STEAK.

One of a restaurant or pubs best selling dish usually involves a steak. Whether its a posh gaff serving expensive fillet cut from a cow who's been grazing on the finest grass in the world while sipping champagne and eating expensive truffles to give its meat a unique flavour or the classic pub fayre of chips, mushroom, grilled tomato and onion rings it is truly a mainstay of any menu.
My favourite Fillet steak dish was quite simple but very expensive. While working at the Pump house restaurant in Durham we used to serve it with a lobster tail and 3 very large prawns. A pot of Hollandaise or Bearnaise sauce accompanied this truly simple but magnificent dish but at £25 a plate it was a special occasion dish only and certainly somewhere I would not be taking a girl with a big appetite to on a first date !
At work the other night I had a customer complain about their steak saying it was tasteless and like all prima donna chefs I took it to heart. Complaints in the main are few and far between in most of the kitchens I have worked in and I know I have been very lucky in that respect and that's why when someone does send their food back (usually half or three quarters eaten already !) to the kitchen its like someone has put a dagger in your heart. At this point I would like to say I did not cook the steak that was sent back another chef did. But as I keep getting told at work "Its your Train set mate !" and as the man who is responsible for the kitchen its me who has to deal with it.
In reality their is very little you can do. I helped myself to the customers food to see if he was right but whether you agree with the customer or not all you can do is cook him another one or offer him something else of the menu or the third choice is to wait for him in the car park ! ha ha !
The main complaint about steaks is the way Chefs serve them. The sight of blood or raw meat in the steak can upset the customer. The blood on the plate is usually a sign that the meat has not been rested long enough. The problem is that in a lot of busy places you are just trying get the food out as quick as you can and the customer tends to moan if they have to wait another 8 minutes for their food to arrive. We truly are starting to live in a drive thru mentality with regards to food.
Also I would say that believe it or not a lot of people order their steaks medium and really they want them well done. Having a steak well done in any foodies mind is a crime but the customer is always right !


The Experiment.

Looking at the three steaks it was quite easy to tell which was going to taste the best.

OK as I had a complaint I thought I would put my testers jacket on and test the steaks I get and compare them with two other steaks sourced from suppliers I use for other meat dishes I have on the menu.
I use 2 local butchers who cater mainly for the public but use local beef and one main Industry catering butchers who are based in Newcastle and their meat can come from Durham as well as Northumberland. The cost of the Sirloin steak is £14 a kilo from one of the local butchers and then about £19 per kilo from the other local butchers and the Trade Butchers.
Like all crazy mad Scientists performing an experiment you need a crazy mad assistant !
Mine were Ash and Stewie 2 of the other chefs in the kitchen.
Here's a picture of Ash.

Stewie didn't want his picture taking. Misery. I have said it before and Ill say it again the best thing about Stewie is his beautiful girlfriend Kate ! ha ha !
The steaks were taking out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking to bring them up to room temperature.
While we waited 30 minutes we had a cup of tea ! ha ha !

We well seasoned the steaks and cooked them in a very hot pan until about medium to rare...ish !

We then let them rest for about 10 minutes.

Thought this looked liked a little bit like Australia ! Well I am a mad scientist ! ha ha!

The results were that if as a customer I had any one of these steaks with a peppercorn sauce and a few onion rings and chips they would be fine. If you were a connoisseur of fine beef then you might not rate them as highly but as mid priced menu sirloin steaks go they were good. The £19 a kilo local butcher steak was 3rd, the £14 a kilo local butcher one was second which was a little surprising and the £19 a kilo Trade butchers did have an edge on the other two. It had more flavour and was very tender and left me puzzled as to why the Customer had complained the other night. Especially as he had a rich strong Peppercorn sauce with it that would have overpowered some of the flavour from the steak anyway.
Yes you can spend £25 per kilo upwards for your Sirloin steak and have a fuller flavour treat but that means you have to pass that cost onto the customer and not all restaurants are lucky enough to be pitched up on Footballers millionaire row !

Apologies to veggie's everywhere !

After all that steak what better than a bowl of homemade Chips !