Best steak ?

AstroTurf said:
I blame the internet. Cant find any steaks at local supermarkets with the marbling I see on youtube :crying:
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AH did you know that is due to SA meat pref. In SA the beef is pref to be leaner and therefore the cows are bred accordingly, that's why you will be hard pressed to find that marbling here.
 
Verde said:
Spot on advice, but about 2 years too late. These days club steaks are sold as rib-eye on the bone, and the price has shot up. Rump is the best bang for your buck at the moment. (and not much can beat good quality rump)
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I regularly buy club steak at my local Spar. In fact, just last Saturday I braaid two for me and the wife.
 
Honey Badger said:
I regularly buy club steak at my local Spar. In fact, just last Saturday I braaid two for me and the wife.
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But you will struggle to find club steak on the menu at an upmarket restaurant or even butcher. They re-branded it as rib-eye on the bone and doubled the price. It remains a great cut though.

They do trim a small sinewy bit off before they call it rib-eye, but club steak is essentially the same thing.
 
I know everyone is talking about best and good steaks, but I will share a bad steak experience that I had. Hopefully I can warn others to prevent them from making the same "misteak".

I went to the Wombles steakhouse in the Hobart Spar Centre in Bryanston. I ordered a 300g steak - not sure if it was sirloin or ribeye. I always order medium rare.

First, they didn't rest it enough, which I could tell by the pool of steak juices leaking onto my plate. I don't mind that when I braai at home, but at a flipping expensive restaurant like Wombles, I expected better. Second, the flavour just wasn't there. No browning or crust to speak of, just really underwhelming. It was like they had fried the steak and just served it to me sommer as soon as they thought it was done. For such an expensive restaurant, I was extremely unimpressed. I've had better steaks at Spur.

The best steak I've ever had was in Spain. Probably towards the North of Spain. Ordered a chuleton, which literally translates to large chop. But, beef in this case. Anyway, chuleton is a massive cut, I think from the rib portion of the animal, and I believe chuleton usually comes from old dairy cows. They serve it to you blue rare. They cook it on a hot griddle so that it has a nice crust, but the inside is very rare. And they sprinkled salt crystals on top. I was in heaven. Best steak I've ever had.

Woolies sells a similar cut of meat, but obviously not the same size and not from dairy cows. I can't remember what they call it. Its pretty good.
 
Wouldn't go as far as call it the best, but the most memorable steak I've had was at a Spur in PTA.

Two of us were called for an "urgent" meeting. Drove all the way from JHB to PTA the morning, sat down and then was asked a basic status update. Meeting was over in 5 minutes.

So with a "there's not way in hell we're going straight back to work" attitude we looked for a place to get brunch. Spur was open and the other guy asked the floor manager for the two best cut rump steaks they had. Received two perfectly cooked thick steaks :D


Worst I've had - T-Bone at Beira Alta in Montecasino.
 
Ancalagon said:
The best steak I've ever had was in Spain. Probably towards the North of Spain. Ordered a chuleton, which literally translates to large chop. But, beef in this case. Anyway, chuleton is a massive cut, I think from the rib portion of the animal, and I believe chuleton usually comes from old dairy cows. They serve it to you blue rare. They cook it on a hot griddle so that it has a nice crust, but the inside is very rare. And they sprinkled salt crystals on top. I was in heaven. Best steak I've ever had.
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I loved the veal all over Barcelona...
 
deesef said:
Blow your mind, not your wallet. Give Maders in Pretoria a try. They are literally in a different league.
Note that they are only open during office hours and Saturday mornings.
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Their sausage rolls are great, if you are prepared to stand in a 200m queue on a Saturday.
 
I have my own steak recipe.
I should take fres farmer meat. Add rosmarin and vacuum seal it. After that leave it for 2 hours. Than fry it with butter.
 
AstroTurf said:
I loved the veal all over Barcelona...
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I had veal somewhere around where I had the chuleton. Apparently veal is a bit of a mistranslation, it is more accurately young cow. Like, equivalent to lamb maybe.

Anyway, we were staying in this tiny village that literally had no shop. What would happen is that a truck would drive along, stop in the village, sound its hooter, and then the shop would open - from the truck. From this shop, we bought a piece of young cow.

That was probably the second best steak I have had in my life. We did it on the braai, of course, and it has this wonderful flavour of buttered popcorn. I don't know how to describe it. It was like the plants that the cows had been eating, had made their flesh taste like buttered popcorn. We added salt to the meat, nothing else. It was great.
 
Honey Badger said:
Where do you buy it? I've been looking for tomahawk in CT for yonks
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Quite a few local butcheries in Durban stock it, My favorite is Westville North Butchery. I'm not sure about CT.
 
Best steak I had was at a place near Cathedral peak that I forgot the name of. Second best was done at home, Fillet steak from my last hind quarter done on my braai. Otherwise I have had good results from the Hussar Grill at Monte, those guys take their meat seriously, and are kinda big on the "Meat on the Bone" idea as they claim a lot of the flavour comes from the bone. Not sure I completely agree with that but regardless of if you get cuts on or off the bone their steak is great.
 
Verde said:
But you will struggle to find club steak on the menu at an upmarket restaurant or even butcher. They re-branded it as rib-eye on the bone and doubled the price. It remains a great cut though.

They do trim a small sinewy bit off before they call it rib-eye, but club steak is essentially the same thing.
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Uh, no....

The club steak is from the short loin and is essentially a NY Strip/Sirloin on the bone. The rib-eye comes from the the rib. They are very different cuts, any restaurant doing this is basically committing fraud.

I have seen club steaks being re-branded as "sirloin on the bone" in some shops though
 
spargish said:
Uh, no....

The club steak is from the short loin and is essentially a NY Strip/Sirloin on the bone. The rib-eye comes from the the rib. They are very different cuts, any restaurant doing this is basically committing fraud.

I have seen club steaks being re-branded as "sirloin on the bone" in some shops though
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I can see you know beef and agree that rib-eye comes from the FQ rib section, so my reply is not for your benefit, but for the average steak enthusiast on a budget.

A side of beef has 13 ribs. Typically it is quartered between rib 12 and 13, so 1 rib goes with the hind. In SA top quality beef is quartered between rib 11 and 12, so 2 HQ ribs.
This means a bit of the HQ striploin is from the rib section and essentially rib eye.

If you portion the striploin leaving the bone on it yields from back to front +- 35% T-bone, 50% sirloin on the bone (real club steak) and 15% rib-eye on the bone.

Both used to be sold as club steak or wing rib. So it used to be easy to find rib-eye at bargain prices if you knew what it looks like but these days they are hard to come by unless you are willing to pay for rib-eye on the bone.
 
Verde said:
I can see you know beef and agree that rib-eye comes from the FQ rib section, so my reply is not for your benefit, but for the average steak enthusiast on a budget.

A side of beef has 13 ribs. Typically it is quartered between rib 12 and 13, so 1 rib goes with the hind. In SA top quality beef is quartered between rib 11 and 12, so 2 HQ ribs.
This means a bit of the HQ striploin is from the rib section and essentially rib eye.

If you portion the striploin leaving the bone on it yields from back to front +- 35% T-bone, 50% sirloin on the bone (real club steak) and 15% rib-eye on the bone.

Both used to be sold as club steak or wing rib. So it used to be easy to find rib-eye at bargain prices if you knew what it looks like but these days they are hard to come by unless you are willing to pay for rib-eye on the bone.
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Your post is great, but a picture is worth 1000 words. Do you have a diagram for us, to assist in dealing with these (very necessary) very important technicalities?
 
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