The Denouement

This is the video of the incredible Wagyu experience.

As you may have already seen, the sandwich was pretty damn good. But nothing beats a steak on its own.

Next up: the Kobe/Atlantique World Cup. Much fine Cabernet will be quaffed and many anecdotes will thrill across the grill but the steaks — err, stakes — are high.

Look for it around the middle of next week.

Sir of Loin

I defrosted the beast over the weekend in the refrigerator. I boasted to my friends at Atlantique that it cost US$40/lb., so they wanted to see it. So after it was defrosted, I brought it over (they didn't want to see it frozen.)

They hmmed and muttered and all were generally in agreement that it was a great-looking steak. "Are you going to put in an order for some?" I asked, but was greeted with a resounding "No."

As I was paying for some cheese, Wolfgang the register guy leaned over conspiratorially and said "You know, we have steak that's just as good. It's dry aged six weeks. It'll knock your socks off."

Well, if that wasn't a slap on the face with a wet glove, I don't know what is. Therefore, with the two remaining steaks, I will march over to Barry's house, where there is a real grill, and also purchase a couple of these fabled Atlantique thingies, and see which is the better sir of loin.

The report: I let the steak reach room temperature for about 40 minutes. I rubbed it with olive oil and coarse pepper. Applied garlic salt just before I put it in the grill pan. Did one side for five minutes, the other side for three, foiled it and let it rest for about seven minutes. Served it with a twice-baked potato (recipes and video to follow) and basmati pilaf.

The verdict: This was a very good steak. It turned out somewhere between rare and medium-rare, which is exactly the way I wanted it (there really should be 12 degrees of doneness rather than just six. Then again, there should only be six, ending at medium. Anything past that and it is no longer a steak.)

It had a robust, beefy flavor and the shallot-garlic-parsley butter topping really enhanced the whole taste experience. Tomorrow I will either make a steak salad of some sort — I'm angling towards an Asian version — or cop out and make a steak sandwich. But what a sandwich that would be! I'm already hungry again.

Steak Paradise

There is a very well-written treatise about steak in possibly the nation with the most steak-eaters in the world here. This guy is a fantastic writer. When is the next plane?

That Elusive Beer-Massaged Bastard at Last

I finally managed to track down some Kobe beef. I went to an upscale joint in an upmarket town called Walnut Creek here in Northern California. Since it was a Friday, apparently I was just in time.

"We don't have many left," one of the butchers said. "We're shipping a whole loin to the Philippines"—(I could see them cutting them as he spoke)—" . . . and a football player just came in and bought five of those New Yorks. Football players have a lot of money, y'know."

I didn't know until he told me what three of the New Yorks would cost me: a cool ninety US bucks. That's as much as they charge for a filet mignon in an upscale steakhouse around here (why do I get the feeling "upscale" will be a frequent term around this blog?) That's $103 Canadian and 51 British pounds, for the curious.
I had them shrinkwrap them immediately and they went in the freezer the moment they got home. They aren't as well marbled as the ones I saw in Japan—those were almost more white than red—but they look pretty damned good, don't you think? (The price marked for the beef in the photo works out to about US $25/lb.—less than the $39/lb. I paid for these.) They're about an inch thick and 15 oz. each. Certainly more than I'll ever be able to eat at one sitting.

One of the countermen handed me his card and told me to email him if I ever wanted him to send me some to Montreal. His folks live in Ontario.

If you're interested, contact Dan Brant at dbrant@andronicos.com.

Can't wait till I get these bastards home and in that pan.

The Quest

Do not despair, steak fans! I did not abandon you. But it's been a tough couple of days, if I may use a steak-grading term.

I had lunch at a place in San Francisco calling itself "Cafe Bastille," which has pretensions to being a "bistro." But the steak-frites I had there was tired and expensive.


My god, where is L'Express when you need it.

On the Kobe beef front, things are even more depressing. The shop that I expected to carry it, Enzo's, suddenly backed down and said they didn't have it, even after brandishing a frozen 1-2 pound frozen morsel the other day which they told me would cost $160. (I turned it down, but only in the hopes that they would be getting more in.)

So I put the feelers out and it looks like there might be some at an outfit called Andronico's, which I will visit maybe Thursday.

This is proving more difficult than I had anticipated! We might all have to wait until I go back to Japan in June.

Kobe Beef: At Last!

I will be flying to California on Thursday on an urgent mission: secure some Wagyu (Kobe Beef), freeze it if it isn't already (it should be--Kobe Beef is like ice cream), vacuum-pack it and bring it back to Montreal for a grand experiment.

I'm already salivating. How should I do it? Sauce or no sauce? Just salt and pepper and olive oil, or a nice pat of herbed butter on top? A dijon-wine reduction?

Serve it with garlic mashed potatoes? Rice? Caesar salad?

I cannot wait.

Why not start the steak blog with the best available on the planet?

I will video the whole thing.

What's A(t) Steak

I love steak. I don't eat it enough, but when I do I think it is a crime if it has been badly cooked or otherwise mishandled. It's not so bad if you're at your brother's house for a barbeque and you get a plate of Sole of Filet Mignon, but it's different when you pay $45 for it at an upscale steakhouse.

So perhaps here I will educate myself about steak and perhaps you will come along for the ride.