best: Sullivan’s in Austin.

worst (due to psychological reason): At a friend’s house when I was probably 8. He lived on a farm with a small number of beef cattle and I could see my dinner’s former friends out the dining room window as I tried to chew and swallow. I think I would appreciate the home grown aspect today but almost became a vegetarian at that moment.

qotd, the best steak i ever had was at the harris steakhouse in reno, nv. the worst steak i ever had was at claim jumper.

QOTD:

Best. Bought from Costco, we went out on a survival outing expected to cook the food ourselves…I accidentally dropped mine off the grill onto dirt and leaves. I cleaned it off by hand and took a bite. I was HELL of hungry so maybe that’s why it tasted so good.

Worst. While in San Francisco me and my family ate dinner at a very high-class restaurant in Pacific Heights. I ordered the 60 dollar steak meal. Maybe it tasted that bad because it was so effing expensive.

Best steak: The Little Door in Los Angeles; it was a fillet that had the dimensions of a rocks glass and seemed tender enough to cut with a butter knife so I tried it out and as it turned out, I could cut it with a butter knife.

Worst steak: Ruth’s Chris in Palm Desert; technically it wasn’t the worst tasting steak that I’ve ever had but it was easily the most disappointing. This was the first time that I had been to a Ruth’s Chris and I had heard how good their steaks were supposed to be but the porterhouse I had was average at best.

Best steak= Bone-in buffalo ribeye baby! Beef’s got nothin’ on my bison bruthas!

Worst steak= Anything from Outback…(shiver). I’ve had worse tasting steak, but never from anywhere that puts so much money into saying how radool their product is.

Best steak — no kidding — was from Montana Legend.

There’s an award-winning steak served at a restaurant near where Montana Legend is based, finished in what they call a “Cowboy Coffee” sauce. (The restaurant uses Montana Legend beef.) I made a fair version at home using “Mister Yoshida’s Original Gourmet marinade and cooking sauce” (from Costco) with some fresh ground black pepper, dark rum, and some very strong espresso. Marinated the steak in this beforehand. Reduced it down to a syrup, which I used to deglaze the pan after frying the steak. Killer good.

Worst steak ever: I was exhausted from a long, LONG mountain climb and couldn’t be bothered to let it sit on the grill long enough — it was completely raw, even though it looked nice on the outside. It actually tasted pretty good but was really hard to chew. I was so tired I just ate the potato salad and went to bed.

The Montana Legend people are good folks; liked and respected locally. And their products are absolutely first-rate.

Best steak — no kidding — was from Montana Legend.

There’s an award-winning steak served at a restaurant near where Montana Legend is based, finished in what they call a “Cowboy Coffee” sauce. (The restaurant uses Montana Legend beef.) I made a fair version at home using “Mister Yoshida’s Original Gourmet marinade and cooking sauce” (from Costco) with some fresh ground black pepper, dark rum, and some very strong espresso. Marinated the steak in this beforehand. Reduced it down to a syrup, which I used to deglaze the pan after frying the steak. Killer good.

Worst steak ever: I was exhausted from a long, LONG mountain climb and couldn’t be bothered to let it sit on the grill long enough — it was completely raw, even though it looked nice on the outside. It actually tasted pretty good but was really hard to chew. I was so tired I just ate the potato salad and went to bed.

The Montana Legend people are good folks; liked and respected locally. And their products are absolutely first-rate.

Great show again, Gary. Still rockin fresh, new ideas. Making us rethink all we think we know about wines. Thank you.

This show had me a little nostalgic. I moved to Palo Alto from Cleveland, Ohio (Go Browns — sorry about the Jets loss) in 1996 when I was 24 and pretty much dirt poor. I was a good ol’ beer guy and never had wine in my life but my fiance told me I should give it a whirl. We bought a box of Franzia White Zin and I thought it was ok. We drank it. We then moved “up” to a bottle of Franzia’s Chillable Red. It tasted like a sumo wrestler took a dump in a burning tire. We dumped it.

We didn’t give up on wine. Instead we figured we should give the Parduccis and Rodney Strongs and the Dry Creek Vineyards a look at $8-10 a pop. A couple trips to wine country later and we were hooked and there’s no looking back.

Best steak: 40 oz double cut porterhouse at Mastro’s in Beverly Hills. A client function in their wine room. Bi ol’ fat cuts, with the black and red that I love. Seared on the outside and red and juicy in the middle. Big plates of sides of mashed potatoeswith lobster or asparagus for the less hedonistic of you. Surrounded by a pretty darn good colection of wines.

Worst Steak: Ponderosa sirloin from my childhood days. Eerily perfectly checkerboard grill marks on the steak, making you think they drew them on with a ruler and a magic marker. My pops would always make us order them medium well so we didn’t come home with a tapeworm. on a postive note, it came with a big ol’ baked spud and free soda refills (big deal back then)

Interesting episode. In the UK we used to have a Chilean Cabernet that was quite decent every day wine. I think that the box wine will be good for young ready-to-drink wines as I doubt that they will be able to age in the box as well as they do in glass and not take something (smell/taste) from the box itself.

QOTD
—-
Best – Huge T-bone had down at the casino is Johannesburg in South Africa – man that was delicious
Worst – The toughest rump steak that you will ever of had at a truckers cafe near Birmingham in the UK – rubber was more tender than this!

Keep up the good work.

Interesting episode. In the UK we used to have a Chilean Cabernet that was quite decent every day wine. I think that the box wine will be good for young ready-to-drink wines as I doubt that they will be able to age in the box as well as they do in glass and not take something (smell/taste) from the box itself.

QOTD
—-
Best – Huge T-bone had down at the casino is Johannesburg in South Africa – man that was delicious
Worst – The toughest rump steak that you will ever of had at a truckers cafe near Birmingham in the UK – rubber was more tender than this!

Keep up the good work.

QOTD: Best… Cracked pepper file mignon at Vida in Los Feliz (Los Angeles), which was sold and then went on as a “club”, which eventually failed. Worst… any steak at Sizzler.

I love that you did a box wine episode! I was laughing as soon as I saw the screen shot. Very entertaining. Hope you still have a box left for me! (maybe I should have bought one before I wrote this comment!)

Interesting show Gary, not quit the positive review I was hoping for but maybe some others are better.

Best steak: A simple old sirloin cut, bathed in a Morocan marinade, and cooked to medium rare on coals. Consumed several years ago while sitting on a mesa over the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers deep in the middle of Canyonlands NP.

Worst steak: The one I should have cooked longer.

Best Steak/Worst Steak?
It’s all the same. Can you believe it, I have never eaten steak – I am a congenital vegetarian. But that doesn’t keep me from enjoying a fine bottle of wine when I see one, red or white.

Best Steak/Worst Steak?
It’s all the same. Can you believe it, I have never eaten steak – I am a congenital vegetarian. But that doesn’t keep me from enjoying a fine bottle of wine when I see one, red or white.

BEST STEAK – Ribeye at Island Prime in San Diego
WORST STEAK – An unidentifiable piece of beef served at a neighborâ??s house several years ago. Tasted like it had been boiled before being placed on the grill!!

Best steak: skirt steak I did at home on an indoor grill and got the house all smoked up but the meat sure was good. Worst steak: “london broil” I did at home that was tough as a leather coat.

The best steak I had was a buffalo steak while sitting in a heard of buffalo in Utah.

The worst steak I cooked myself.

I’ve never eaten a steak I didn’t like.

I’m really glad you reviewed the Nora last week. It’s my favorite wine (partly in homage to James Joyce’s wife Nora).

Best steak was a filet in…. Oxford, Mississippi ! Yeah I know,…(I’ve been to Ruth’s Chris and to Morton’s) Worst was at a steakhouse at Praia da Victoria, Azores. I really think it was from a dairy cow that had quit giving milk!

Worst Steak: horrible steak chain restaurant somewhere near Palm Springs, CA…chewy yuk, probably old saddle meat from some poor desert horse.
Best Steak: Venison filet mignon at Petra’s in Mammoth Lakes, CA….yum, Bambi steak…I believe I washed that down with some lovely Malbec/Cab from the Argentine among others.

The Show rules…

best steak is from my dad’s bbq worst was a local resturant (outback like)
scott

best steak is from my dad’s bbq worst was a local resturant (outback like)
scott

Gary,
Since you said that eMails don’t count as a “Comment”, here’s some more feedback on your great show:

Having grown up in Nebraska, I know and can make a mean steak (preferably dry-aged bone-in ribeye rubbed with olive oil, gray salt, and cracked black pepper cooked over a hot charcoal grill). A friend gets a Wagyu-Black Angus crossbreed quarter of beef from an Idaho rancher each year, and those steaks are pretty impressive too. But for best steak ever, I would give the edge to Gaucho’s in Adelaide, Australia, just ahead of La Brigada (San Telmo, Buenos Aires). I’m a steak purist, so really don’t believe in any kind of sauce or toppings to a great steak, but have to admit Gaucho’s chimi churri is delicious.

Worst steak? Well, just yesterday I saw flames about four feet high enveloping my Vermont Castings grill (sadly, I had long ago switched to gas for the convenience factor) and the two USDA Prime ribeyes it held. No, I was not the one cooking, and actually those turned out surprisingly decent apart from a nice thick layer of char. Actually, the worst was as a kid, we had to go a couple of times to a certain steak chain, a favorite of some beloved relatives. I’d rather not name (or remember) the place, but it’s gotten a fair number of votes here already….

Best steak?

Has to be the T-bone I had at The Weber Grill just off the Miracle Mile in Chicago. I know, sounds gimmicky, but damn. Inch and 1/2 thick beef with a kickass rub cooked over charcoal in some of the BIGGEST Weber kettle grills in existence. The fillet was buttery and it was perfectly cooked (pink but not moo-ing. Even the grill crust (you know the black stuff you used to have to scrape off with a knife after your dad overcooked your burgers as a kid?) tasted amazing.

Worst steak has to be the crappy, greasy-ass rib eye I had a Longhorn “steak” house here in KC during a club meeting. Take that rubber cement that they use to glue those little subscription cards into magazines, ball it up, grill it, then dip it in Astroglide and serve it with A1. That’s how bad this steak was. The bad thing? It was only about $10 less than the best steak up above. I wanted to headbutt the waitress!