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Q: T-bone steak, why so thin?
Went out to dinner at an excellent Western-run restaurant yesterday and ordered the most expensive thing on the menu, t-bone steak. Not had anything resembling a steak since I left home for Asia months ago. It was about 1/3 the normal thickness you'd expect, very tasty, just very thin. Got to speak to the chef afterwards, very nice guy from Malta, who says that he just can't get them any thicker than that beacuse the Chinese don't like it. Do the Chinese simply not appreciate a good steak generally or do they just prefer their red meat to be well-done?
As you say there is no real demand,and they like meat over cooked no medium rare here,plus the price would be high 150 250 just to buy the cut of t bone
I would have to agree, the price is probably a major factor. A large chunk of meat doesn't deter them necessarily. A friend once took me for "steak," which was ground up meat with spices in it, nothing like real steak. It wasn't even well done, and a little bloody when they served it to me. It was also on a hot frying pan still spraying oil. I wasn't happy about that, but I guess that's what people like here?
den:
yes same experience....i prefer my steak grilled or broiled- seems most places here fry and/or comes out on a hot plate.
ohh i love me a 1 1/2 inch New York Strip cut, medium rare, a little bit of the redness still in the juices....
But here, they just arent used to eating big chucks of meat. I think a lot of it has to do with the lack of sanitation in the meat industy. Uncooked (aka not thoroughly cooked) meat is often looked at as inviting food poisoning.
The Chinese prefer their meat to be fully cooked - meaning not bloody at all. I've gone out for "steak" before and ordered it med-rare which almost caused the people I was with to be sick.
I think it goes back to health concerns and the possibility of illness and TCM practices. Eating raw vegetables (ie salad) is a relatively new practice here - they cook the hell out of everything, even lettuce.
As for the size, China isn't a big meat eating culture. I mean that in the west, the "main course" is meat, with a little veggies and a starch. Here it's the opposite - a lot of starch, lots of vegetables, a little meat. The concept of eating a giant slab of meat is just kind of alien here and coupled with the fact that eating is more of a group activity (sharing dishes, not one plate/order per person), it would make steak sort of....weird.
Also, keep in mind that in Chinese culture, having a knife on the table was considered barbaric - and it left a weapon out in the open (ever read Three Kingdoms? Not some of the people you want to have dinner with and provide with weapons!) So even if a more meat eating culture DID develop in China in the past - it wouldn't have been steak.
