The best steak you've ever eaten

Cafe Society
41

Shula’s Steak House, in particular the restaurant inside the Swan Hotel, Disney world, Orlando. As perfect as could be. I’ve since tried two other Shula restaurant (New Orleans and Chicago) and they were good, but not perfection. (I’m a Brit, by the way, so it’s a bit extravagant to have sampled three Shula restaurants in three different states. What can I say? I like a good steak.)

Le Gavroche, London. Considered by many to be the finest restaurant in the UK, possibly Europe. Run by the Roux brothers. The basic deal with this restaurant is that everything is perfect, and the dining experience is perfect, and you pay an arm and a leg for the privilege. I’ve been there three or four times (spread over ten years) and each time I’m impressed by the sheer perfection of the experience. True, your credit card comes back glowing and charred around the edges, but as a special, very occasional treat, it’s hard to beat.

42

A New York is not a sirloin, the New York is from the short loin, the sirloin is from well the sirloin part of the cow.
If you look here and click on the Angus beef chart (PDF!) you will see the short loin is forward of the sirloin.
Looking at the cuts from the short loin, you will see the t-bone and the porterhouse. two ends of the same piece of meat. the porterhouse typically has more meat on the small side of the bone. This small side of the bone is the tenderloin which when cut into steaks is more commonly known as the filet mignon.
The large side of the T bone is sold as a New York Strip, Kansas City strip or several other names.
Here is a chart with all of the various beef names.

43

A restaurant in Kobe, Japan, where we had Kobe beef. It was amazing, it essentially melted in the mouth like butter.

Second place goes to in El Mirasol in Buenos Aires.

And I agree with ianzin about Shula’s… since we had a delightful meal at their Chicago restaurant with him :slight_smile:

44

The reason I said that is because on the Barberians menu quoted above (and, I’m sure, a couple of others), they specify New York sirloin.

Thank you for the useful link.

45

A porterhouse is $54??!!:eek:

46

A fillet steak of 45-day aged organic Aberdeen Angus, cooked at 1,700F, at Shanahan’s on the Green in Dublin. Sublime.

47

We got a quarter of grass-fed beef in February, and the first nice day that came up after we got it, we grilled a couple of ribeyes.

I generally don’t like ribeyes because I find them too fatty, but the fat on these was like bacon fat. Like beef candy. It just melted, and the meat was perfect medium-rare and tender.

48

Hehe, after reading the post above yours I misread the F as an E and thought you were saying you ate a €1700 steak. That would have had to have been one damn freakin’ fine piece of meat.

49

Sadly I must report that the best steak I ever ate was at a little joint that’s no longer in operation serving steaks – or if it serves them these days we haven’t been in there in years. Boardwalk Cafe in Nashville was just a little place with a tiny stage where we saw, for example, Kenny Rankin in a live one-man show years ago. They did serve some great food and the filet mignon I had there was so much better than any other I have had that it’s the measuring stick for all others.

I’ve had steaks at many of the chain steak houses like Logan’s, Outback, Longhorn, Ruth’s Chris and others mentioned already in this thread. I have had some good luck grilling my own as well. The best of those was a beef tenderloin I used for a Chateaubriand. Next to the Boardwalk, it was my best ever. And there was a little place we ate at on our way to Maine one year in a town in Pennsylvania that I have forgotten and it was close to the one at Boardwalk.

My tastes in steak have progressed from Shoney’s “half pound of ground round” to T-bone, to sirloin, to ribeye, to filet. Nowadays it’s filet or nothing.

50

Las Vegas - The Horshoe - not the main restaurant, but upstairs they have a special restaurant named “The Steakhouse” or something close to that.

Porterhouse Steak. If you like a good steak, and you are not sure what the difference is among various cuts of steaks (Porterhouse, NY Steak, Rib Steak, etc. ) I think it’s really worth looking up “Porterhouse” on the net to learn just what the different cuts of steaks are.

A “Porterhouse” is apparently the largest cut of steak that is served in the USA and it was named after some hotel restaurant in NYC that first started cutting them like that and serving them like that long ago. It’s interesting just how many dishes are named in that same way - like a Wardorf Salad. Do you ever remember seeing that Fawlty Towers episode about a Waldorf Salad? There is also a famous hotel in NYC whose name I think starts with a “D” and they serve a dish (I think it’s also a steak). I wish I rememberd the name. Maybe … The Devonshire? Or something like that. Too bad Google doesn’t have an option for searching called “or something like that”.

It’s probably also worth knowing that chefs and waiters tend to laff at people who order steaks cooked any other way other than rare or medium rare. The prevailing idea is that if it is cooked any other way, you can’t really taste the meat, and because of that, you are just wasting your money.

I was referred to The Horseshoe Steakhouse by a trusted friend. I made reservations and when I arrived I handed the maitre D 20 dollars and asked him for a seat in an area of the room that appealed to me (I think it was because it was an area that was far away from the piano). In any case, It’s just amazing how smoothly dining-out can be when one does that.

Anyway, I never looked at the menu. I just ordered a Porterhouse - medium-rare with fries and a side dish of sauted mushrooms. I so do love sauted mushrooms with my steak.

This was many years ago. But, even today, when I think of that meal, I just close my eyes and kind of purr like a big cat and kind of faint from the memory of just how wonderful it was. BTW, I left the waiter a $20 tip and as I was leaving, the Maitre D and several of the waiters lined up and invited me to come back anytime and to bring all my friends. What a wonderful experience! What a delicious steak! I never before understood the expression, “tasted so good, it melted in my mouth”. But, I understand it now.

51

It was my best friend from college’s bachelor party (boys and girls were invited) in Indiana at a lake house. One of the groomsmen’s extended family was big into cattle, and had won some prized steer competition the year previous. He was drop dead serious about steak, and refused all requests to cook them anything more than medium rare. I went with him to buy the brightest, freshest looking steaks I’d ever seen, they’d been slaughtered that day. He prepared the charcoal early that morning, and later that day I had the first medium-rare steak of my life. It was amazing. It was a NY strip, I believe. The countless filets before and since are just dog food in comparison.

52

You are probably thinking of the Delmonico. It is a always good steak. Unfortunately depending where you are, and even restaurant to restaurant it can mean different cuts with different preparations.

53

The time: December 1970.
The place: a hotel about 10 miles from the Houston airport.

My college roommate and I were going to visit his parents in Corpus Christi for Christmas, and our plane got delayed because of bad weather, delayed enough so we missed the last connecting flights. In those bygone days airlines would take care of you, and gave us vouchers for a hotel and dinner. On the menu was a 20 oz. sirloin. (This was not the biggest steak there, but I had some control.) A hungry 19 year old kid and 20 oz. free steak are just meant to go together.

I’ve been to a bunch of expensive and fancy steak places, and their steaks are wonderful, but not as wonderful as that one.

54

Yes. Thank you. I was just coming back to post that. Honest I was. :stuck_out_tongue:

Honest. I really was!

55

I’m sorry. But I made the two above posts in error. I meant to make that first on the board, “About this Message Board”

I’ve asked the admins to delete those posts and I will then use the first to start a new thread on the board, “About this Message Board”.

56

I’ve moved the posts Joanie mentions into the ATMB forum. They’re over here.

57

Lone Star Steakhouse & Saloon is really good in my city. I get a steak there a couple times a month.

Outback is good too. I think the one here has slipped a little. The meat seems tougher. I think the manager is buying cheaper cuts.

58

I ordered a steak at a restaurant in Le Marais and had a misunderstanding with the waiter, resulting in him serving me a fine-looking piece of meat - except for the fact that it was liver :mad:

Now, I don’t eat at fine Parisian restaurants every week, and the idea of wasting one of these rare opportunities on something me ma used to force down me at knifepoint was a bit of a sickener. I decided to eat it anyway - my wife’s dish had already arrived and if I couldn’t manage the basic French to order a steak I didn’t fancy my chances at straightening out a new order.

It was su-bloody-perb. Liver, yet not liver - unbelievably tender. Don’t know how they cooked it - I tried ordering liver once or twice in restaurants when I got back and it was the complete misery of a dish that I recall from childhood.

59

They probably soaked the liver in milk - part of the whang in the taste of liver is actually residual blood cells in the lymph fluids. Also cooking it at a lower temperature gently can make a big difference.

I am really of the opinion that most american restaurants can’t cook organ meats for shite. They seem to want to just slap something onto a flattop at blisteringly high heat and call it good. It takes a delicate hand to cook most organ meats, and most americans wouldn’t eat organ meats if they were starving [their loss]

60

The Taste of Texas Restaurant in Houston.

Outstanding, even better than the old Sunny Look’s Sir-Loin House from days gone by.