Bought my first mail order wagyu. Any tips?

It may have been frozen or fresh. I'm not really certain as it came with Ice packs instead of dry ice and in a styrofoam container. Debragga can also add a signature confirmation for if you want someone to be available to pick it up and you don't want to risk it sitting outside in the heat. If you want to, I recommend getting the priority overnight as my meat was starting to unthaw by the time I got it. And that was with Priority overnight. It was cold, but not frozen like a rock by the time I got it in Texas.

 

Slight O/T food before I cook the wagyu.

Iberico rib chop

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

1/2 price rack at Safeway.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-J727A using FerrariChat.com mobile app

 

@arizonaitalian and @tomc

Wagyu has been cooked. Time for the impressions. For dad, he said the steak was too oily or greasy for him. That may have been my fault as I didn't cut it thin enough. It was still about half an inch too much and I should have cut it even thinner than that. Mom said it was good, but, and here's the but, she said she wouldn't buy it again. I don't know if she was just saying it was good just to be nice or not, but I feel as though the entire meal could have gone better if I had cooked it differently. On to me now. The steak is very very tender, fatty (which can also be read as oily), and unique. After taking into consideration that I left their steaks too thick, I cut mine to 1/4 inch yakiniku style and cooked it. Most of the reports that I read about the steak's fat exploding in your mouth and coating it are true. The reports that said it was filling are true. The problem that I have is that it is just too fatty for my usual taste. Personally, after thinking the entire process over, I think I went wrong from the very beginning by buying A5 grade 10.

However, the good part is that they did love the Iberico pork chops.They said they were tender, had a good flavor to them, and were juicy. Oddly enough, the one thing I didn't expect was the one that surprised me the most. So yeah, I guess I'm okay with that, granted I would have liked for them to enjoy the wagyu, but I can't help that I screwed it up by buying one of the fattiest grades. In the end, the day ended pretty well thanks to the pork chops I bought as an experiment.

Side note: the silver you see under the wagyu is foil that I used to wrap my board to keep from cleaning it. Sorry that I'm not a good food photographer.


Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Amazing marbling. Beautiful. Looks fantastic but understand the fatiness of it. Try a different cut next time and compare. And post pics!

 

Haha. Gotta love parents. They tell it like it is! [emoji2] I'm sure they appreciated your effort.

Depending on what your folks normally eat, this may be a case of too much of a good is still too much. When we had A5 in Vegas, it was an appetizer that I shared with the wife. 3 or 4 oz at most, sliced about as thick as you did IIRC.

NbyNW's suggestion is a good one. I've had akaushi from a company in Texas, and the ribeyes were very rich. Almost too rich. So, next time I ordered, I got chuck eye steaks, which are not as marbled & tender on a regular cow. On an akaushi view they were great.

That pork chop looks great.

T

 

I’ve tried to cook an A5 Wagyu a few times. If done traditionally it is always too fatty.

I’ve actually been to Kobe and had real Wagyu steak. The Japanese somehow get it right. But I can’t.

The closest is to cut it very, very thin and also small. The pieces below are 1” by 1.5” and an 1/8” thick. They are perfect bite sized pieces of heaven. Gold foil is optional but pretty cool. And edible.

Matt

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Wow. I partially froze my steak for 30 min so I could cut it, but even after that I could still only barely hold it since it was starting to melt and slide immediately after I took it out. I had trouble getting it to one 1/4 I don't see how I would have been able to get it to 1/8. However, if everything is in agreement for next year, I will be going to the olympics. So I'll be able to try out a piece of true Japanese cooked wagyu then. Hopefully Yakiniku style.

 

Thanks for the compliment. But yeah, what I going to try next is check out different breeds and cuts of cattle. Since I know they liked the pork, that is pretty much sealed on what they would want from now on for a pork chop. The beef, I don't know yet. I have a SRF gold grade American wagyu that I'm going to let them try, so that should point me in the right direction about what they generally prefer regarding more fat or a leaner beefier taste. I do know mom does love lamb, so I was going to try to get her one of the Debragga "apple fed" ground lamb or lamb racks. But I did look into the akaushi beef and I'll have to try that out soon. Thanks for telling me about that kind of cow.

 

I'm not an expert on the lamb, but that sounds pretty good.
The akaushi is good stuff. Maybe try a filet mignon cut since that tends to be a relatively lean cut of beef?
T

 

Marcassin, Aubert, Kistler-all great chards
Shafer Red Shoulder-around $50 and should be easy to find

 

Thank you. I'll look into those too.

 

Quick update. I ended up buying an akaushi steak from Holy grail steak co, and an order of diced wagyu ribcap, but they messed up and I ended up getting kobe beef hibachi style instead of the ribcap. So for my review on the company, they seem legit. Their shipping needs work, but their customer service seems to be pretty good from my experience. One thing though, I don't recommend that you contact them through the pill up tab on their website, but instead scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the "mail" symbol and use that instead.

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Akaushi ribeye. That will be rich! Look forward to seeing how you cook it.
T

 

Hello. did you get your steak, yet?

 

FWIW...in Tokyo I find the best wagu to be at the Ritz.
Outside Japan, shockingly good at Boa in Hollywood.
I have not tried to make at home.

 

Interesting. I tried BOA when it was at Caesars. Wasn't overly impressed with the steak. Great location, though, overlooking The Strip. I'll have to look up their Hollywood location the next time I'm in LA...T

 

Agree....I tried in Vegas and Santa Monica. Neither were acceptable. We were all quite shocked at Hollywood.

 

A good video about wagu beef
https://www.facebook.com/1494731297498009/posts/2294116434226154?s=100003230331687&v=e&sfns=mo

 

Very insightful.
I love going to Tokyo for A5...3-5oz and I’m done. Until the next day.

 

I was looking up meat markets in my area and stumbled across this link.

https://double8cattle.com/collections/all?cmp_id=339750221&adg_id=1265538093512357&kwd=wagyu%20steak&device=c&msclkid=fabcf7247482120d5d48aa72587d1864

 

Pretty impressive range of cuts. If it's anything like the Akaushi sold by Heart Brand, a chuck eye or chuck steak might be a good first option. They tend to be tough on a regular cow, but should be pretty tender on a wagyu. Flatiron is another good option.
T