Steve: Your wine comparison is a bit of a stetch. To say that someone who enjoys a prime grade, well marbled, crusty on the outside and rare on the inside steak, but prefers it not dry aged, has pedestrian taste, is simply convoluted. Perhaps if they choose to have such a steak well done, your assessment would be more credible.
Like your Avatar. One of my favorite all time shows. Too bad there’s never been a Jed to vote for. Lovely Jeffersonian Moderate.
de gustibus non disputandum est
Darn, I thought disputing about tastes was what life was all about. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
Harold McGee, food scientist extraordinaire, says this in his essay On Dry-Aging:
Once it gets past about six to eight weeks—in my experience, anyway—the flavor becomes so transformed by the action of the enzymes that it begins to taste like blue cheese. It’s a very interesting transformation, but for most people, steak that tastes like cheese is not a desirable thing.
I would believe 9 weeks, given the ‘blue cheese’ description, but 9 months is impossible for me to fathom.
Actually that is not the comparison I was making. There is no real market for wet-aged beef other than commercial steakhouses selling it to people who can’t tell the difference. It is a marketing gimmick that steakhouses use to make their steaks seem like they are aged, when they don’t really want to invest in a proper aging program. But there are a lot of people who are chasing properly aged dry-aged steaks around all over the country. In fact has anyone ever posted on this board about having great wet-aged steaks flown in from the opposite end of the country?
In the same light, I am fairly certain that no one is in search of the perfect Sangria. But if I placed a post on this board about asking people about the best Montrachet they ever had, the thread would have the potential to go on for pages and pages. That’s because one is a commercial product that is not intended to be served to discerning palates, and the other is more of an artisanal product that is directed at connoisseurs.
Harold McGhee also believes that steaks should not be charred on the outsides because that is burnt. He prefers the French style of roasting steaks. Tom Colicchio prefers doing it that way and he and I have had a running argument about the correct way of doing it for years. I take the more populist view and I think that the way people like it served should govern what is right and wrong. And most people I know prefer their steak with somewhat of a char crust. I also understand, and in the past agreed, with the argument about not aging over 9 weeks. That was until I had the steak at Carnevino which changed my perspective.
Put me in the 25-35 day aging camp. I had the 75 day at Primehouse, and was not a fan- a bit too funky and I am with Tex, not enough chew. I also like a char crust. I think that Primehouse has the best steaks in Chicago.
I haven’t been to Primehouse in quite a while but for years used to go very regularly (they were very corkage friendly to our wine group) and also thought their steaks were among the best in the city - particularly liked the long dry aged bone in ribeye (I think it was 55 day). Great flavor at that aging with just the right development for me. Probably need to get back there some time soon.
I’ve had one good experience at Primehouse and two bad ones. I also don’t like the atmosphere there. I know this place isn’t highly rated but I’ve had consistently great service and steaks at Kinzie Chophouse.
Steak aged 9 months just seems like a novelty to me.
But I’d definitiely give it a try for $78.
Not a fan of beef aged past the 5-6 week mark. I like my beef to taste like beef not blue cheese.
That list is a joke though. I love house of Prime Rib but they are not a steak house.
+1. That gives it a perfect minerality without the funkiness. Also like the occasional grass fed steak, or more accurately, steer.
I used to dislike grass fed beef and preferred the creaminess of grain fed. But over the past few years, I have had a few really good examples of grass fed.
There is sort of a revolution going on with beef as a number of artisan farms are turning out small amounts of carefully raised beef. You won’t find them at commercial steakhouses since they don’t produce enough to provide them with a steady supply. But I am coming across more and more farm to table restaurants who have sourced an entire grass-fed cow from a local farmer. In de Wulf, a restaurant in Belgium, serves beef from a herd of 50 cattle that has been grazing together for over 400 years. Last summer, North Fork Table & Inn bought an entire 7 cow herd from a local farmer and the beef was great.
Go spend a good clip of time in Argentina. I had plenty of exemplary grass fed beef the last time I was there.
Now there’s some aged meat!
I have spent the past two winters in Miami and there is so much Argentine beef available there that it might as be Buenos Aires. But since they don’t dry age their beef, I find that it doesn’t have a lot of flavor. They do produce a good skirt steak though. Short ribs aren’t bad either. But when it comes to the money cuts like NY strip and rib eye, it doesn’t compare to US beef in my opinion. If you ever get to London, a steakhouse chain named Goodman serves pretty good Irish grass-fed beef.
Uruguay also has some pretty amazing grass fed beef, in fact, from the small sample I had, I found it more more intensely flavored than the Argentinian.
In the old days, I used to think Pinnacle Peak was THE steak house and Cattleman’s was a knock off them. Now, I don’t think there’s a “best in the country.” I’ve had bad beef at a bunch of top steak houses. The most consistently excellent steak house I’ve eaten at is Cole’s Chop house. Of course, I don’t get out much.
Chef Cole does a fine job for what he has to work with. Last I checked (granted many, many moons ago) he sourced wet aged USDA Prime beef from Allen Brother that was pre-portioned.