restaurant rumpus

[TheRabbi]

Those people should be arrested for ruining perfectly good cuts of beef.

I have a problem when I order steaks: I like my steaks rare but rocket-hot and with a good sear on the outside. (I guess because I'm a slow eater?) So usually I settle for medium rare, but I don't often end up exactly with what I like.

However, those high-class steakhouses that cook their steaks at 1800 degrees get it just right. ...and now I want steak. T-bone, please. Or porterhouse. Or ribeye if you absolutely must.

[chainedbarista]

yes, there are, i think. i hate it when they have no idea what those terms really mean; i like mine somewhere between rare and medium rare, so it feels like i'm eating a bit of tuna sushi (texture wise).

next time, just burn it. he wants ashes, give him ashes.

[reimero]

When I worked as a waiter at a steak place (we'll call it "Ache & Stale"), we occasionally got people who wanted their steaks wayyy overcooked. I quickly got to where I could distinguish what people actually meant with their orders (occasionally I'd clarify what A&S's definitions were just so there was no mixup), and for those few special occasions, I'd put in "well" then go back and tell the cooks "that well means shoe leather."

Apparently those customers were satisfied.

[hatori]

I put them back on the grill, and leave them. For a long, long time. Then I flip them over, and leave them. For a long, long time. When I finally took them off, they were shriveled, black lumps of charcoal. I could seriously chip carbon off them with the spatula. I send them out. I am expecting The Loons to go ballistic, and I am expecting to be fired.

Mrs Loon come back into the kitchen. She is very happy. She is sorry that she was harsh before, and she realizes that I am very young and have a lot to learn, but when people are paying a lot of money for a steak the really want it cooked right. But I finally got it right! They were perfect! She hands me a $10 bill. (a fortune to a high school student back in the olden days.) I am confused for life.

Two stories this reminded me of. One is my dad's friend. His wife went to a restaurant my dad works at and demanded her steak be cooked like this.

The second story, my organization on campus was selling burgers. This lady continually harassed us about making the burger too raw. The guy grilling put it over the hottest part of the fire until it was hard as a rock.

[Andara Bledin]

I was dating a guy for a short time that liked everything blackened to a charcoal crisp.

Thankfully, he knew that he wasn't normal and would tell the waitstaff that he wanted it just this side of charcoal.

I don't eat steak, myself, but if I did, I would have it with just a hint of pink. I've always understood that to mean 'medium well' and the cooking guide at Fuddrucker's seems to agree with me.

^-.-^

[blas]

I'm not big on steak in general, and I prefer the meat I eat to be well done (not charred and ashy, but NO pink whatsoever).

Last year, my bf had a Christmas Party for his welding job. I was invited to come along. This was in a very small town of less than 1,000 people about 30 minutes away.

Lo and behold, dinner was "medium rare" steak. Only, it was so rare, it was nearly still bleeding. I was polite and tried to eat as much as I could, but it took several minutes to chew the smallest of pieces, and I just knew I'd get sick if I ate any more of this undercooked meat.

I got a lot of "looks" from my bf's coworkers, and a few "You damn city people and your well done steaks! This is the real way to eat it!"

More like the real way to guarantee you'll be sick. If it's so rare, there is pink all over your plate....ew.

[Shalom]

Mrs Loon come back into the kitchen. She is very happy. She is sorry that she was harsh before, and she realizes that I am very young and have a lot to learn, but when people are paying a lot of money for a steak the really want it cooked right. But I finally got it right! They were perfect! She hands me a $10 bill. (a fortune to a high school student back in the olden days.) I am confused for life.

Potato chips were invented like that.

There are variations of the story, but basically it goes like this: a customer at a spa in Saratoga Springs, NY kept sending his French fries back because they weren't crisp enough. Finally the cook got pissed off, cut some potatoes paper-thin and fried them until they were hard. Then he sent them out and told the waiter "I dare him to tell me those are too soggy." Waiter comes back and says the three other guys at the table wanted the same thing... They ended up adding "Saratoga Chips" to the menu and it became a big hit.

Me, as far as meat, I eat steak so rarely (no pun intended) that I'm never sure exactly how to order it, or indeed how to cook it. I guess pink and firm would probably describe how I'd like it.

Although the stuff you get at most kosher butchers wouldn't even be classed as steak by aficionados, because the best steak comes from the hindquarters, and that meat is so labor-intensive to devein (as required for kosher meat) that the vast majority of slaughterhouses don't even bother, and sell everything behind the 13th rib for non-kosher. This means no porterhouse, no t-bone, no filets-mignons, etc. Instead we get shoulder, chuck, rib, flank, skirt (a.k.a. "hanger" for reasons I can't comprehend), and so forth. Also, there's a lot less blood in the meat because it's soaked and salted (brined) to remove it. (This is technically not required for any meat cooked over an open fire, so steaks really could be just salted and grilled, but most kosher butchers soak & salt everything anyway.) This means that it's not going to be as dark red as non-kosher meat to start with.

[LillFilly]

Me, I like my meat to be grazing on my side dish while I devour it

[drunkenwildmage]

I'm not big on steak in general, and I prefer the meat I eat to be well done (not charred and ashy, but NO pink whatsoever).

Last year, my bf had a Christmas Party for his welding job. I was invited to come along. This was in a very small town of less than 1,000 people about 30 minutes away.

Lo and behold, dinner was "medium rare" steak. Only, it was so rare, it was nearly still bleeding. I was polite and tried to eat as much as I could, but it took several minutes to chew the smallest of pieces, and I just knew I'd get sick if I ate any more of this undercooked meat.

I got a lot of "looks" from my bf's coworkers, and a few "You damn city people and your well done steaks! This is the real way to eat it!"

More like the real way to guarantee you'll be sick. If it's so rare, there is pink all over your plate....ew.

That's kinda funny..My wife is from a small hick town in middle of no where and *EVERYONE* in that town likes their steaks just short of shoe leather....myself, I'm more on the "Show it a picture of a grill and it's done enuff" type person....After about 10 years, her family gave up cooking steaks for me on family cook outs, and now I have to "Cook your own damn steak"..



Then they can't figure out why I'm not drowning my steak in A-1

[Umingmaq]

If you're nervous about pink meat do not order a hamburger (steak hache) in France from any place that doesn't say McDonalds on it. Very good, but I wouldn't think of eating one like that in the US.

[Red_Dazes]

Where I grew up a Medium steak was a pretty brown on the outside and the inside was a mostly uniform shade of pink. You cut into it and you get the delicious juices.... mmmmmm.... so when I order Medium that is what I think of, a little bit to the rare or well done side doesn't bug me since everyone does their steaks different... but how can you thing Medium=Charcoal....

[Amanita]

Another one who likes her meat just this side of still mooing! I think when I pan-fry mine, it's usually somewhere between rare and blue, much to my mother's horror.
And I will not even consider cooking for a friend of mine- thanks to her mother's incredibly bland taste in food, my friend has the most underdeveloped tastebuds I have had the misfortune of meeting. She won't abide any kind of sauce besides english gravy, no seasonings aside from salt, pepper, or soy sauce, and expects all meat to be cooked to a practically shoe-leather state.
She even complains about fresh vegetables- the flavors are too strong. Celery is flavoured too strongly? GMAFB!

Needless to say, she would not get along well in my kitchen. Not with all the interesting things I put into stir-fry, the seasonings I use on meat, or my belief that if a steak is grey all the way through, then it's as good as ruined. Sorry, but I am not serving a plate of plain grey meat and nothing but beige side dishes. Screw that.

[AdamaGeist]

I'm one of those people who prefers things well cooked. Well, if it's going to be cooked, well cooked. Golden brown cheese on the pizza, and steaks well done. No more than that, but I've eaten more cooked than that before, and I'll probably do so again.

Then again, I'll gladly eat sushi and sashimi, and I've always been tempted to try beef sashimi...

[raw456]

I like my steak medium-rare.

For my husband and my father, they like their steaks as per the following:

Take the cow into a darkened room
Explain to the cow the concept of fire
Bring the cow to the table
Back away

[Andara Bledin]

She won't abide any kind of sauce besides english gravy, no seasonings aside from salt, pepper, or soy sauce, and expects all meat to be cooked to a practically shoe-leather state.

I have an aunt who can't stand pepper in any form.

It has nothing to do with what she ate as a kid, she just despises the taste of pepper.

My mother once tossed a dash of white pepper in a gallon+ of stew, and my aunt still complained about it.

^-.-^