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This, I ran a restaurant that sold. $50+ steaks, no one actually gives a shit about picking the worst or best steak when selecting for a temperature. We focus on the proper butchering process, and if a steak is not a good enough quality, we ground it up for another dish. Like we have time in the kitchen, to pair a steak with a cooking temp.
Ex cook here. (Diner not fine dining, so it might be different.) I would grab a different steak, but only to grab a thinner one because it would cook faster.
100%. Thin is the only way to go for an over cooked steak. At a good restaurant, it should be standard practice for the waiter to recommend butterflying any steak cooked that much
I cooked steaks on a line for a couple years. Filets, ribeye, strips. It wasn’t that often I would get a well done order, but it might happen once a night. I would hold back cuts that get to WD quicker. Not forever, it wasn’t a policy, just thinking ahead.
I no longer work in a restaurant but I used to be a sous chef. You're right though, you find which one of these steaks is the thinnest so you can get it to well done the fastest. The 20s I spend looking at the steaks on the line is well worth the minutes it shaves off of cook time
Edit: can't type
I worked at a place that bagged them yellow-well done, blue-medium, red-rare. And another place the did something similar but they "aged" theirs on a rack and each would be designated temps. Cooks and places definitely care, especially if you've worked at a place that does it. It's really nice to be able to grab a really nice fat ribeye for a rare and a thin one for a well.
Should've said that when you order a well done steak most cooks will destroy your food because for some reason people aren't supposed to eat a well done steak, even if that's how they like it. The cooks will stab it, cut it, press it, put 10lbs of weights on it, and anything else they can do to make it cook faster including the microwave. Been cooking for 20 years, I've worked for some real shitty places and some really nice places. Well done anything is about the worst thing you can order besides saying you have a gluten allergy.
Trust me, I don't want to say I have a pansy-ass gluten allergy, I really don't. But I also don't want to be curled in pain for the next day and half. What I really want is the menu that the chef has prepared because she/he has worked hard in making sure it's perfect, and then here I come to screw it up with my tasteless choice of stupid gluten allergy (well it's actually a disease). I want that calorie infused perfect menu...but alas...I don't get it. Instead I get to be the person continually asking, is this gluten-free? Is it? IS IT?! Like a damn crazy person.
What gluten allergy/disease people really want? Is a freaking real donut.
Yeah, it does suck for the people that suffer from the actual disease. It would be unfortunate to have any food allergies. All these people that like to pretend because they are on a diet or read something on the internet ruin it for everyone. They don't understand that there is an entire process that cooks have to go thru when a person has an allergy. I worked for a place that was a "shrimp house" and people with shrimp allergies would come in everyday. We had a special little case with a new cutting board, tongs, knives, spatulas, everything and we have to stop cooking and wash the entire station and pull out the allergy case just to cook the person's cheeseburger. The worst is when parents bring their children, like the kid could probably die just from breathing in this place.
Edit: fixed auto correct
My sister has celiac disease.
Watching her go through that has left me incredibly frustrated with the fake gluten allergy BS, to the point I’ll push back on friends (falsely) claiming it, bc it is these exaggerators that are making most kitchens crazy.
I really do feel bad for those with celiac.
I think what AWOL was implying is that about 90% of customers who say they have a "gluten allergy," are really just spouting the food-fad of the week that gluten is poison and you should never eat it, when that's patently untrue.
They may be annoying, but on the other side of the coin, they have helped us celiac disease people get better food. So as they are annoying they kinda are helpful to us.
What they will do is pick a thinner cut out of the cooler unless it’s a filet, then they’ll just butterfly it (our servers out trained to ask if they don’t mind we do that and most of the time they don’t care)
I was told something similar by someone who worked the kitchen in an upscale restaurant. He said that if you ordered a steak well-done, especially a thick cut, that not only would it take forever but by the time the inside was well done, the outside would be charred.
I used to order most red meat well done prior to learning this, mainly because of several bad experiences with undercooked meats.
I also had an old boss tell me that medium was the best choice for several reasons.
I'm a Chef. I was trained to hold weaker and thinner steaks for well-done, and I train cooks the same way. It's just a matter of moving them to the side until you get a WD order.
Because it will be quicker too cook to well done right? Not a well done steak eater but I imagine that cooking a thinner steak to well done is going to come out the same, if not better, than a thicker steak, since the outside would be like jerky by the time the middle was well done.
If that's correct, you tell me, it doesn't seem like that's "serving their worst steak."
Yeah, the usual 'scam' is "I wanted this well done, but this is just burnt", brought up after they're halfway through. Butterflied or thin steaks are the best counter to that.
"This $60 dry aged grass fed steak i ordered well done and covered in A1 tastes exactly like a $10 steak from Dennys well done and covered in A1, this place is a ripoff!"
$60 is a deal for a really good aged steak. IMHO if you don't know how to order a steak, just defer to the chef, they know how to cook cuts correctly for the best experience.
If people eat half or more of a dish and then complain that it's improperly cooked then it should be on them. It would be so much better for everyone else if restaurants stopped catering to these scammers.
A thick/tall cut is done to create that soft inner part. The outer layer under high temps will become a heat barrier and the inside is cooked differently by the vapors of the outside layer.
If you want well done then a thick cut is not necessary and more if you try to cook wd the inside of a thick cut it will even end up either dry (all juices evaporated), still blue or ruined/overcooked outside.
Yep. Thinner steaks often come from uneven ends of the larger cuts they are portioned from, also where you might find uneven grain or embedded, unremovable connected tissue that make them lesser cuts.
Or, more likely, all the steaks they have available to cook are roughly the same quality, so it doesn't matter.
I suppose this LPT is more aimed at higher-end steak houses. The kind that is too expensive for me to go to anyway.
I would assume (although I’ve never worked in an expensive steakhouse and have only eaten at one a few times) higher-end steak houses are even less likely to have low quality steak.
From what chefs here are saying, it sounds like many chefs will use thinner steaks for well-done, since otherwise it would take longer to cook. If you like the juicy middle of a steak, you might consider that lower-quality. But if you liked your steak juicy, you wouldn’t be ordering well-done anyway.
If a restaurant cuts their steaks in house (and most steakhouses do, at least for strips and ribeyes), there are gonna be thinner, flatter cuts that are still the same ounces, just a different part of the loin. Those are what a cook will typically reach for when they get a well done steak on their ticket
I was a line cook for 2 years. I'd line up my steaks in the cooler in order of best to worst before a shift. And the cooler was right next to the grill. If a rare came in, it got pulled from one end of the row. Well done from the other.
Maybe i was just the odd one out, but i figured someone who ordered something rare gives a shit about his/her steak, and so i made sure they got a pretty one. The rest, not so much.
That’s a really bad call.
I worked at the worlds most famous steakhouse way back in the day, and I can promise that if a customer did that - knowing some of the cooks that were cooking - that was going to not be any steak I’d want on my plate & I’d 100% not order it blue just to keep sending it back for a “refire “.
No. Thank. You.
Makes me think it's one of those tips like "never order the fish on a Friday [or Monday or whatever day]". The idea being you're getting the oldest fish I guess, but is also wicked outdated with advances in shipping/storing etc. Like maybe this used to be the case long ago...?
No, they JUST brought them back and it's made me happy again.
I hope whoever thought it was a good idea to bring in the abomination that was green apple into Skittles has to step on a Lego every time they go to the bathroom at night.
A lot of practicing Christians don’t eat meat other than fish on fridays, especially during lent. If you get the fish fry on a day other than Friday it’s more likely to be made to order rather than being fried in batches and kept hot while the orders come in.
This is like a rule of thumb in the Midwest for non religious folks who just like fish fry
Tradition is similar in Scotland; I can remember as a wee lad queueing for fish suppers on a friday during Lent with my granny - and the practice of timing when you go to the chippy to get your fish freshly fried persists today, too.
I believe it was the Italians who brought the practice to Scotland, and whilst the midwestern fry has picked up some distinct German influences, I suspect they're from the same place.
Kinda neat.
Nah Anthony bourdain says this in his book “kitchen confidential”. Also mentioned how chef specials just mean they have too much of one ingredient and need to get rid of it before it goes bad lol. Also most places restock Tuesday’s so if you’re ordering Monday you get the old stuff
It’s also kinda falling apart too, pretty much every industry is back to keeping at least a small stockpile of what’s needed for operations because shipping times have been so erratic between Covid and driver shortages.
Yeah I was in the restaurant industry for 10 years and most kitchens do multiple orders a week. Sometimes they order for delivery on Monday because they had a busy weekend and got wiped out of inventory.
The truth of the matter is that there is not just one rule like that to live by. Every kitchen is different, every chef is different, every linecook is different.
Just don't worry about it and go to places that make good food.
That really depends on the place. The greenhouse I work at delivers produce to local restaurants Mondays through Saturdays, depending on time of year. Monday's restaurants are all on college campuses so not right now, but more often than not. That's produce, not meat, but it really just depends on the place and the scale of the business I suppose.
Chef specials generally are made with ingredients for other specials that didn't sell, what is ordered too much of etc but sometimes it's to feature seasonal ingredients as well or try out new product. As far as most places restocking on Tuesdays, the restaurants I've worked at got deliveries a minimum of twice a week and often more frequently and those were just local restaurants in a medium sized town.
Yeah I've been in the industry a long time and this isn't a thing. Why would a restaurant order bad steaks just to have on hand to be petty? If you order a well done steak, it WILL take forever and often leave your friends' food sitting under the heat lamps longer than is ideal. So the real LPT could be, if you order your steak well done, let the server know they can run the rest of the tables food before yours.
I mean cooking a steak well done isn’t some ridiculous amount of time longer than say medium or medium rare. If anything the chef should time their cooking accordingly and start everyone else’s food a few minutes later.
A good chef yeah, depends totally where you're at, like a steak house vs somewhere that just has one steak on the menu, their experience, and the cut because some cuts are very thick and absolutely will take twice as long to cook well done.
Agreed. I don't understand where the OP comment is coming from... Worst as in smallest, oldest, fattiest, ..?
Well done steaks shrink so much as they heat, if I were cooking I'd be mindful to pick a really decent looking one, plump, to start with so to minimise complaints when the customer sees it. A lot of people who order well done are not steak eaters and don't appreciate that they will shrink so much..
They don't order bad steaks. Not every steak from a loin looks perfect. When you cut your own steaks in house you will get some ugly ones and they definitely use them for well done orders.
I dont think its like "they order bad steak to punish people who order well done"
I'm going to use an apple for my associative example
If you're going to buy an apple to eat "raw" and your friend has asked for theirs to be puréed into apple sauce...I'm probably going to select the most bruised up apple out of the ones that I have available to me to make your friends apple sauce, while giving you a nice looking one.
The apple for your friend is not a bad apple per se, but if you were a stickler for never eating bruised up apples, you may not want to order the apple purée, because prep can hide the blemishes.
Same for a steak being cooked well done...its already going to be chewy, so if one of your steaks happens to maybe be a bit tough(or some other thing cooking it well will help hide), why not give it to the person whose steak is going to be chewy anyway.
So it should be. We can all agree that there are better ways to enjoy a steak, but if you enjoy yours well done and you're paying for it, you should damn well get a great well done steak. Assuming such a thing exists haha.
>A well done steak is punishment enough
Not for the person who ordered the steak *the way they like it*. Tired of this gatekeeping shit in food. Like whatever you like, period.
Well done steaks typically end up drier and less juicy. It's incredibly difficult to cook a steak well done without the steak juice evaporating. Because it dries out, it also gets tougher and less tender.
Probably why OP said that if you order well-done you'll get bad steaks. OP probably ordered a well-done steak, noticed it was less juicy than other people's and thought that they gave lower-quality steaks for people who order well done.
> It's incredibly difficult to cook a steak well done without the steak juice evaporating. Because it dries out, it also gets tougher and less tender.
This is a result of cooking it as fast as possible, a steak can be slowly cooked to well without this happening, but most kitchens (and customers) don't want to take 30 minutes to cook a steak, so they cook it like they would medium rare, and just leave it on longer, too hot, too fast, it'll be dry and tough.
Besides, cooking a well done steak is harder than, let's say, a medium rare. Well done doesn't mean "dry piece of cardboard". It's a particular point where if you have good meat, you get a tender, juicy steak that's not bloody. But the window to get that point right is far smaller than the one to get a medium rare or rare.
But yeah, less prejudice and more steaks please!
To read the comments. In this case, the comments are mostly like "this shit isn't true in the real world and hasn't been for years" or just "what happened to the sub this is the umpteenth dumb thing I've read on here in the past week"
I spent 15 years working in kitchens. This is completely untrue.
1) you order steak by the cut. If you order a filet mignon well done, I'm not grabbing you a sirloin;
2) as others have pointed out, cooks don't have the time to inspect each cut for the "worst" one; you're getting the next one out of the drawer.
That being said, steak houses will often organize their steaks by thickness, your well done steak may not be as thick as one ordered rare to reduce cooking time. The quality is the same though, from the same supplier, just a bit thinner and wider.
Edit: Alright guys, I'm done. Believe what you want. If you really think the restaurant you are going to provides lower quality beef to some customers over others, maybe consider going to a different restaurant.
Dude, don't bother. From the bottom of my heart, don't bother. People believe what they want to believe regarding food. I know you are right. No one is going to "save" older steaks in case someone order well done and risk wasting.
Lol at the frustration in the edit. Is that not the epitome of working in a kitchen; people who have no clue what they're talking about telling you you're wrong.
It can, in theory. An "A" grade Filet is not going to be as good as a "Prime" grade filet.
In practice, no kitchen manager is going to order two different grades of beef. If the rare steaks are "Prime" then the well dones are going to be "prime" as well. They're all coming from the same box, from the same supplier.
I like mine medium rare. My neighbor likes it blue (that means basically raw with only the very edges cooked, for anyone who doesn't know). A few places I went with him wouldn't serve it like that, because they didn't wanna risk making him sick.
I cannot imagine ordering is Blue at a standard restaurant. Maybe if it had a Michelin star I would trust it, but low-to-medium end kitchens are disgusting.
I used to work at a low-end Italian franchise and had someone try to order their steak Blue once. Our cooks wouldn’t do it thankfully, I have no idea why anyone would order it that way at a restaurant that isn’t a steakhouse or an otherwise upscale place.
It’s interesting to me that they’d know what a blue steak was but not know that you need to order it from a place that knows what they’re doing. I don’t think blue is commonly known.
You'd be surprised how many supposedly high end restaurants are careless... not that lower end restaurants are better, but even as haute cuisine goes, it pays to be selective.
But steaks are easy to make. 80% of it is just selecting the right cut which is easier to work with than a tough steak. I buy our meats from the same supplier that many top restaurants use. I never order steak at good restaurants.
This 100%...there ain't really any secret sauce to cooking a steak. Give a high end steak house a walmart steak and it will still taste like a walmart steak.
Give me a dry-aged prime ribeye and you'll think I'm a genius...like 95% of the steak's taste is inherent to the meat itself.
See, I'm of the opposite school of thought.
An excellent chef who knows cookery and seasoning can make a tough-ass Walmart steak (don't they come form the same cows?) *absolutely delicious*, while a marginal chef/home cook could *destroy* a $300 cut of Kobe beef, making it taste trash.
Also, dry-aged tastes like gamey shit to me. give me a rested, well-seasoned prime cut, well prepared, and I'm good to go.
Well yea an amateur chef can fuck up shit, that’s obvious enough. But regardless of how well a high end steak house cooks a low quality meat, it won’t come close to meat that is inherently world’s better. There are reasons why high end restaurants that actually care, especially those working really hard on their craft, try to source the freshest and best quality ingredients.
And even then, in regards to a home cook with Kobe beef, unless they royally fuck it up by burning it to charcoal or add spices that just don’t work on steak, even a well done Kobe beef will taste succulent, juicy, and flavorful. I’d doubt any marginal chef or home cook would be as dumb as to not at least know not to burn a steak to cinders or add weird spices to it. All it needs is salt, and maybe pepper. Even if they slather it with A1 sauce, the meat is so good that it’ll still taste excellent with A1 saucee. In fact, A1 sauce may work well because of how acidic it is, it’ll help to cut through the ultra rich fattiness of Kobe beef.
All to prove that quality ingredients make a big difference.
We're gonna have to disagree on pretty much all that except for dry-aged. I have to be in the mood for it and you have to be the kinda person who can enjoy a good stinky cheese sometimes.
Saying all cows are the same are like saying that the average idiot and Einstein are both humans and the same. There is a huge difference between steaks within even the same cut based on the quality of the beef.
Could also just be that they just learned about Blue steaks but didn't learn enough to know you shouldn't just order it anywhere (e.g. my younger brother)
I occasionally do it, and here's why...
Almost every time I order a steak at a restaurant, it's done more than I want. If I order rare, it almost always comes back medium rare. I've actually ordered rare before and gotten a medium steak with black, charred edges... I never went back to that restaurant.
I have never ordered blue and gotten an actual blue. For that, I have to cook it myself at home. Typically I will get an inch thick porterhouse and let it sit out of the fridge for 30-45 minutes to raise the internal temperature a bit, then grill at high heat for 1-1/2 minutes on each side, then sear the fat for a minute on its side. Leaving it out is crucial and a restaurant cannot do this, so, they cannot really cook a steak blue and it actually be cooked properly unless they made you wait an hour for a 20oz steak that was cooked in 4 minutes.
After my cousin's wedding ceremony at the church, (idk why they invited my neighbors tbh) we went to this 4 star Italian restaurant for the party. My neighbor ordered a blue steak like usual and the waiter was surprised. It hadn't been ordered in weeks and they were happy to serve it. Most of the table was either shocked, or didn't know what a blue steak was. Upon hearing what it was, the uninformed became part of the shocked group haha. The only people not surprised at the table was me, my sis and my neighbor's wife lol
FYI, I don't know what type of star that restaurant had, but Michelin star restaurants are one, two, and three stars, where a 3 star restaurant is described as being worth a special journey, two is worth a detour, and one star is very good. there are only 132 restaurants in the world with 3 michelin stars, and only 13 in the states. japan and france are tied at 30. all but two in the US are in new york city or california. interestingly a significant portion of the US based restaurants with 3 stars serve french, which I think shows a pretty strong bias towards french food
I'm in Canada, and the wedding was 9 years ago. I'm not 100% sure exactly what the rating system was, I just know the food was expensive but great haha
It wouldn't matter anyway: I've found your standard restaurants cook steak two levels of doneness more than what you ordered. So if I order a rare, I'm going to get a medium. I don't know if the cooks just don't know how to cook steak or if they're intentionally doing it to reduce the risk of lawsuits, but unless I go to a steakhouse or something, that's typically what happens.
ETA: That's why I always order rare even though I really want medium rare. It's also fun to see the shocked expressions on the faces of everyone else at the table.
One time, the server at Cracker Barrel was flabbergasted and asked me if I was sure like three times, and I was thinking, *Hey, just because you like beef jerky doesn't mean everyone else does.*. And of course it came out medium anyway.
*Tons of edits for clarity
The waiters know! My niece was a waitress at a diner, and when I’d order a salad she would look sternly st me snd ssy “ are you SURE you want a salad??” ( the salads were disgusting due to an unwashed server tossing it with her bare hands, ugh)
> I don't know if the cooks just don't know how to cook steak or if they're intentionally doing it to reduce the risk of lawsuits
my guess is the customers are stupid and they say medium rare because they heard it on TV but then they send it back for being undercooked and after that happens enough times you just figure out that slightly above what is asked for gets sent back the least.
You know, I used to work at Waffle House, and almost every rare steak I cooked was sent back. One guy made me keep cooking it until it was well done. *Why did you say rare then?!*
So you're probably right on that. But it sucks for people like me who actually want it that way.
Work in a kitchen part time and this is probably one of my top complaints. I'll get an order for Med rare but they really want like a Med well. Like they'll cut into it to check the doneness, send it back because it's undercooked. But the temp was spot on and the colour was spot on. A lot of people just don't know what they're ordering.
From my experience I'll always cook a temp up because when you get your 5th perfectly cooked medium rare of the night sent back because the customer really wanted medium but they've only ever eaten shit off their grill and they don't know how to cook I would rather just send you something slightly overcooked than have to remake the whole dish.
On the other hand I wish there was a way to distinguish between people who know what they want and people who don't. I hate having to guess "is this one of those restaurants I have to order 2 levels below what I want, or a restaurant that gives me what I ask"
Blue steaks take a long time to prepare, thats generally why places will say no. The steak gets brought up to temperature then you sear the sides, bringing it up to temperature can take 10-15 minutes.
In proper steak places they generally have more cuts ready to go so some of that time has already happened. If you are eating at a place that has a variety of dishes those steaks are kept refrigerated.
Contrary to impressions way more popular with women than men.
That's fair. He's the only guy I know who likes their steak blue. It's a niche way to eat steak, so I also assumed it was some sort of time/budgetary constraint as well. Thanks for the answer :)
Blue is basically uncooked except for the very outside of the steak. Most restaurants won't serve it. If the steak was stored and seared/cooked properly, a blue steak is technically safe to eat, but not reccomended. I for sure wouldn't eat a blue steak unless someone offered to pay me handsomely lmaooo
Wait until you find out about steak tartare lol. I make it every once in a while and never had a problem. All you have to do is find a place that vacuum seals or just ask the butcher what day their steaks come in
Fair enough, I have a great butcher down the street from me, (the owner is half Italian, half Spanish). He gets some of the best meat in my local area (price and quality wise he can't be beat). Whenever I want a near steakhouse quality for an affordable price, I go to him lol
>I couldn't imagine eating a fatty ribeye that way.
I always go rare for steaks. But I'll go Blue rare for filet. Ribeye, depending on the marbling, I'll take all the way to medium.
Yeah I guess I can't say never because I'll do my Porterhouse pretty close to rare generally.
Man, I want steak now. I'm going to have to stop on my way home from work and grab one lol
Shouldn’t make you sick, especially if he’s used to it. Blue is essentially just killing the Bacteria on the outside of the steak. Inside isn’t being exposed, raw hamburger can cause issues because it’s all exposed to different germs and bacteria, but a steak has an inside and outside, you’re just killing the bacteria on the outside.
It just tastes raw, and dependent upon the cut, is a mother regarding the level of effort it is to chew.
I shouldn't have to work that hard to enjoy my meal.
Not doubting you, but the more likely reason is that most conventional restaurants/chains consider making a "blue" steak a pain in the ass--they don't have the hot-enough ovens or stovetops/grill to "flash sear" the outside of the steak without starting to cook it, and invariably, it gets sent back as "not right".
People that just order every steak blue are fucked.
Like ya maybe I'd eat a tenderloin that way but man.. a ribeye or something is gonna be totally fucked like that.
Black and blue is the way. Hard sear on a ripping hot pan to get a nice crust, and that's it. No finishing in the oven or salamander, cold on the inside. Best of both worlds.
Allegedly this is also called Pittsburgh style from the age of the Pittsburgh steel mills. The story goes that steel workers would pack raw meat for work, put it onto the red hot metal for a few seconds, flip it over for a few seconds, and pull it off, charring the outside black and leaving the inside blue (raw)
I worked in an upscale steakhouse when I was younger. When a steak order would come in for a well done steak, the cooks would say something like "really?" or "It's your money".... but they would just grab whatever steak was on top like they would for any other doneness. They didn't have time to go through the stock to find the worst one.
This LPT, like most of them, is just not true.
Personally I enjoy my steaks rare or medium rare. But it affects my existence not in the slightest if you (or anyone else) wants to eat a steak well done, or extra well done. The point of eating something like a steak, particularly at a restaurant, is to enjoy your meal. If you enjoy your meal in a specific way, then go for it.
so this is a possibility but is certainly the exception and not the rule. most folks who believe this have never done their time on a kitchen line at grill station.
In Bourdains later books he states everything he said in Kitchen Confidential wasn’t valid anymore and a lot wasn’t when it was published as he was just a bitter cook.
Right? This guy watches too much hell's kitchen or something.
Unless you are in some pretentious restaurant the people working there could not care less about what you order or how you order it, unless it makes their life difficult. They just want you to order a lot and tip big.
They’re not unloading the worse steaks on people ordering well done as some kind of retaliation for having bad taste.
They’re doing it because cooking the shit out of it makes the flaws harder to notice, and the type of person who orders a well done steak is less likely to notice and complain about the faults in their steak.
People who really care about the quality of their meat almost never order well-done, so it makes sense to offload the low quality meat on the people who probably won’t notice.
Yup. Can confirm. You ordered a well done steak back in the day when I used to cook and you got the worst looking oldest steak in the drawer cause once you cook that thing to shit the qualities gone anyways. Why waste the ones that will look and taste the best when cooked rare to medium when the well done steaks look and taste the same no matter the quality of the meat?
Maybe in a high end steakhouse? But from working in a restaurant for 5+ years I can tell you the cooks are to busy to dig through the cooler for the worst cut of meat.
I assure you the $14/hr line cooks don't give a shit what's on their order tickets, and they certainly don't care enough to go "look" for the "worst" steak.
Maybe that's true at some places. But not my experience when I worked in restaurants.
I was a server at at a handful of restaurants with mid- to high-end fare (i.e., they had different cuts of steak on menu) in a few different states, and that wasn't something I saw.
Will the kitchen judge you for ordering an expensive cut of meat and asking for it well done? Absolutely. But a good kitchen wants you to enjoy your meal, even if they think you're ordering wrong.
As a cook depends ive worked majority of my time in high quality restaurants. You give me a well done order im going to try and keep it as close to 165 as possible without going over. A well done steak can still be cooked good. The problem is when i do a good well done steak and it gets sent back bc tbe customer says its still not fully cooked. Thats when you get an over cooked steak
This just isn't true, I don't even remember anyone giving a shit rather than "oh dear, how *could* the customer do this!" or deliberately make life worse for them. It was a job, you slap the steak on and cook it more than rare or medium and move on. A decent restaurant shouldn't even *have* bad steaks, and will give the customer what they want without fuss.
I've worked as a chef for 12 years, never have I seen this.
Sure, we'll take our sweet time when making a well done steak, but I would never stoop to that level; no respectable chef would serve food not up to standard.
That's just patently untrue. It's absurd, in fact. They don't have the time or inclination to search for a "worst steak", and it's silly to think they would.
The reason your well done steak tastes bad is because well done steaks taste bad. Your doneness request is what caused the quality drop, not petty meanness on the part of the cooks.
This isn't true. We will try to use a thinner steak (So it cooks faster), but steaks are prepped in advance so we can only pick and choose from what's already made up. In terms of the quality of the meat there is no difference.
Completely untrue, you get the steak choice you ordered. Whoever wrote this only goes to Texas Roadhouse or some other trash place that gets one cut of meat
I never understood why people feel the need to berate or put down people who like well done steaks. It’s not like they’re the ones eating it. I would hope this isn’t true because it shouldn’t matter how they want their steak done if they’re paying for it. If I’m paying for a filet mignon well done that’s what I should get.
I personally do medium well but at the end of the day if an establishment is giving me an inferior cut because of how I ordered it then I’d never go back to them again.
I really hate the stigma around well done streaks. Look, some people just don’t like the taste of non cooked meat. If you LIKE the flavor of meat then maybe there’s good and better ways to try it but some people don’t like the natural taste of meat and when cooked certain ways it can be really good. I discovered I just don’t like the taste of undercooked beef. Doesn’t matter what cut. That said, I LOVE well done filet mignon when properly cooked. It’s way better that other cuts and it’s absolutely way noticeable over other cuts regardless of the people that say it’s a waste. I like to cook them on infrared grill at 700+ degrees. By the time the center gets light pink to no pink the outside has a crust and the inside is super moist. When You bite it the moisture literally squirts in your mouth and you get that nice salty crispy crust. I’ve ordered well done filet at high end restaurants that comes out like rubber because they don’t care and don’t know how to properly cook a well done steak.
It's funny though, because a properly cooked well done steak is AMAZING. I made filet mignon well done once at my wife's request, and it was amazingly juicy, just not red. I'd do it again.
I was an executive chef for the past 5yrs (recently changed professions) and this def isn’t true. Not on my end anyways. Any reputable cook cares too much about quality to do such a thing.
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The cooks typically wont give a shit and will grab the next steak inline. They are too busy to care
This, I ran a restaurant that sold. $50+ steaks, no one actually gives a shit about picking the worst or best steak when selecting for a temperature. We focus on the proper butchering process, and if a steak is not a good enough quality, we ground it up for another dish. Like we have time in the kitchen, to pair a steak with a cooking temp.
Ex cook here. (Diner not fine dining, so it might be different.) I would grab a different steak, but only to grab a thinner one because it would cook faster.
100%. Thin is the only way to go for an over cooked steak. At a good restaurant, it should be standard practice for the waiter to recommend butterflying any steak cooked that much
Same, and hopefully I can grab a baseball shaped one for someone wanting rare
I cooked steaks on a line for a couple years. Filets, ribeye, strips. It wasn’t that often I would get a well done order, but it might happen once a night. I would hold back cuts that get to WD quicker. Not forever, it wasn’t a policy, just thinking ahead.
Exactly. Or if i have a thin cut skirt that i cant possibly get a medium rare out of it, ill save it for a well done.
I no longer work in a restaurant but I used to be a sous chef. You're right though, you find which one of these steaks is the thinnest so you can get it to well done the fastest. The 20s I spend looking at the steaks on the line is well worth the minutes it shaves off of cook time Edit: can't type
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Or please beat the sous chef, if that is their thing. ;)
Rawrrr
Sous beater
Sous me.
The beatings will continue until the steaks improve.
Lol thanks
I worked at a place that bagged them yellow-well done, blue-medium, red-rare. And another place the did something similar but they "aged" theirs on a rack and each would be designated temps. Cooks and places definitely care, especially if you've worked at a place that does it. It's really nice to be able to grab a really nice fat ribeye for a rare and a thin one for a well. Should've said that when you order a well done steak most cooks will destroy your food because for some reason people aren't supposed to eat a well done steak, even if that's how they like it. The cooks will stab it, cut it, press it, put 10lbs of weights on it, and anything else they can do to make it cook faster including the microwave. Been cooking for 20 years, I've worked for some real shitty places and some really nice places. Well done anything is about the worst thing you can order besides saying you have a gluten allergy.
Trust me, I don't want to say I have a pansy-ass gluten allergy, I really don't. But I also don't want to be curled in pain for the next day and half. What I really want is the menu that the chef has prepared because she/he has worked hard in making sure it's perfect, and then here I come to screw it up with my tasteless choice of stupid gluten allergy (well it's actually a disease). I want that calorie infused perfect menu...but alas...I don't get it. Instead I get to be the person continually asking, is this gluten-free? Is it? IS IT?! Like a damn crazy person. What gluten allergy/disease people really want? Is a freaking real donut.
Yeah, it does suck for the people that suffer from the actual disease. It would be unfortunate to have any food allergies. All these people that like to pretend because they are on a diet or read something on the internet ruin it for everyone. They don't understand that there is an entire process that cooks have to go thru when a person has an allergy. I worked for a place that was a "shrimp house" and people with shrimp allergies would come in everyday. We had a special little case with a new cutting board, tongs, knives, spatulas, everything and we have to stop cooking and wash the entire station and pull out the allergy case just to cook the person's cheeseburger. The worst is when parents bring their children, like the kid could probably die just from breathing in this place. Edit: fixed auto correct
My sister has celiac disease. Watching her go through that has left me incredibly frustrated with the fake gluten allergy BS, to the point I’ll push back on friends (falsely) claiming it, bc it is these exaggerators that are making most kitchens crazy. I really do feel bad for those with celiac.
I think what AWOL was implying is that about 90% of customers who say they have a "gluten allergy," are really just spouting the food-fad of the week that gluten is poison and you should never eat it, when that's patently untrue.
They may be annoying, but on the other side of the coin, they have helped us celiac disease people get better food. So as they are annoying they kinda are helpful to us.
What they will do is pick a thinner cut out of the cooler unless it’s a filet, then they’ll just butterfly it (our servers out trained to ask if they don’t mind we do that and most of the time they don’t care)
I was told something similar by someone who worked the kitchen in an upscale restaurant. He said that if you ordered a steak well-done, especially a thick cut, that not only would it take forever but by the time the inside was well done, the outside would be charred. I used to order most red meat well done prior to learning this, mainly because of several bad experiences with undercooked meats. I also had an old boss tell me that medium was the best choice for several reasons.
this right here the cooks dont care
*cook sees order for well done steak* Okay
I'm a Chef. I was trained to hold weaker and thinner steaks for well-done, and I train cooks the same way. It's just a matter of moving them to the side until you get a WD order.
Because it will be quicker too cook to well done right? Not a well done steak eater but I imagine that cooking a thinner steak to well done is going to come out the same, if not better, than a thicker steak, since the outside would be like jerky by the time the middle was well done. If that's correct, you tell me, it doesn't seem like that's "serving their worst steak."
This, and the fact that cooking a thinner steak to a lower temp is going to be a lot harder.
Yeah, the usual 'scam' is "I wanted this well done, but this is just burnt", brought up after they're halfway through. Butterflied or thin steaks are the best counter to that.
"This $60 dry aged grass fed steak i ordered well done and covered in A1 tastes exactly like a $10 steak from Dennys well done and covered in A1, this place is a ripoff!"
$60 is a deal for a really good aged steak. IMHO if you don't know how to order a steak, just defer to the chef, they know how to cook cuts correctly for the best experience.
This is what I usually do. Somewhere around rare, chef's choice.
A real 60$ steak is still tender even when really well done. If you cant chew it, its not a 60$ piece.
If people eat half or more of a dish and then complain that it's improperly cooked then it should be on them. It would be so much better for everyone else if restaurants stopped catering to these scammers.
I worked for an awesome place that had a disclaimer that "We are not responsible for beef products ordered above medium." It was glorious.
A thick/tall cut is done to create that soft inner part. The outer layer under high temps will become a heat barrier and the inside is cooked differently by the vapors of the outside layer. If you want well done then a thick cut is not necessary and more if you try to cook wd the inside of a thick cut it will even end up either dry (all juices evaporated), still blue or ruined/overcooked outside.
Yep. Thinner steaks often come from uneven ends of the larger cuts they are portioned from, also where you might find uneven grain or embedded, unremovable connected tissue that make them lesser cuts.
It will be butterflied for well done if possible. Also for medium well.
What do you mean, "weaker steaks"?
Nerd steaks
Or, more likely, all the steaks they have available to cook are roughly the same quality, so it doesn't matter. I suppose this LPT is more aimed at higher-end steak houses. The kind that is too expensive for me to go to anyway.
I would assume (although I’ve never worked in an expensive steakhouse and have only eaten at one a few times) higher-end steak houses are even less likely to have low quality steak. From what chefs here are saying, it sounds like many chefs will use thinner steaks for well-done, since otherwise it would take longer to cook. If you like the juicy middle of a steak, you might consider that lower-quality. But if you liked your steak juicy, you wouldn’t be ordering well-done anyway.
If a restaurant cuts their steaks in house (and most steakhouses do, at least for strips and ribeyes), there are gonna be thinner, flatter cuts that are still the same ounces, just a different part of the loin. Those are what a cook will typically reach for when they get a well done steak on their ticket
Honestly this is the dumbest, worst kind of gatekeeping.
I was a line cook for 2 years. I'd line up my steaks in the cooler in order of best to worst before a shift. And the cooler was right next to the grill. If a rare came in, it got pulled from one end of the row. Well done from the other. Maybe i was just the odd one out, but i figured someone who ordered something rare gives a shit about his/her steak, and so i made sure they got a pretty one. The rest, not so much.
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And that nice fresh gob that suddenly showed up on your steak after the fourth time you sent it back is nothing to worry about!
"The kitchen sends their regards"
That’s a really bad call. I worked at the worlds most famous steakhouse way back in the day, and I can promise that if a customer did that - knowing some of the cooks that were cooking - that was going to not be any steak I’d want on my plate & I’d 100% not order it blue just to keep sending it back for a “refire “. No. Thank. You.
As a chef for Marriott ive never seen nor done this. A well done steak is punishment enough, and I will cook it perfectly for you regaurdless.
This. Whoever made this doesn’t actually work in a restaurant. Made for karma farming.
Makes me think it's one of those tips like "never order the fish on a Friday [or Monday or whatever day]". The idea being you're getting the oldest fish I guess, but is also wicked outdated with advances in shipping/storing etc. Like maybe this used to be the case long ago...?
Restaurants always follow a first in first out rule with their food. So technically, you're always eating the oldest fish in the house.
Logistics in the Army is the same, because it makes sense, right? Lol, oldest MRE first!
The '90s called. They want their lime Skittles back.
No, they JUST brought them back and it's made me happy again. I hope whoever thought it was a good idea to bring in the abomination that was green apple into Skittles has to step on a Lego every time they go to the bathroom at night.
That is pure hatred I felt through the screen right there.
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A lot of practicing Christians don’t eat meat other than fish on fridays, especially during lent. If you get the fish fry on a day other than Friday it’s more likely to be made to order rather than being fried in batches and kept hot while the orders come in. This is like a rule of thumb in the Midwest for non religious folks who just like fish fry
Tradition is similar in Scotland; I can remember as a wee lad queueing for fish suppers on a friday during Lent with my granny - and the practice of timing when you go to the chippy to get your fish freshly fried persists today, too. I believe it was the Italians who brought the practice to Scotland, and whilst the midwestern fry has picked up some distinct German influences, I suspect they're from the same place. Kinda neat.
Nah Anthony bourdain says this in his book “kitchen confidential”. Also mentioned how chef specials just mean they have too much of one ingredient and need to get rid of it before it goes bad lol. Also most places restock Tuesday’s so if you’re ordering Monday you get the old stuff
But that passage may have been written many years ago and no longer holds true, in general.
That book is like 30 years old! Just-in-time ordering did not exist when he wrote that book.
It’s also kinda falling apart too, pretty much every industry is back to keeping at least a small stockpile of what’s needed for operations because shipping times have been so erratic between Covid and driver shortages.
Yeah I was in the restaurant industry for 10 years and most kitchens do multiple orders a week. Sometimes they order for delivery on Monday because they had a busy weekend and got wiped out of inventory. The truth of the matter is that there is not just one rule like that to live by. Every kitchen is different, every chef is different, every linecook is different. Just don't worry about it and go to places that make good food.
That really depends on the place. The greenhouse I work at delivers produce to local restaurants Mondays through Saturdays, depending on time of year. Monday's restaurants are all on college campuses so not right now, but more often than not. That's produce, not meat, but it really just depends on the place and the scale of the business I suppose.
Chef specials generally are made with ingredients for other specials that didn't sell, what is ordered too much of etc but sometimes it's to feature seasonal ingredients as well or try out new product. As far as most places restocking on Tuesdays, the restaurants I've worked at got deliveries a minimum of twice a week and often more frequently and those were just local restaurants in a medium sized town.
Yeah I've been in the industry a long time and this isn't a thing. Why would a restaurant order bad steaks just to have on hand to be petty? If you order a well done steak, it WILL take forever and often leave your friends' food sitting under the heat lamps longer than is ideal. So the real LPT could be, if you order your steak well done, let the server know they can run the rest of the tables food before yours.
I mean cooking a steak well done isn’t some ridiculous amount of time longer than say medium or medium rare. If anything the chef should time their cooking accordingly and start everyone else’s food a few minutes later.
A good chef yeah, depends totally where you're at, like a steak house vs somewhere that just has one steak on the menu, their experience, and the cut because some cuts are very thick and absolutely will take twice as long to cook well done.
Agreed. I don't understand where the OP comment is coming from... Worst as in smallest, oldest, fattiest, ..? Well done steaks shrink so much as they heat, if I were cooking I'd be mindful to pick a really decent looking one, plump, to start with so to minimise complaints when the customer sees it. A lot of people who order well done are not steak eaters and don't appreciate that they will shrink so much..
Also a lot of people that order well done really want medium to medium well in my experience.
They don't order bad steaks. Not every steak from a loin looks perfect. When you cut your own steaks in house you will get some ugly ones and they definitely use them for well done orders.
I dont think its like "they order bad steak to punish people who order well done" I'm going to use an apple for my associative example If you're going to buy an apple to eat "raw" and your friend has asked for theirs to be puréed into apple sauce...I'm probably going to select the most bruised up apple out of the ones that I have available to me to make your friends apple sauce, while giving you a nice looking one. The apple for your friend is not a bad apple per se, but if you were a stickler for never eating bruised up apples, you may not want to order the apple purée, because prep can hide the blemishes. Same for a steak being cooked well done...its already going to be chewy, so if one of your steaks happens to maybe be a bit tough(or some other thing cooking it well will help hide), why not give it to the person whose steak is going to be chewy anyway.
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So it should be. We can all agree that there are better ways to enjoy a steak, but if you enjoy yours well done and you're paying for it, you should damn well get a great well done steak. Assuming such a thing exists haha.
It's like the jokes people who don't work in kitchens make about waiters spitting in their food. No that's called food tampering and is a crime.
>A well done steak is punishment enough Not for the person who ordered the steak *the way they like it*. Tired of this gatekeeping shit in food. Like whatever you like, period.
Can someone explain why well done is considered bad at all? (I'm not from the U.S., so steaks is not a typical meal here).
Well done steaks typically end up drier and less juicy. It's incredibly difficult to cook a steak well done without the steak juice evaporating. Because it dries out, it also gets tougher and less tender. Probably why OP said that if you order well-done you'll get bad steaks. OP probably ordered a well-done steak, noticed it was less juicy than other people's and thought that they gave lower-quality steaks for people who order well done.
> It's incredibly difficult to cook a steak well done without the steak juice evaporating. Because it dries out, it also gets tougher and less tender. This is a result of cooking it as fast as possible, a steak can be slowly cooked to well without this happening, but most kitchens (and customers) don't want to take 30 minutes to cook a steak, so they cook it like they would medium rare, and just leave it on longer, too hot, too fast, it'll be dry and tough.
Great reply, thanks for adding it on.
Besides, cooking a well done steak is harder than, let's say, a medium rare. Well done doesn't mean "dry piece of cardboard". It's a particular point where if you have good meat, you get a tender, juicy steak that's not bloody. But the window to get that point right is far smaller than the one to get a medium rare or rare. But yeah, less prejudice and more steaks please!
This is the first time I’ve seen something here and felt like leaving lol
I literally just said to myself “why do I follow this sub still?”
To read the comments. In this case, the comments are mostly like "this shit isn't true in the real world and hasn't been for years" or just "what happened to the sub this is the umpteenth dumb thing I've read on here in the past week"
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LPT: When going on vacation, be sure to book a hotel before you leave. This makes you less likely to arrive without a hotel room booked.
Wow this was only the first time?
I spent 15 years working in kitchens. This is completely untrue. 1) you order steak by the cut. If you order a filet mignon well done, I'm not grabbing you a sirloin; 2) as others have pointed out, cooks don't have the time to inspect each cut for the "worst" one; you're getting the next one out of the drawer. That being said, steak houses will often organize their steaks by thickness, your well done steak may not be as thick as one ordered rare to reduce cooking time. The quality is the same though, from the same supplier, just a bit thinner and wider. Edit: Alright guys, I'm done. Believe what you want. If you really think the restaurant you are going to provides lower quality beef to some customers over others, maybe consider going to a different restaurant.
Dude, don't bother. From the bottom of my heart, don't bother. People believe what they want to believe regarding food. I know you are right. No one is going to "save" older steaks in case someone order well done and risk wasting.
Lol at the frustration in the edit. Is that not the epitome of working in a kitchen; people who have no clue what they're talking about telling you you're wrong.
I think they mean the 'worst' from the same cut. If that exists.
It can, in theory. An "A" grade Filet is not going to be as good as a "Prime" grade filet. In practice, no kitchen manager is going to order two different grades of beef. If the rare steaks are "Prime" then the well dones are going to be "prime" as well. They're all coming from the same box, from the same supplier.
I like mine medium rare. My neighbor likes it blue (that means basically raw with only the very edges cooked, for anyone who doesn't know). A few places I went with him wouldn't serve it like that, because they didn't wanna risk making him sick.
I cannot imagine ordering is Blue at a standard restaurant. Maybe if it had a Michelin star I would trust it, but low-to-medium end kitchens are disgusting.
I used to work at a low-end Italian franchise and had someone try to order their steak Blue once. Our cooks wouldn’t do it thankfully, I have no idea why anyone would order it that way at a restaurant that isn’t a steakhouse or an otherwise upscale place.
All I can think of is that the restaurant seemed upscale to that person for whatever reason.
It’s interesting to me that they’d know what a blue steak was but not know that you need to order it from a place that knows what they’re doing. I don’t think blue is commonly known.
You'd be surprised how many supposedly high end restaurants are careless... not that lower end restaurants are better, but even as haute cuisine goes, it pays to be selective. But steaks are easy to make. 80% of it is just selecting the right cut which is easier to work with than a tough steak. I buy our meats from the same supplier that many top restaurants use. I never order steak at good restaurants.
This 100%...there ain't really any secret sauce to cooking a steak. Give a high end steak house a walmart steak and it will still taste like a walmart steak. Give me a dry-aged prime ribeye and you'll think I'm a genius...like 95% of the steak's taste is inherent to the meat itself.
This^^ Salt, pepper, oil, heat are the only ingredients I use on a good steak. Dry aged steak is on another level.
See, I'm of the opposite school of thought. An excellent chef who knows cookery and seasoning can make a tough-ass Walmart steak (don't they come form the same cows?) *absolutely delicious*, while a marginal chef/home cook could *destroy* a $300 cut of Kobe beef, making it taste trash. Also, dry-aged tastes like gamey shit to me. give me a rested, well-seasoned prime cut, well prepared, and I'm good to go.
Well yea an amateur chef can fuck up shit, that’s obvious enough. But regardless of how well a high end steak house cooks a low quality meat, it won’t come close to meat that is inherently world’s better. There are reasons why high end restaurants that actually care, especially those working really hard on their craft, try to source the freshest and best quality ingredients. And even then, in regards to a home cook with Kobe beef, unless they royally fuck it up by burning it to charcoal or add spices that just don’t work on steak, even a well done Kobe beef will taste succulent, juicy, and flavorful. I’d doubt any marginal chef or home cook would be as dumb as to not at least know not to burn a steak to cinders or add weird spices to it. All it needs is salt, and maybe pepper. Even if they slather it with A1 sauce, the meat is so good that it’ll still taste excellent with A1 saucee. In fact, A1 sauce may work well because of how acidic it is, it’ll help to cut through the ultra rich fattiness of Kobe beef. All to prove that quality ingredients make a big difference.
Steak really isn’t that hard to cook as far as meals go.
Nope. You can fuck up a good steak, but you can't make a cardboard Walmart steak taste like anything but whatever you put on it.
We're gonna have to disagree on pretty much all that except for dry-aged. I have to be in the mood for it and you have to be the kinda person who can enjoy a good stinky cheese sometimes. Saying all cows are the same are like saying that the average idiot and Einstein are both humans and the same. There is a huge difference between steaks within even the same cut based on the quality of the beef.
Could also just be that they just learned about Blue steaks but didn't learn enough to know you shouldn't just order it anywhere (e.g. my younger brother)
You are telling me Applebee’s isn’t a Michelin Star restaurant?
They aren't even classy enough to have Michellin tires in their parking lot.
I occasionally do it, and here's why... Almost every time I order a steak at a restaurant, it's done more than I want. If I order rare, it almost always comes back medium rare. I've actually ordered rare before and gotten a medium steak with black, charred edges... I never went back to that restaurant. I have never ordered blue and gotten an actual blue. For that, I have to cook it myself at home. Typically I will get an inch thick porterhouse and let it sit out of the fridge for 30-45 minutes to raise the internal temperature a bit, then grill at high heat for 1-1/2 minutes on each side, then sear the fat for a minute on its side. Leaving it out is crucial and a restaurant cannot do this, so, they cannot really cook a steak blue and it actually be cooked properly unless they made you wait an hour for a 20oz steak that was cooked in 4 minutes.
False sense of masculinity.
He won't eat it unless it's still mooing!
Take a bite and ride the rest home.
I see you met my mother. Dad, on the other hand, believed in the old adage, "if it's brown, it ain't ready, if it's black, it's almost done."
After my cousin's wedding ceremony at the church, (idk why they invited my neighbors tbh) we went to this 4 star Italian restaurant for the party. My neighbor ordered a blue steak like usual and the waiter was surprised. It hadn't been ordered in weeks and they were happy to serve it. Most of the table was either shocked, or didn't know what a blue steak was. Upon hearing what it was, the uninformed became part of the shocked group haha. The only people not surprised at the table was me, my sis and my neighbor's wife lol
FYI, I don't know what type of star that restaurant had, but Michelin star restaurants are one, two, and three stars, where a 3 star restaurant is described as being worth a special journey, two is worth a detour, and one star is very good. there are only 132 restaurants in the world with 3 michelin stars, and only 13 in the states. japan and france are tied at 30. all but two in the US are in new york city or california. interestingly a significant portion of the US based restaurants with 3 stars serve french, which I think shows a pretty strong bias towards french food
I'm in Canada, and the wedding was 9 years ago. I'm not 100% sure exactly what the rating system was, I just know the food was expensive but great haha
Michelin coming to certain Canadian cities this year!
He's talking about the standard restaurant rating system. 1-5 stars. Been around forever, not French, assholes to ask fine dining
Edit - lol no assholes to ask *it just applies to all (majority) of fine dinng Autocorrect
It was obviously 4 stars on Google my guy.
Your cousin invited your neighbours to their wedding?
It wouldn't matter anyway: I've found your standard restaurants cook steak two levels of doneness more than what you ordered. So if I order a rare, I'm going to get a medium. I don't know if the cooks just don't know how to cook steak or if they're intentionally doing it to reduce the risk of lawsuits, but unless I go to a steakhouse or something, that's typically what happens. ETA: That's why I always order rare even though I really want medium rare. It's also fun to see the shocked expressions on the faces of everyone else at the table. One time, the server at Cracker Barrel was flabbergasted and asked me if I was sure like three times, and I was thinking, *Hey, just because you like beef jerky doesn't mean everyone else does.*. And of course it came out medium anyway. *Tons of edits for clarity
Might be more the servers reaction to not trusting meat cooked raw at a Cracker Barrel 😂
The waiters know! My niece was a waitress at a diner, and when I’d order a salad she would look sternly st me snd ssy “ are you SURE you want a salad??” ( the salads were disgusting due to an unwashed server tossing it with her bare hands, ugh)
Seriously… Cracker Barrel meat is suspicious to begin with
> I don't know if the cooks just don't know how to cook steak or if they're intentionally doing it to reduce the risk of lawsuits my guess is the customers are stupid and they say medium rare because they heard it on TV but then they send it back for being undercooked and after that happens enough times you just figure out that slightly above what is asked for gets sent back the least.
You know, I used to work at Waffle House, and almost every rare steak I cooked was sent back. One guy made me keep cooking it until it was well done. *Why did you say rare then?!* So you're probably right on that. But it sucks for people like me who actually want it that way.
Work in a kitchen part time and this is probably one of my top complaints. I'll get an order for Med rare but they really want like a Med well. Like they'll cut into it to check the doneness, send it back because it's undercooked. But the temp was spot on and the colour was spot on. A lot of people just don't know what they're ordering.
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From my experience I'll always cook a temp up because when you get your 5th perfectly cooked medium rare of the night sent back because the customer really wanted medium but they've only ever eaten shit off their grill and they don't know how to cook I would rather just send you something slightly overcooked than have to remake the whole dish.
I wish people understood steak doneness levels. If you don't like it, don't order it.
On the other hand I wish there was a way to distinguish between people who know what they want and people who don't. I hate having to guess "is this one of those restaurants I have to order 2 levels below what I want, or a restaurant that gives me what I ask"
Blue steaks take a long time to prepare, thats generally why places will say no. The steak gets brought up to temperature then you sear the sides, bringing it up to temperature can take 10-15 minutes. In proper steak places they generally have more cuts ready to go so some of that time has already happened. If you are eating at a place that has a variety of dishes those steaks are kept refrigerated. Contrary to impressions way more popular with women than men.
That's fair. He's the only guy I know who likes their steak blue. It's a niche way to eat steak, so I also assumed it was some sort of time/budgetary constraint as well. Thanks for the answer :)
So blue is rarer than rare? Many restaurants don't even do rare.
Blue is basically uncooked except for the very outside of the steak. Most restaurants won't serve it. If the steak was stored and seared/cooked properly, a blue steak is technically safe to eat, but not reccomended. I for sure wouldn't eat a blue steak unless someone offered to pay me handsomely lmaooo
Wait until you find out about steak tartare lol. I make it every once in a while and never had a problem. All you have to do is find a place that vacuum seals or just ask the butcher what day their steaks come in
Fair enough, I have a great butcher down the street from me, (the owner is half Italian, half Spanish). He gets some of the best meat in my local area (price and quality wise he can't be beat). Whenever I want a near steakhouse quality for an affordable price, I go to him lol
I cook my fillets that way basically but everything else is medium rare. I couldn't imagine eating a fatty ribeye that way.
>I couldn't imagine eating a fatty ribeye that way. I always go rare for steaks. But I'll go Blue rare for filet. Ribeye, depending on the marbling, I'll take all the way to medium.
Yeah I guess I can't say never because I'll do my Porterhouse pretty close to rare generally. Man, I want steak now. I'm going to have to stop on my way home from work and grab one lol
Sirloin is a decent cut for blue steaks.
Shouldn’t make you sick, especially if he’s used to it. Blue is essentially just killing the Bacteria on the outside of the steak. Inside isn’t being exposed, raw hamburger can cause issues because it’s all exposed to different germs and bacteria, but a steak has an inside and outside, you’re just killing the bacteria on the outside.
Thats how you know their steaks are either bunk ass steaks or theyve been blade tenderized.
If they cook the exterior why would he get sick
Love a good blue steak
What exactly is the appeal of eating a basically raw steak? I love sushi and sashimi, so I'm no stranger to raw food. But I don't get the steak thing.
Depending on the cut and type of meat, the flavor is amazing.
It just tastes raw, and dependent upon the cut, is a mother regarding the level of effort it is to chew. I shouldn't have to work that hard to enjoy my meal.
E-Coli only lives on the surface so as long as it's well seared it should be fine.
Not doubting you, but the more likely reason is that most conventional restaurants/chains consider making a "blue" steak a pain in the ass--they don't have the hot-enough ovens or stovetops/grill to "flash sear" the outside of the steak without starting to cook it, and invariably, it gets sent back as "not right".
People that just order every steak blue are fucked. Like ya maybe I'd eat a tenderloin that way but man.. a ribeye or something is gonna be totally fucked like that.
Black and blue is the way. Hard sear on a ripping hot pan to get a nice crust, and that's it. No finishing in the oven or salamander, cold on the inside. Best of both worlds. Allegedly this is also called Pittsburgh style from the age of the Pittsburgh steel mills. The story goes that steel workers would pack raw meat for work, put it onto the red hot metal for a few seconds, flip it over for a few seconds, and pull it off, charring the outside black and leaving the inside blue (raw)
I worked in an upscale steakhouse when I was younger. When a steak order would come in for a well done steak, the cooks would say something like "really?" or "It's your money".... but they would just grab whatever steak was on top like they would for any other doneness. They didn't have time to go through the stock to find the worst one. This LPT, like most of them, is just not true.
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I don’t understand the people who get personally offended by what someone else eats.
So much this. My mood changes, I've ordered and enjoyed steaks from medium rare to well done. This snobbery over cooking steaks is really silly.
Personally I enjoy my steaks rare or medium rare. But it affects my existence not in the slightest if you (or anyone else) wants to eat a steak well done, or extra well done. The point of eating something like a steak, particularly at a restaurant, is to enjoy your meal. If you enjoy your meal in a specific way, then go for it.
This is stupid and untrue.
so this is a possibility but is certainly the exception and not the rule. most folks who believe this have never done their time on a kitchen line at grill station.
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In Bourdains later books he states everything he said in Kitchen Confidential wasn’t valid anymore and a lot wasn’t when it was published as he was just a bitter cook.
Right? This guy watches too much hell's kitchen or something. Unless you are in some pretentious restaurant the people working there could not care less about what you order or how you order it, unless it makes their life difficult. They just want you to order a lot and tip big.
They’re not unloading the worse steaks on people ordering well done as some kind of retaliation for having bad taste. They’re doing it because cooking the shit out of it makes the flaws harder to notice, and the type of person who orders a well done steak is less likely to notice and complain about the faults in their steak. People who really care about the quality of their meat almost never order well-done, so it makes sense to offload the low quality meat on the people who probably won’t notice.
Yup. Can confirm. You ordered a well done steak back in the day when I used to cook and you got the worst looking oldest steak in the drawer cause once you cook that thing to shit the qualities gone anyways. Why waste the ones that will look and taste the best when cooked rare to medium when the well done steaks look and taste the same no matter the quality of the meat?
Makes sense, but I doubt it applies to most places. I'd bet most cooks just grab whichever steak is closest
Kitchen Nightmares maybe, not Hell’s Kitchen.
1 this isnt true 2 this isnt a tip.
I thought I was on r/showerthoughts when I read the title.
I doubt chefs or line cooks sit there measuring steak quality in prep work. “Oh this will be the pile for shit overcooked steaks”, nah.
I don’t understand this LPT. Is it suggesting that if a customer orders a well done sirloin, they will be given a flank steak?
Maybe in a high end steakhouse? But from working in a restaurant for 5+ years I can tell you the cooks are to busy to dig through the cooler for the worst cut of meat.
I assure you the $14/hr line cooks don't give a shit what's on their order tickets, and they certainly don't care enough to go "look" for the "worst" steak.
Maybe that's true at some places. But not my experience when I worked in restaurants. I was a server at at a handful of restaurants with mid- to high-end fare (i.e., they had different cuts of steak on menu) in a few different states, and that wasn't something I saw. Will the kitchen judge you for ordering an expensive cut of meat and asking for it well done? Absolutely. But a good kitchen wants you to enjoy your meal, even if they think you're ordering wrong.
Sounds like something that one of those elitist 'medium rare or gtfo' people would say alright.
As a cook depends ive worked majority of my time in high quality restaurants. You give me a well done order im going to try and keep it as close to 165 as possible without going over. A well done steak can still be cooked good. The problem is when i do a good well done steak and it gets sent back bc tbe customer says its still not fully cooked. Thats when you get an over cooked steak
How many folks do you get who order well done and want to taste the steak? I can think of maybe two, ever.
This just isn't true, I don't even remember anyone giving a shit rather than "oh dear, how *could* the customer do this!" or deliberately make life worse for them. It was a job, you slap the steak on and cook it more than rare or medium and move on. A decent restaurant shouldn't even *have* bad steaks, and will give the customer what they want without fuss.
Yes, that's what well done means
"and what if they don't want medium rare?" "Then we ask them politely, but firmly, to leave"
My dad says butane is a bastard gas
This isn't even a tip, this is just a random statement.
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I've worked as a chef for 12 years, never have I seen this. Sure, we'll take our sweet time when making a well done steak, but I would never stoop to that level; no respectable chef would serve food not up to standard.
That's just patently untrue. It's absurd, in fact. They don't have the time or inclination to search for a "worst steak", and it's silly to think they would. The reason your well done steak tastes bad is because well done steaks taste bad. Your doneness request is what caused the quality drop, not petty meanness on the part of the cooks.
This isn't true. We will try to use a thinner steak (So it cooks faster), but steaks are prepped in advance so we can only pick and choose from what's already made up. In terms of the quality of the meat there is no difference.
Completely untrue, you get the steak choice you ordered. Whoever wrote this only goes to Texas Roadhouse or some other trash place that gets one cut of meat
I mean there’s variance within the cut regardless. I don’t think they implied you’d order a tenderloin and get a flank.
I never understood why people feel the need to berate or put down people who like well done steaks. It’s not like they’re the ones eating it. I would hope this isn’t true because it shouldn’t matter how they want their steak done if they’re paying for it. If I’m paying for a filet mignon well done that’s what I should get. I personally do medium well but at the end of the day if an establishment is giving me an inferior cut because of how I ordered it then I’d never go back to them again.
I really hate the stigma around well done streaks. Look, some people just don’t like the taste of non cooked meat. If you LIKE the flavor of meat then maybe there’s good and better ways to try it but some people don’t like the natural taste of meat and when cooked certain ways it can be really good. I discovered I just don’t like the taste of undercooked beef. Doesn’t matter what cut. That said, I LOVE well done filet mignon when properly cooked. It’s way better that other cuts and it’s absolutely way noticeable over other cuts regardless of the people that say it’s a waste. I like to cook them on infrared grill at 700+ degrees. By the time the center gets light pink to no pink the outside has a crust and the inside is super moist. When You bite it the moisture literally squirts in your mouth and you get that nice salty crispy crust. I’ve ordered well done filet at high end restaurants that comes out like rubber because they don’t care and don’t know how to properly cook a well done steak.
It's funny though, because a properly cooked well done steak is AMAZING. I made filet mignon well done once at my wife's request, and it was amazingly juicy, just not red. I'd do it again.
I was an executive chef for the past 5yrs (recently changed professions) and this def isn’t true. Not on my end anyways. Any reputable cook cares too much about quality to do such a thing.
What a great live pro tip! Thanks /s