So I after many months I finally decided to put my marbelo plans into action. I called up and finally got someone that could comprehend what I was asking.
The tomahawks are 50oz tonight and 69 bucks. I believe they are dry aged too. I don’t think I’m heading over as my friend is a lighter eater, but I will tackle one of these soon myself and report back. They have a bar so I might have to fly solo and try to demolish one of these. My definition of soon isn’t always around the corner.
My next local steak adventure list:
Marbelo tomahawk
Livottis veal tomahawk (does veal count?)…on my grill
Monmouth meats mystery Japanese beef…should be interesting.
The Mammoth of Monmouth Vs. Hyogo-Dojo Beast Kobe-Zilla
I decided yesterday I would take one for the team, head over to Monmouth Meats and give this A-5 Grade Kobe beef a try. At $ 109. per lbs this isn’t going to become a daily occurrence but I’ve been wanting to give it a try for a long time and yesterday was the day. As many if not all of you know, I love my steaks, especially a prime dry aged anything, I have never had any form of Kobe beef before so this was my virgin experience.
As the picture shows this 1lb cut is certainly a well marbled piece of meat, unlike anything I have ever seen before. Upon unwrapping it I was immediately caught by surprise by the funky odor, this little guy stunk more than an entire walk in of dry aging beef. After letting it sit a few to acclimate to room temp, I coated it heavily in coarse salt and pepper and into the cast iron pan it went for about 2-3 mins per side, then into the oven for about 5-7 mins. I’ll admit even that limited cooking time was a bit too much and I did miss my target of medium rare. It was medium…….even medium well on the very ends. (disappointing)
After a shrimp and vodka cocktail the moment truth approached, the steak was plated and I was ready to destroy this beast like King Kong vs. Godzilla, this was set to be an epic battle of the Mammoth of Monmouth vs. The Hyogo-Dojo Kobe-Zilla and the Mammoth was ready to slay this beast………………
We all know the saying: “Too much of a good thing isn’t always a good thing”…………
That’s about the best way I can describe this. To be truthful……I didn’t really like it. It was amazingly tender……more the consistency of a thick fish than a red meat product, you could cut it with a butter knife or maybe a fork if you didn’t care about destroying it. Then there was the funky taste, think about the most nutty – woody flavored aged beef X’s 100 and that will give you the funky taste this bad boy had. The overly funky flavor combined with the odd, fatty consistency gave it a profile unlike any other steak I have ever experienced. Perhaps with time I could develop a palate for this but for my first experience I’m walking away with a, “been there done that no need to go back” impression of Kobe steak.
Sad to say I would take my USDA Prime Dry Aged meat over a Kobe Steak regardless of price points any day of the week.
I’m sorry you didn’t love your 100$ steak! That’s actually not as much marbling as I’m used to seeing on an A5, but either way it’s beautiful. My view on beef with this level or higher of marbling is: it’s no longer a steak. You can’t cook it like a steak, and you can’t eat it like a steak. It’s just too much. For me, aside from the actual flavor of a steak, what makes eating a steak great is this man vs. meat kind of experience. Seeing a huge slab of beef in front of you and gorging on it.
You just can’t do that with meat this marbled. You almost have to treat it more like a piece of delicate fish than beef. What I like to do is to prep them into bite size cubes or slices and only cook a couple pieces at a time. It’s really more like foie gras on a fancy tasting menu than steak in terms of taste and “ambiance.”
Also about the funk… any chance the meat was going bad?
I agree completely with your method, in a small quantity it would have been far more palatable than as an entire steak, it was just too much.
I thought about that, especially seeing the dark edge, I figured how my stomach (which has been acting up lately) handled it though the night would be the determining factor, thankfully it sat well, although with a recurring after taste. So I don’t think it was spoiling. He seemed to open a new cryovac when he cut my piece.
Ouch!! Have only had Kobe a few times, so far from an expert. In my limited experience, never encountered any funky odors at all. Was yours aged? If so, would seem to be too much of a good thing on an already perfect ingredient.
As JJ suggests, A5 is not best served by western cooking methods. Smaller portions gently cooked seems to be the preferred Japanese treatment.
Best I had was at a teppanyaki, cooked and served in bite sized portions.
Fun self cooking on a charcoal tabletop brazier at an Izakaya. Our server took over grilling duties after she noticed I was too generous with the heat. Ten seconds per side, Bam! Done!
Yep. It’s designed for sukiyaki, shabu shabu and teppanyaki. Think sliced and cooked quickly.
If it was cryovac’ed it was wet aging. This is how they are shipping most primal cuts these days.
It should smell a little funky after you open it, but then the smell should go away. If it lingered on the cut it was probably too long in the bag.
My preference is for grass fed which is never prime since it doesn’t get finished on a feed lot and isn’t graded the same way. It may not be as tender but it actually tastes like beef. Grass fed does not bulk up like grain fed, so you also can’t dry age it for forever since it would dry out.
At it’s best it can be awesome, since it picks up the flavors of the grasses.
Best steak I have ever had was a grass fed Aberdeen Angus from an estate in Scotland purchased at the Food Hall at Harrods in London.
I’d suggest you watch Steak Revolution on Netflix when you get a chance. There’s a lot of stuff to try out there beyond Luger’s.
This makes sense. Only time I’ve had something close to this was Washu beef at Nobu .Came raw in like 1 or 2 inch long paper thin slices to be dipped in hot oil for a min or less to cook. Tasted amazing but makes sense now why it’s served that way.
Sooooo thank you to everyone who pretty much confirmed my less than pleasurable experience with my Kobe was probably more user error than poor product. Thinking about it now, I’ve never really seen a cooked Kobe steak, any pics I have seen have always been sliced and served in small portions etc.
I think @VikingKaj hit the nail on the head with the funk / cryovac, I really can’t say if the funky smell dissipated for two reasons; 1.) I might have just become accustomed to it 2,) I was also cooking other things at the time and the exhaust fan etc. helped clear the room. I think if it were spoiling I would have had a bad reaction since my stomach is nowhere near as ironclad as it use to be.
{{ sigh }} Oh well…as they say nothing ventured nothing gained. I will try Kobe again given the right circumstances and not via my own preparation!
I thought the beef was very juicy and flavorful. It was a smallish steak (by American standards). 8oz @ $10 per oz, pricey for me. Quick seared in a frying pan. It was a very very good steak. Next time, I’ll portion into smaller cuts, quick sear, enjoy, repeat.
Will be in Okinawa next week. This thread has me jonsing for some good Japanese meat. Wife will need to scale back her raw fish budget…good luck with that.
Some time ago, I just about laughed out loud when a Dutch colleague suggested a steak dinner in Tokyo. Afterall, what do Japanese know about beef?? I thought it would be a kitschy knock-off of a Sizzlers or something. Talk about ignorant.
So much quality beef all over that boggles the mind.
Nice pics! if the Japanese can trademark Matsusaka, and begin to import it here, they will really clean up. The kobe name has been dragged through the mud. It is a joke. They can start with a clean slate, keep their brand recognition high and legitamatley offer the best beef in the world to a handful of high end restsurants. I believe this will happen in the next few years. Kobe wont be bush league, but it won’t command the prices it does now.
Yeah and they are virgins too…crazy stuff. They are like children to the ranchers. Unfortunately children that have to be killed.
The trademark part is not hard. It is enforcing it that becomes the issue when tons of people want to “counterfeit” your product and cash in on your name. So you come up with some jazzy catch phrase, trademark that, and then you have the copyright “matsusaka” name too.
So in essence you do what the kobe people wanted to do but actually do it correctly. You have to spend a shit load on legal fees, a bunch on advertising, and get the product in the hands of 3-4 restaurants in the US. Those are the only the “certified” ones so of it isn’t served at those establishments, you aren’t getting the real deal.
You then have the chefs from each restaurant fly to Japan for some celebration and pr piece where pics are taken and you strengthen the fact that “we only sell our meat to these US restaurants”
This obviously comes at a huge cost just to get the marketing campaign off the ground. Dinners would have to sell for probably twice that of authentic kobe. It’s all about marketing though. Only a few cities could support $600+ dinners: nyc, vegas, LA, Chicago and miami. So basically you are creating a rock star steak for the elite. Is it worth twice as much as real kobe? No, but some people have cash to blow here
It can be done, and I think it will, but whether they pay up to our shitty legal system will be seen.
