Tied To The Steak is BACK!

And so am I. Gone are the vegetarian days.

We will be eating steak! It won't be as dramatic as "the search for the ultimate" but hey, I'm now again into red meat in all its forms! Welcome back!

New Yawk New Yawk

In my quest for the best I found out a couple of things about Peter Luger. They don't take credit cards--except for their own. And that it's impossible to get a table around the dinner hour on a Friday, even if you reserve over a MONTH in advance. Christ alive . . . I'm glad we don't have those problems here in Montreal.

The woman I spoke to to make a reservation, which I actually got, for 7:45 on a Thursday, had a charming, almost parody-of-a-New-Yawker voice. Just like in the movies.

Below is the Luger menu, hard to find online (click on it to enlarge). Read it and weep!

The Ultimate Steak?

Okay, dudes and dudettes, I'm baaack. Except instead of returning to the quest of the ultimate steak money can buy to be made by oneself, it is a quest for the ultimate steak prepared by someone else.

I speak, of course, of Peter Luger.

Steakhouses bore me. I've never met one I liked. Gibby's in Montreal was awful. Queue de Cheval was a joke, almost a parody of a steakhouse. A couple I've been to in San Francisco, although famous among steakhouses, were so unremarkable I can't even remember their names.

But Peter Luger — well, it's the Mount Everest of steakhouses. And I'm going there, in March.

The trusty video camera will be along for the ride, along with a serious debit in the Mastercard balance — and maybe a can of mace for the inhabitants of the neighborhood. Full report to follow.

The steak

Sorry for the long silence. I haven't been steaking for a while; I suppose that will be a plus in my "grade book" of health when I face my maker in the end. Well, the drinking won't help, but the minus-red meat might.

Anyway, a comment on how it all went, this Kobe deal, and why I am totally disillusioned: number one, fuck Kobe steak. It's all a fucking myth. People, in all my explorations, I've found that the so-called Kobe steak is probably a wholly fabricated article, like "Genuine" Pacific salmon or whatever you wish to insert in the blanks. These assholes can invent whatever they want to describe the product. Genuine Kobe beef is not only not from Kobe, but the whole story about how it got to your plate is a labyrinthine mystery worthy of Agatha Christie. Chances are, it's not Japanese, it wasn't massaged with beer, and it's an entire crock of shit.

So never, NEVER, trust anyone when they say it's genuine Kobe beef. I've been there, baby, and it wasn't from Kobe, and it is doubtful that the entire appellation has any meaning at all.

For the record, the "Kobe beef" that I paid 200 fucking dollars for at Atlantique was absolutely terrible, riddled with inedible gouts of fat and just a vast pool of regret that I live with to this day.

Enough with the Kobe beef experiments; having gone directly to the source in Japan, I can safely say that it's all a bunch of fucking hype.

Atlantique Kobes

Well, I must say I'm disappointed. No, that's not strong enough. Pissed off? Maybe. I went in to get my Kobe steaks at Atlantique today. They were part of a large (3.8 kg/8.3 lbs) chunk of meat that had been vacuum packed. Werner the counter guy informed me that he would be charging $120/kg. That is about CDN$54/lb. Mighty steep. Upon looking at the cut, I immediately noticed that, unlike the cuts I'd seen in Japan, this wasn't heavily marbled — no, all the fat was in two huge veins running throught the entire cut.

I asked him to make me three one-inch steaks and then trim them. Of course, he acted offended, and told me that the fat was the best part and most of it would render off. Well, to him, the fat was just as golden as the rest of the steaks, obviously. I, not being a confrontationalist, kept it to myself and let him slice it up.

The three steaks came to — get this — $200. Upon looking at them — judge for youyrself — I calculate fully one third of them is just a big slab of inedible fat. Umm, that's $66 worth of fat . . . a new record.

The most expensive fat I've ever bought.

I'll let you know how they were, but they'd better be good. Very, very good.

Holy Grail, Cracked

Sorry for the delay on this posting, but I guess I was too blown away to tackle it right away. Here is the infamous $45 steak that I tracked down at Kintetsu department store in Nara.


It can't weigh much more than 8 oz., so that easily makes it the most expensive steak I have ever eaten at $90/lb. Remember that this is not a steak ordered in a restaurant, where they'd easily mark it up by a third, if not a half, to make the price $60 or almost $70.

It was a Matsuzaka steak. Matsuzaka beef is grown in Mie prefecture, which is very close to Hyogo prefecture (where Kobe is situated.) The cattle — Tajima — is the same breed.

How was this monster of monster steaks? Well, the small size alone was disappointing. I would have preferred to have had it grilled over charcoal but that option wasn't available; I cooked it simply on a gas stove in butter with some shaved garlic to rare, no sauce.

It was indeed melt-in-your-mouth tender, but I've had lots of steaks like that. Bottom line is that the Holy Grail was a bust — and that the most expensive steak on Earth is not necessarily the best one.

Whole Side of Kobe From The Germans

Okay, I keep calling them Germans and they're Austrian so I know that's not fair, but I have placed on order with Werner at Atlantique in Cote des Neiges a large slab of Kobe beef for next Friday. I have no idea what it is going to cost, but I know that it will be frighteningly expensive, probably more so than in California — but not as expensive as Japan.

The End is Near

Jack Sprat would not be a great meat eater here in Japan. Take a look at these specimens found at the local supermarket; “marbled” is not an appropriate term for these babies. There’s almost less meat than fat on them. This one (below) at 1,968 yen, is about US$18. You’ll note that it’s only about a third of an inch thick—one minute on both sides and it’d be medium rare. It’s called a “Kuro-ge” (“Black hair,” referring to the color of the cattle) “Roast steak” and comes from Kagoshima, which is all the way in the south of Japan.



These specimens below are also from Kagoshima and are called “Roast Slices.” It’s anyone’s guess as to how you’re supposed to prepare them. I’m not going to find out, since I didn’t buy them.


No, I didn’t buy them. Instead, I bought quite possibly the most expensive steak I have ever seen in the entire world, today; a fairly small piece of meat that cost exactly US$44.45. I videoed the whole thing and will provide photos upon my return to Montreal.

I’m going to have to eat it here, as they don’t seem to understand freezing and vacuum-packing, but perhaps it’s for the best, as it’s a long, long way home.

Report to follow.