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.