The wife and I recently hit a steakhouse that we trust to serve quality meat. Australian-owned and -operated. Wagyu is on the menu, but we’d never tried it anywhere before since it’s so damned expensive. But this time we thought we’d try a little experiment. We both ordered rib eye. However, my rib eye was Black Angus beef from Australia, while the wife’s was wagyu from Japan. Then we compared.
Well, bugger me senseless, but the wife’s wagyu was unbelievably good. She graciously gave me a few bites of hers. My Black Angus was pretty darned good, but the difference between it and the wagyu was like night and day. Her 400-gram wagyu was 2200 baht (US$62), my 400-gram Black Angus 1000 baht less at 1200 baht ($34). I have to say the wife’s more expensive steak was well worth the extra money.
And it’s true what they say about it spoiling you for other types of steak. The next day she had a steak and egg breakfast in a British-style pub, and the meat just wasn’t the same.
i work at a private club with a very well know french chef.
Occasionally we have Wagyu beef short ribs…they are like eating the most delicious “meat butter” ever…fucking phenomenal !
Wagyu is really good. It’s the type of cattle the famous Kobe beef comes from, just not from Kobe. It’s the kind of beef that needs to be eaten rare to get the best of the texture and flavor. There are other varieties of beef with great flavor, but the combination of flavor and rich marbling in Wagyu isn’t readily found elsewhere. I haven’t had Wagyu short ribs, but the thought is making me salivate.
Back when I drank scotch, I loved the Glenmorangie ten year old stuff, which was close to $60 a bottle. Then I tried the Glenmorangie 18 year old stuff that was $150, and it made the stuff I once thought was wonderful taste like piss.
Exact opposite. The wife and I had a tasting platter at Wolfgang Puck’s CUT that consisted of Kobe (real Kobe), domestic wagyu and domestic ribeye. The ribeye won hands-down. We found the Kobe flavorless compared to grass-raised, corn-finished domestic beef. Yeah it was tender, but so what?
I’ve had Wagyu beef at a high end restaurant. Delicious.
But if I’m in the mood for beef/steak, my preference is almost always skirt steak. I guess I prefer my meat to have some texture rather than simply dissolving in my mouth.
To fatten up and marble the meat. Straight grass-fed beef is often a bit stringy because of the lack of well-distributed fat, and often has a slightly bitter flavor. Adding corn, with its relatively high content of sugars, to the finish diet gets a more balanced flaver and compliant texture, albeit often by creating the same thick saturated fats that make humans overweight and tend to burn before liquidizing.
It should be noted that “wagyu” is not a specific breed of cattle but rather a way the cattle in Japan are fed and raised, and the resulting grading which emphasizes consistant marbling. In general, all restaurant-grade beef served in Japan at least meets or exceeds USDA “Prime” standard, whereas in the US it is easy to find branded “Prime” beef that does not technically meet standard, notwithstanding the fried steak grade junk they serve at chain restaurants and the shoe leather you get down at the Golden Corral.
Kobe beef has a high unmonosaturated fat content which means the fat melts at a lower temperature, and therefore can be cooked to rare and still impart the stronger beef fat flavor. However, the absolute best beef in the world is actually a little-known specialty from Okinawa Prefecture known as Ishigaki gyu (raised on the southern Okinawan island of the same name), which is finished on sugar cane. Even more rare is beef from the nearby Iriomote-jima which is largely a national park with somewhat limited agricultural holdings, although I frankly couldn’t tell the difference in the beef.
*There are important distinctions to be made when indicating the diet of the last 60-90 days of the cow’s life before slaughter. This period is referred to as the “finishing” stage and cows can either be grain finished or pasture finished. Grain finished cows are weaned, allowed free access to the outside to forage until they reach skeletal and muscle maturity and then they are given grains the last few months of their lives to help them fatten up before slaughter so that the meat has more flavor. Pasture finished beef follow the same pattern, but the last 2-3 months are spent naturally foraging in a pasture. It can be difficult to ensure cattle raised by this method gain the appropriate amount of fat to be deemed select or choice cuts, but the health benefits and price point arguably make it worth the effort and planning required. *
The Wagyu beef I’ve seen for sale here in the US is insanely marbled. To get an idea of what it looks like look at the top image here. And if you scroll down, on the right of the screen is what appears to be – to me – an image of your usual choice or prime cut on the left and a Wagyu on the right.
I live in Kobe, and have lived around Kobe for about 20 years. Beef classified as “Kobe beef” means it was slaughtered in Kobe, and it could have been raised anywhere in Japan. You can check the pedigree or ask the chef. I prefer Saga-gyu from Kyushu, but you know what, it all depends on the preparation - some restaurants are good, some not so good. The only way you can find out is by reading the trade magazines or word of mouth.
Kobe beef and other wagyu should be served so rare that it is practically tartare if not raw at the table for you to grill, and preferably sliced as thin as thick cut deli meat so the fats can melt out and cover the surface. If it is thoroughly cooked to the point the cats are all broken down it no longer serves a purpose. Or, as Jake LaMotta would say, “Ovah-cookin’ da steak defeats it’s own puh-pus!”
