I’ve never been a huge steak guy. I don’t mind steak, but I obviously can’t appreciate the true flavor of a steak since I like to drown my food in ketchup, BBQ or other sauces. Although I will admit that when we do go to some of these fancier steak places I try not to put anything on them other than what comes on the plate. I’ve learned over the years that it’s apparently a sin to put any sort of sauce on a steak; it’s like spitting in the face of the chef essentially. But growing up in a household that ate a lot of steak, vegetable and potato meals, I was accustom to putting ketchup on my steak; probably because the easiest way to get a kid to eat something is to put ketchup on it.
With that being said, over the last couple years, much to the dismay of my wallet, I’ve been forced to check out some of Chicago’s finer steak houses. The two that stand out the most to me are Mastro’s and Chicago Cut, mainly because I think they are 2o of the most expensive meals I’ve ever paid for; and that’s my problem with these places. I know the steak is aged for days, kept in temperature controlled rooms, only fed grass and all sorts of other bullshit, but a $50 steak at Mastro’s or Chicago Cut tastes no better than a $20-30 steak at Pete Millers. Why am I spending all of this money at these fancy places for a steak that tastes no better? Is it all just in the name and the marketing? Are the cuts of meat themselves not any different? I honestly have no clue. I’m guessing they have to be, but I’m just not fancy enough to be able to tell the difference. And honestly, my guess is that in a blind taste test, most people wouldn’t be able to tell the difference either.
That’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll setup a steak taste test and grab steaks from random places like T.G.I.Fridays, Pete Millers and Chicago Cut and then have some friends over to conduct a blind taste test of each steak. We’ll have to conduct the taste test near the restaurants so that the steaks don’t get too cold and are freshly cooked. But I really think that most people wouldn’t be able to correctly identify the expensive steak vs. the not-so-expensive ones… Although I’m sure the TGIFridays one will be easiest to figure out compared to the other ones. And it’s not just with steaks, I’m sure I could set a blind taste test with any sort of food that people love to pay a lot of money for, and cheaper versions of the same thing would taste just as good. Funny story about that, we actually did a blind taste test with pop (or soda for those who refer to it that way) and you’d be surprised at some of the results, but I’ll save that for another post.
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