Offal has made a comeback here in the UK at the very top-end - I think a few young Michelin-starred chefs have promoted it in their restaurants. Not seen it percolate down to regular High St places yet. Quite common to get black pudding, haggis etc worked into starters here (Edinburgh), but rare to see a main dish based on organ meets.
Why yes, yes I can. I highly recommend The Grill 23. It’s pricey and you’ll probably want a reservation.
But ohhhhhhh the steak. My favorite is the dry aged ribeye, but you also cannot go wrong with the porterhouse (24 oz!). I just went there last weekend for my birthday and got the Kobe Cap Steak. It was amazing (and stupidly expensive), but the ribeye is still my favorite.
As an American, I must confess that I’ve loved the limited amount of offal I’ve tried, and I’d love to sample much, much more of it. For example, when Tony Bourdain took his No Reservations show to Edinburgh and visited with Fergus Henderson, I was salivating nearly uncontrollably.
The absolute best was at a cookout with some friends. The husband of one of the other grad students was an absolute grill god, and cooked up this amazing thing that just melted in your mouth, juicy and full of flavor. I don’t know what it was, though.
Short of that, the best I’ve ever had was at a local steakhouse called Sir Scott’s Oasis (Manhattan, MT). I’ve only ever ordered the ribeye and the sirloin, since those are the only ones they serve that are small enough to eat at one sitting.
For that matter, all the beef I’ve had in Montana has been excellent. I don’t know whether it’s that the cows are more free-range, or that we’re closer to the source, or just that folks around here know their beef better, but everything beyond the national-chain level has been much better than in other parts of the country (McDonald’s is the same everywhere, of course).
That reminds me…I had a steak in a restaurant in Waukesha, Wisconsin during a business trip. The meat was above average. What made the meal though was the price. A 14 oz steak, with Bearnaise and crab lumps was $15. And the frozen custard for dessert was pretty awesome, too.
I commented on how people there were either morbidly obese or thin as a rail…the instructor said the thin people were just visiting.
Living in Omaha, it is pretty easy to get a good steak in almost any restaurant. One of the best is in a small, family owned placed called Gorat’s. The have a dry aged New York Strip that is divine. It is also very reasonably priced. The last time we were there, My wife and I sat two tables away from Warren Buffet, who eats there all the time.
I assume you took the opportunity to eavesdrop and read lips.
I wonder if he’s a big tipper.
A New York cut at Morton’s in the Venetian Macau. It was by far the biggest steak I’ve ever had, 24oz, but I managed to eat the whole thing it was sooooo good. The side of sauteed mushrooms was even better.
How’s about the $5.99 steak at Deja Vu on Dauphine in New Orleans. After a night of drinking, it’s goood. As a friend of mine said, “I’ve paid a lot more for a worse steak.”
I’ve also had some damn tasty meat at Ye Olde Steakhouse and Baker Peters Jazz Club both in Knoxville.
stpauler, don’t bother with Manny’s. I took SpouseO there for his birthday and was really pretty disappointed. The food was good, but the service was poor and the atmosphere was terrible - you’re packed in like, well, cattle; it’s loud and crowded. They still do the ritual of showing you the various cuts of meat, but I got distracted by the live lobster that they had on the plate - they left him out too, and all I could think of was the poor guy sitting there for hours, slowly suffocating. (I know - it’s a crustacean - but I still was distracted by it. They had an Australian lobster tail cut, wrapped up in saran wrap that they just showed (sans live lobster) patrons - why couldn’t they do that with the other lobster? I’ll believe that you’ll get me a fresh one, honest!)
Anyway, not worth the money. My steak was nice, but the rest was so offputting that it retroactively made the meal worse, you know? If you want a good steak and good experience in downtown Minneapolis, I’d recommend Seven or Vincent’s instead. But if you must go to the Foshay, skip Manny’s and head up to Prohibition, the bar on the 27th floor. That’s worth every penny.
I was going to mention a meal at the Grand Canyon, too, after a (well, not all day, but a good part of it) hike.
It was actually a succulent prime rib (ok, it’s a roast, but anyway…), except at the Grand Canyon Lodge on the North Rim. That was my conversion experience to what a good cut of beef can be like.
I’ve been to Peter Luger’s too, which was great, but that prime rib meal on the rim of the Grand Canyon was living like a king.
I had a pretty damn good steak at Outback one time but failed to repeat the experience despite a few attempts.
For personal preparation we’ll occasionally splurge on delmonico steaks from local butchers. Those are always fantastic.
A dry-aged Prime filet mignon au jus ~ same texture as a ribeye, but perfectly marbled. Surprisingly, it was at Capital Grille in NY, which is a chain restaurant.
I’ve tried most of the best NY steakhouses, although never Peter Lugar’s.
Where: the original Doe’s Eat Place in Greenville, MS
What: The 4 lb. Porterhouse, medium rare.
Extras: Make sure you order the home-made tamales as the appetizer.
For me it was a 14 oz. Delmonico at Bern’s Steak House in Tampa, back around 1995 or so. The place is unbelievable. It isn’t just that the steaks are sensational - dry aged on the premises and cut to your thickness specification at the time you order - every detail is over the top. Vegetables come from the restaurant’s own organic garden. Servers train for a year to earn their stripes as waiters. Dessert is a completely separate experience (with a separate check) upstairs in a private booth. And the wine list is the longest in the world, at over 200 pages.
Fortunately I was the guest of someone who knew wine extremely well, and didn’t have to struggle with the list.
It was not only the best steak I ever had, it was the most memorable dining experience of my life!
I have been on a real steak kick lately. One of the best steaks in the recent past was at a Texas Roadhouse in Matthews, NC. It was about 4:30 on a Sunday afternoon - and I don’t know if it was being off-peak hours or the chef or the hunger pangs and the shear need for good food or the combination - but it was soooo good.
The OP’s question is hard to answer, but I’m going to go with the one I had in college that was so good it made me ashamed for all the other steak I’d ever eaten in my life. It also was the steak that made me realize that I was going to have to learn how to drink alcohol simply because I recognized what an insult it was to the steak to drink iced tea with it.
It was at a little restaurant in Greenville, SC, that probably isn’t even there any more, so no harm in my having forgotten it’s name.
Since you have two supporters already, I am going to have to state just the opposite about the steak (the atmosphere and the sides were awesome as stated). Both times I have been to Peter Luger’s, the steaks were awful, inedible, chewy, and even gristly. We had two steaks of different cuts each time and this was true of all four of them- one was so bad we sent it back and asked for a replacement to which they happily obliged- to their credit- but the replacement was only slightly more edible. I realize I may have struck out horribly there, because I can’t believe so many patrons are such poor judges of good beef, but I would never recommend Peter Luger’s to anyone.
The best steak I’ve ever had were Knights of Columbus steak cook-outs growing up in Nebraska. Bred for 4-H, that beef was awesome.
The best I had was at Al Primo Canto for Valentine’s Day this year.
Second best was at the Weber Grill about 10 or so years ago.
Out in Riverhead (LI) there’s this tiny little hole in the wall place called “The Elbow Room”. They have lots of cuts of steak and whichever one you order it will be fabulous for 2 reasons:
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They cook it perfectly to order. I took a friend there who almost cried tears of happiness when they delivered his ‘black and blue’ steak just as it should be. Now, that’s too rare for me, but he likes them like that.
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The marinade. Any steak can be ordered marinaded or not, but only a fool would order it without. I know, a good piece of meat does not need it, but believe me this is not covering up anything, it is the perfect addition to a lovely piece of meat. They won’t tell you what’s in it - the most they’ll do is tell you if a specific thing is in there or not if you’re allergic. I’m unsure what all is in there, but it’s amazing.
I have family out there and so I’m there pretty often… last time was in March but now I’m thinking we need to take my FIL there for Father’s Day.
OK, here’s two cents from the sticks.
In the old days there were any number of small, out of the way steak and chop houses in Omaha where you could get a slab of beef that would all but make your toes curl up and induce low moaning. Wonderful meat from people who knew that aged is better than fresh.
The Golden Ox in KC, MO, was during the first month of the War in Vietnam not only good but cheap -a real draw for a bunch of junior lieutenants from Fort Riley. I don’t know if the place is still going – it was connected with the stock yards and I think that it is gone.
A place in Montreal in a converted warehouse right down on the river. The served what they called a “rib steak.” It was more like a three inch thick slab of grilled standing rib roast with the rib attached. Out hotel had recommended the place. Very quiet, low ceiling , old rubble built stone walls, very good English speaking waiters, tremendous piece of beef. I can’t think of its name, if I ever knew it.
The White House Supper Club in Saint Lucas, Iowa, for the four or eight ounce tenderloin, with relish plate, dinner salad, hash browns with onions a glass of pretty good wine and a Brandy Alexander after, for two, at a cost with tip on about $50.00. A very nice piece of beef and well cooked in a place where medium rare means warm red center – a place where the guy in bib overalls and a John Deere cap at the next table may well have raised the steer you are eating. It is a long way from some big name steak house but, damn, it is good.