Rare...bloody a dripping...is the ONLY proper and manly way to prepare a steak. Anything else, and you are just ruining good meat. Kill it, and drag it over a warm sidewalk.
Many of the finer steak restaurants I've been to won't even COOK a steak over medium-well. And they get a little uppity if you order it over medium.
Yeah, according to Anthony Bourdain, if you order it well done, they will usually give you the crappiest piece of meat they can find. It might be a snobish slight to the customer, and it may be that they just figure you won't notice or care since you are cremating it anyway. Or both.
screw the salad - i've always considered it kind of cruel, in that your sticking what the damn cow ate next to a tasty slice of it corpus - taunting its spirit if you will. i like my steak with baked beans and a hefty dollop of melted mature cheese. the cheese can have jalopenos and chives to taste if i'm so inclined. the sign of a good steak is to leave an unflushable turd in the bowl the next day, one of such heft and intractability it requires a battle royale with the bog brush to shift and ought to inspire a klingon opera or two.
Tampa has one of the legendary ones: Bern's Steakhouse. Not only superbly prepared steaks, but a wine list about the size of the New York phonebook and an in house desert room. An amazing dining experience. We also have a Shula's steakhouse and a Ruth's Chris!
I actually like steak and a salad, I find they balance each other out. Especially how the vinegar in a salad cuts through the fat in a steak. But there's a place in Tucson that basically serves only steak, cowboy style, w/beans...and think maybe they have baked potatoes, and that's good too. When I grill steak at home sometimes, I often make some ranch beans to go with it, but I think steak w/cheese and beans is a pretty heavy dish, and not one I'd eat very often. Yummy, but way too heavy for me to have more than a few times a year. Yeah, I know, I'm a lightweight. But I like meat and veggies. If I did put cheese on a steak, it'd likely be something pretentious and gay like blue cheese... Although, I've eaten Mexican carne with queso before...it's great, but again, not something I eat very often...
This thread is significant largely due to the phrases "Klingon Opera" and "Hefty Dollop" appearing in the same post.
