I thought this was going to be another Contador thread 🙂

I’m spoilt for choice over here in Belgium for steak to be honest. ‘Progres’ in Gent is €12 for a delicious steak. Great cuts of meat cooked in a loving manner. Served with chips at their best.

When I worked in the US I was taken to a ‘special’ steak restaurant as my colleague wanted to show me how a steak was supposed to be… Very disappointing buttery experience.

Spain, generally the steak is very good, I’ve also noticed a slight improvement in my cycling too, which is nice. 😉

+ 1 for south africa

The best I’ve cooked at home came from the Ginger Pig butchers in London, courtesy of doing their beef butchery evening. It was 28 day dry aged (might have been a day or two more), and when cooked I could cut it with a fork. We also got to try some 35 day aged stuff… great flavour but I couldn’t eat a whole steak of it.

I even blogged about it:
http://dislocatedmtb.blogspot.com/2010/06/butchery.html

Hy’s in Vancouver. Fantastic.

‘Grill on the Alley’ just off King street in Manchester.

They do regular and Kobe steaks there, I had the regular one which was fantastic so would Imagine the Kobe is off the scale.

Japan

i had a great one in Amsterdam in an Argentinean steak house. was it the best I’ve had? I don’t know, i was absolutely wasted. very hard to get a good steak in Newcastle.

another vote for south africa. My top would be La Pineda outside Stellenbosch. Will be there again at christmas, can’t wait!

+1 Le Petit Zinc – Annecy

Once took a load of Americans there, they didn’t order starters (while we did) as they were hungary and wanted their main courses quicker…

In UK, the Argentinian Steak House on the Thames at Richmond is very good.

At a local churrascaria in Sao Paulo. Went most Sunday evenings, still missing the meat after 5 years away 🙁

at a posh resraunt in new york, we asked the cabbi to take us to hooters but then had a massive desire for steak as we were near the meat packing district… wondered in… no prices on the menu, lots of rich looking people.. so we embraced it… sadly we embraced the drinks at £40 a pop! oops once in a life time sadly 🙂

Spread Eagle, Greenwich. Meal came to over £350. For me thats a lot. Couldn’t figure how a meal that expensive could in anyway be worth it. It was.

And she paid…. 😈

EDIT; Outside the UK; South Africa

Mendoza.

Had many, but the Ship Inn in Levington, Suffolk was the most recent memorable experience. Unusually tender melt in the mouth steak, topped with large pan fried mushrooms, baked tomatoes on the vine and jacket spud, mmmmmm yummy! 😆

Fillet steak at home is better than any you’ll get elsewhere and I’m no Jamie Oliver… Olive oil, some seasoning and hey presto…

Greek restaurant here does great steaks. Come with thick homemade chips, vine tomatoes and grilled mushroom. Getting hungry here just thinking about it!

Limelight in Ayia Napa. Awesome inch and half thick Sirloins cooked to perfection over a coal fire.

Best in restaurants would be Gaucho Grill nr St Pauls, and some place I forget in Jo’burg.

Since then, definitely home done.

Proper thick base frying pan (best xmas present ever!) heated to a point where you can’t hold your hand over it for more than about 10 seconds, oil the steak not the pan (with a smidge of butter so it chars nicely), the amazing ribeyes from Well Hung and Tender (http://www.wellhungandtender.co.uk ), Bearnaise per Nigel Slater’s Appetite, some garlic portabellos and garlic and rosemary roasted tomatoes and skinny oven chips (life is short enough, without dying in a chip pan fire).

And a good strong red (Chilean Penaloen or D’Arenberg Laughing Magpie are particular favs).

Frankly since I learned the way of the DIY steak, I never have them when I eat out as I’m always disappointed.

Entrecôte from Champany, Linlithgow. With a nice Volnay. superb.

Blue Boar, Longworth, Oxon. On several occasions which makes it even more memorable.

Impala steak at the Toona Tree in Nairobi. Yummalicious!!`

Belthazar on the waterfront in Cape Town. Awesome Argentinian steak, perfectly cooked and “the biggest wine by the glass” menu is Africa. I’d recommend the local (Stellenbosch) Alto Rouge 😉

‘Le Chalet’ in Limoges. Beef country, was fookin fabulous!

Le cafe Paris in Geneva … cooked a point which is Swiss for Medium and English for bloody as hell!

nomnomnom …

Smith and Wollensky, Las Vegas. A $50 steak with no extras inculded seems ridulous but actually came out of there thinking, that was actually good value !

The Royal Hotel in Ullapool while up working on water sites… yummy!

On the outdoor tables of a cafe-bar in Ghent. Brilliant.

The Barns at Kingsbarns, Fife. 32oz of medium-rare heaven. The chips came on a separate plate.

Having said that, the veal I had at La Terrazza on Sharrowvale Road, Sheffield comes a very very close second.

EDIT: Damnit! How could I forget the Kobe steak I had at the Tokyo Park Hyatt’s New York Grill? That was sublime. As was the view.

Had a few cracking steaks:

Hotel Endsleigh (run by “Hotel Inspector” Alex Polizzi) in Devon
Hotel Tresanton (run by Alex’s Mum!) in St Mawes, Cornwall
Abbey Restaurant in Penzance (now changed hands)
Ardeonaig hotel on the bank on Loch Tay – run by South Africans!
Gaucho, Canary Wharf

also Madrid – in Casa Lucas on Cava Baja. Bill Clinton’s favourite reataurant and I don’t blame him. A-mazing. Served next to a cast iron plate to cook it yourself. No salad, no sauce, no chips, no veg – just meat!

My Dad’s fishing mate is a farmer. Best steak I’ve had has been a lump of sirloin bought from him and cooked at home by me.

Otherwise, various places across South Africa.

Molgrips

Fillet steak last week at the Aviator in Farnborough. Had it this week again, wasn’t quite as good though. I even posted on here about it at the time.. I was almost in tears.

Walking distance from the Aviator, in North Camp, is Woods Butchers.

Go get yourself one of their rib eyes and take it home with you. Cooked medium-rare it’s the best I’ve ever tased. 🙂

I had a very good one at the Chequers in Marlow recently. They let you choose the cut of meat you want from the chiller and how much of it you want cut off before cooking!

In order:

1. Butchers Shop and Grill – Sandton City – Johannesburg
2. Smith and Wollensky – Sandton City – Johannesburg
3. Pampa Grill – Clapham
4. Gaucho – Chancery Lane
5. Meat & Wine – Westfield Shopping Centre
6. Wotton Hatch – Wotton near Dorking in Surrey

Llanberis in North Wales, a place not normally known for it’s excellent cuisine.

A couple of years ago, a restaurant opened up in the premises between Joe Brown’s and the take away, the one that currently has photographic vinyl landscape scenes on the windows.

I had an Anglesey black beef steak, cooked perfectly.
It was a superb restaurant, but in completely the wrong place. Can’t even remember the name.

Eating out:

The Champany Chop and Ale House, just outside Edinburgh. Slightly more affordable pub-type offshoot of the ludicrously expensive Champany Inn. Steak was absolutely sublime.

Eating in:

Last Christmas Day, got a rib of beef joint from a stall at the local farmers’ market on the IOW that sold meat from an organic red poll cattle herd. Absolutely phenom-nom-nomenal. So much more flavour than your average bit of beef. Highly recommend looking for meat from a similar source.

I’ve had a few, I’m not sure I can differentiate between ‘exceptionally good’ and ‘the best steak in the world, bar none’ though 😉

I always recall the first time I had a proper drop of rib-eye … with the rib and marrow still in. The Quarryman in Edmonton, outside Wadebridge, scrumptious.

Favorite cuts?

Red water grill, Calgary

F’sure hey

Plum

Peter Lugars Steak House in Brooklyn. Not far from Brooklyn Machine Works. Steak was superb, made all the better for getting a ride on some of BMW’s finest bikes!