Best Steak You Ever Had

[dsenette]

alright....i know that "agreement" isn't something that leather folk do every day....but i know most of us can agree that there's not much better than a REALLY good steak...

where did you get the best steak you've ever had...and why was it the best? if you cooked it...tell us how we can also achieve carnivorous nirvana in our own homes!

i've actually got 3 "best steaks ever". the "absolute best steak i've ever put in my mouth", the "best repeatable steak ever" and the "best steak at the lowest price"

the first, was a steak that i got at the bennigan's resteraunt on Ambassador Caffery road in Lafayette Louisiana (on august 27th 2000....yeah...it was that good)....this steak was what caused me to coin the term "steak-gasmic" (and the subsequent "steak-gasm")....it was about 1.5" to 2" thick sirloin...and they didn't screw with it...salt, pepper, and a judicious application of heat...it was PERFECTLY medium rare...warm in the middle but still bloody like it should be...the thing MUST'VE been cooked by angels or something...i swear i heard harps playing every time i took a bite...people were talking to me and i didn't hear a word they were saying...i just kept taking bites and closing my eyes while i enjoyed it...i mean this was a great GREAT steak...however....that was THE ONLY time i ever got a steak like that at bennigan's (at any bennigans)...and frankly..nothing i ever ate there actually tasted good other than that steak (hell...even the mashed potatoes that came with "THE steak" were crappy)..

the best repeatable steak comes from connor's steak and seafood....those guys know how to make a steak...perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked (plus the sides are great as well)...they use really high quality beef and they don't mess with it...i'm partial to their new york strip...but they're all good

the best steak at the lowest price was at nassau's bar and grill in plymouth michigan (who are we kidding...plymouth isn't a town...it's detroit people...get over yourselves)....it's called the "tony" (the owner apparently loves the sopranos...)...a sirloin with a little olive oil...some pepper...some salt...and "secret spices"....absolutely perfect...and the meal was about $8 bucks (if memory serves me correctly)...it was absolutely perfect...in fact everything that resteraunt makes is perfect....especially their jack and coke

[sheowahya]

You're making me drool!!

OK... I'll add my 2 cents to this...

best steak at cheapest price... Webber's Steakhouse, Daytona Beach, FL $10 for a 16oz steak you can cut with a fork!! char broiled on the outside and warm/pink on the inside... salad and potatoe included No A-1 needed on this baby!! It's just a little hole in the wall, doesn't even accept credit cards!! But a nicer bunch of people and a better price for a steak dinner you'll never find!!

best steak I ever had... back yard BBQ in Australia. MMMMM Aussies raise darn good beef!!! Just a bit of salt and fresh cracked pepper and cooked over a HOT wood BBQ. Oh the flavour!!! I can't wait to move there and have that again!!

best repeatable steak... sorry to mention a chain, but I gotta go with my taste buds on this... Outback Steakhouse.

Marilyn

[Art]

Appetizer combo plate is the best thing at Bennigan's. Best Steak, The Big Easy, 1995 CA Technicon (a Computer Associates sponsored geek fest), a restaurant on Bourbon Street on the corner two blocks up and on the other side from the Maiden Voyage (great strip club), can't remember the name but I know right where it is or was. Prime rib was one of the specials and I asked if the chef could "Blacken" it for me, the response was "Sir, this is New Orleans". And he was correct. I have been searching for something even remotly comparable for the last 12 years to no avail. But we stayed there for two weeks and went everywhere from local joints for plain meals to even localer joints for Poor Boys, never thought of eating fast food, and really there aren't too many of that ilk down there. From $2 for breakfast to $3 or $4 for a Po'Boy, to some of the best damned soups on earth, it was like gastronomic heaven. Everyone down there knows how to cook, and the ones who do it for a living REALLY know how to cook, because you serve something not up to par and you're going out of business. Did eat at the Country Kitchen and it was fall down great, no way to explain it.

Art

[Luke Hatley]

Well i for one am going to cook another one of my Favorite Steaks

tonight. Nothing real fancy, Just a Certfied Registered Black Angus

Rib Eye Steak , on the grill along with sipping on 2-Bud Lights.

PS I am a retired Meat Cutter

Edited September 10, 2007 by Luke Hatley

[bruce johnson]

OK, Monkeyman, I'll bite. We could consider beef to be a by-product of the leather industry.

Best steak ever - filet mignon at the Steakhouse at Binion's "Horseshoe Club" in Las Vegas. You could eat it with a straw. (take the elevater to the top, not the restaurant in the basement). Have to have to have the lobster bisque too. Crown and water used to be a buck, and you need a water back too. They raised those prices after Benny died, however, but still a bargain. Top it off with the creme brulee. Pretty much should be on the repeatable list too. If your folks are like mine, they have sticker shock looking at the posted menu and won't get on the elevater. Drag 'em on kicking and screaming, you will have to offer to pick up the check.

Best beef for the buck - Sorry Monkey, can't have just one, I have traveled too much I guess. In no particular order....

1) also in Las Vegas, and a bit "hidden" too. The Prime Rib Loft up the steps at The Orleans. Hid out, great bone-in prime rib and steaks, a baked potato that is a meal, and the house salad dressing is awesome. Have been there several times and always a good meal. Your folks will want to pick up the check here. Especially if you paid at Binion's the night before.

2) Another also-ran in the best-for-the-buck is Rod's Steakhouse in Williams AZ. This is a place you could tell your parents you ate, and it hasn't changed since they went to the Grand Canyon 40 years ago. Even the menus are the same die-cut fatsteer shape.

3) Harris Ranch - Coalinga CA. Good steaks, great spinach salad, and if the wind is from the north, you can faintly smell the feedlot your meal came from. If you don't stop here, your next meal choice is Flying J buffet two hours south (and it ain't on the list!), there's nothing between here and there.

4) Star - Elko, NV. One of the better New Yorks I have eaten. Be aware it is Basque style - meaning they just keep bringing you salad, soup, bread, side dishes, etc. Pace yourself the first-time or you will be bagging the steak. Why every Basque doesn't weigh 400# is beyond me. Maybe they only eat once every other day.

A pretty repeatable steak at home. Take a tri-tip roast (almost unheard of in the midwest/east by that name - but it is a California staple) and cut it crossgrain into 1-1/2" steaks. The little pointy end, same deal, but cut it into cubes. Medium-hot grill and turn 90 degrees to get the cross-hatched grill marks half way through each side. I season mine with Zatarain's Creole spice mix near the end - one side, let sit a minute ,flip and season the other side. If you cook it over central coast red oak, even better. However I have been reduced to cooking with gas for a while now. Oh, the little pointy end cubes are for quality control testing while grilling. You can also grill the whole roast, little less fire, more time, and season the same. There are secret family marinades too. I had a portugese wine/brown sugar marinated one once that was pretty killer. Slice thinly and serve with fresh salsa as a condiment.

[dsenette]

Zatarain's Creole spice mix near the end

....if you like zatarain's...you should try out tony chachere's....i put that stuff on everything....great on popcorn

[Guest]

Best Steak....Big Art's in Cincinnati Ohio....Cajun style....perfect every single time! Want a change try his BBQ ribs....at least as good as the steak.

Dave

[hiloboy]

will the best steak i ever had and it wasn't cheap. cost me $185. at the four seasons resort hualalai in kona . it was a kobe beef steak and it was as the best steak i have ever had..i could never afford it all the time. but had to try it once in my life time.but i'm saving to have it again soon my be for my

Edited September 11, 2007 by hiloboy

[Johanna]

Hmmm...I'm trying to think of the last time I had steak in a restaurant, and I'm pretty sure it was before marriage and kids, and thus a distant (but fond) memory.

How to cook a steak:

heat cast iron skillet with canola oil

(will get hotter temp than reg oil) until a drop of water sizzles

rub beef with pepper

put steak in pan, turn once

eat

My sister turned me on to "Cavender Greek Seasoning" a couple of years ago. I like it on steak, in vegetable soup, meatloaf, fried potatoes and so on.

What goes well with a good steak? Baked potato and asparagus. My neighbor moved, and she told me to dig up her "schpargle" beds. (I have no idea how to spell the German word, but I knew exactly what she meant!) I planted about 8 X 4 ft. in my garden, and for a month or so in the summer, we are in schpargle heaven. The kids don't like it, of course, and since fresh asparagus is $5.99 a pound in the store for most of the year, it's just as well.

Johanna

[Art]

Hi Johanna,

If you make it to Ft. Worth, I'll take you out for a steak in Ft. Worth (there ought to be at least a couple of places in Ft. Worth that know how to cook). You'll have to put-up with the missus as she likes steak too. We'll be in Austin/San Ant for first part of week but should be up to Ft.Worth by Thursday. Maybe we can get a group together.

Art

Hmmm...I'm trying to think of the last time I had steak in a restaurant, and I'm pretty sure it was before marriage and kids, and thus a distant (but fond) memory.

Johanna

[Regis]

Great idea,,,a "steak-out" for leatherworker.net in Ft Worth. Let's find the best steak there. I'll be ther Wed-Sat. Ya' know here in Pensacola, it's grouper or amberjack steaks!!! Soooo, I'm ready.

Regis

[Beaverslayer]

:w00t: Would be nice to be able to afford a steak.

[Pip]

Best steak I ever had, I couldn't tell you size but I only just managed to eat every agonisingly good bite. I got it in porta Rico on Gran Canaria. I have always loved T bone but this was something else, the biggest steak I (in my poor english steak upbringing) ever saw. The platter had no room for veg or chips/potatoes or sauce, and I couldn't have eaten them even if it had. Good and juicy, us Brits really do overcook our meat and rarely let it rest. For that reason I very rarely eat steak when I am out it needed no accompanyment a huge slab of bovine perfection...... mmmmmm ....... I can almost still taste it!

[Blake]

My vote will have to be for Leona General Store in Leona Texas.

Its only open three evenings a week .

They serve only one cut (ribeye) and you get two choices, How Big and How Done!

They have their own rub and they are seared and cooked over an open grill. There is no choice on the sides but who cares?

Blake

[Art]

Please Everyone,

Try to be sure to recommend only the BEST steaks or steakhouses, because there are some of us who will try, before we die, to get to every one of these places.

Now, if anyone knows of a place called the Five Star Restaurant, about two or so hours East of Philly that I managed to find about 1975, I would dearly like to find it again, been looking for the past 10 or 15 years but haven't come up with it. I had a Strip steak there that was just, well, undescribable. So flavorful and sooo big, when I take enough home to eat another meal and have it still taste as good, well you know why I have been looking.

Art

[CitizenKate]

My favorite steaks are the ones I grill myself. My favorite cuts are fillets or top sirloin. I marinade them with Lawrey's meat marinade, with the water substituted with Chianti, Cabernet Savignion, Merlot (in other words, a nice full-bodied red wine) or with two or three tablespoons of balsamic vinegar added to the normal amount of water. The fire is charcoal with chunks of mesquite wood thrown on. Ahhh... just the smell of that mesquite drives the neighborhood crazy. And I use a pretty hot fire; the outside is nicely cooked, but the inside is still a little pink. A little less heat for the fillets because they are thicker.

My second favorite was a fillet I had at the Texas Roadhouse. Cooked and seasoned perfectly, it practically melted in my mouth. It's usually a good sign when you push away the steak sauce.

Third, the steaks my dad made; one of the best things I remember him by. But mine are better. He knew about Lawrey's, but he didn't know about Chianti or mesquite.

Kate

[dsenette]

i know i'm a heathen but i usually don't marinade steaks when imake them....i just do some salt and pepper...i do make one marinade that my girlfriend absolutely loves (i think it's pretty good too)...it's pretty easy too....just mustard (don't ask me why....but it works)...usually a good coarse ground mustard or a dijon or that jack daniels mustard..i've used creole mustard before...and that was good too...just don't use yellow mustard...that stuff is trash...some melted butter (margarine works) and a healthy dose of worstenchesterchistershire sauce (i don't even feel like trying to look up how to spell the right word so i just try to stretch it out as long as possible....lee and perrins fellahs...lee and perrins)....just mix that up and throw it in a ziplock with the meat...it cooks up nice...and the mustard doesn't "charcoalize" as badly as most of the "sweet marrinades" (i don't like charred anything)

[yaklady]

You've never had a real steak until you've had Yak Filet Mignon!

I murder yaks for a reason

[dsenette]

as far as taste is concerned...is yak anything like buffalo? i'm a BIG fan of buffalo....unfortunately (for me anyway) it's difficult to find resteraunts that actually do buffalo any other way than as a burger...and the ones that do buffalo burgers tend to do it for show...and not because it's a high quality meat product so the burgers aren't as tasty as they could be

[landm42006]

Best steak I ever had was a Drunken Ribeye at the Mike's All American in Fairfax VA. Gawd I miss DC

[Art]

Was it Mike's on Backlick Road, or was it Artie's, Coastal Flats, Ozzie's, or Sweetwater, all in Fairfax?

Art

[BondoBobCustomSaddles]

Bruce, I am surprised at you! Last year, you sent me to Gages Steak House in Guthrie, when I was on my trip to Oklahoma City, and really, it was the best steak I have ever had in the U.S. And still is.

Also as for best repeatable steak in my back yard, I make a basting sauce that I learned from an old Italian father of a friend of mine, over 40 years ago, and still use it today. No matter what steak I put it on, and how it is cooked, rare, medium, well, and so on, it gets raves, personally I like mine done "Pittsburg". I use a table spoon of butter, a teaspoon of garlic salt, a teaspoon of worsterchire sauce, a teaspoon of soy sauce, and two table spoons of lemon juice melted all together in a cup. Brush it on as desired while cooking. No marinate, or anything else, no need for steak sauce after, just this mixture. Never had one that wasn't mouth watering good, in fact, just thinking about it, I'm going out and get a couple of steaks for the grille today!

Oh Yea, and have a good Memorial Day and Thank You to all of the servicemen for their service on this holiday, especially those that gave the ultimate sacrifice so we could be free.

Bob

[bruce johnson]

Bob, In my defense this thread is almost 8 years old, and I've got a few new "bests". Gages was over the top good in Guthrie, OK. On the same trip I had a whiskey marinated steak at The Drovers in Omaha. That was something pretty spectacular too. On my old list - still like Prime Rib Loft at the Orleans in Las Vegas. haven't been upstairs in Binions the last trip. A fresh addition and right in Oakdale - Café Bravo has consistently high end New York with chimichurri sauce. That rocks my world about once a week.

[TheCyberwolfe]

I'm going to have to agree with Bruce's choice from 2007 - The Star in Elko. I went there once back in '99 - couldn't even look at food for a solid 18 hours afterward, but damn if that wasn't a fine steak. (My compadre on that trip warned me about the serving style, so I'd starved myself since breakfast.)