw.
Un-american checking in.
Make mine well done for steak. Fillet mignon is the only cut I’ll eat in a good restaurant. I avoid burgers unless I grind and cook them myself.
And anyway, accroding to Julia Child and Jacque Pepin, steak should only be cooked in butter (and spices of course) on a hot pan, not the BBQ where it only gets charred regardless of how rare you cook it.
Steaks, Prime Rib and Filet Mignon: somewhere between rare and medium rare. A light sprinkle of kosher salt.
Hubby and I frequent a seafood place here in Baltimore (Ocean Pride in Lutherville) that serves rare cuts on a thin slice of bread, to sop up the juice. Delicious!
Burgers, medium, with a little mayo, a dash of salt on the mayo, some chopped onion, a drizzle of ketchup. Also good with a little drizzle of A-1.
I have also heard the story about restaruants saving the tough cuts for “well-done.” Yuck.