Date Tested: 10/20/2022

Competitors: Angus Choice Ribeye @ $10.99, Fresh Beef Choice Ribeye @ $13.01, Prime Dry Aged Ribeye @ $17.99

Test Description: Steaks were all cooked the same and administered blind to tester. They were cooked sequentially, in a random order. I was not able to feed myself the steaks Blindly.

No Table for this one given the small test set.

I’ve been interested in this test for a while. Everyone knows all steaks are not created equal, but many people seem to think that stops being true after you differentiate the different cuts (Ribeye vs Flank vs Filet, etc.). But then why are there Ribeyes ranging from $8.99/lb to >$30/lb? Is it marketing? Is that increased cost simply the increased shipping fee to get it here from some special ranch in Texas? I vowed to find out. I chose the Ribeye as it has always been my favorite cut due to the wonderfully tender cap muscle and chef’s kiss marbling throughout, and because it’s the cut I have the most cooking experience with. The competitors, stated above, are what one could reasonably find in any largish grocery. I didn’t include the lowest of the low priced cuts or the uber expensive specialties (such as Wagyu) because they are hard to find, can be difficult to cook, have a lot of variety, and the doc says I need to cut back on red meat.

Anyways, the results: Two individuals participated in this test. The steaks were given time to come to room temperature and seasoned with salt and pepper and covered in a bit of Olive Oil. They were cooked to medium rare and as similar to one another as I could manage and allowed to rest for about a minute under a small dollop of a garlic & butter blend. And if I do say so myself, I manged a beautiful crust on all three and cooked perfectly. The steaks were served with fingerling potatoes and asparagus both tossed in a rosemary spice blend and roasted. Long story short, both individuals, one testing blind, ranked all three steaks from best to worst in order of descending cost. In other words, in a blind test, the quality difference was apparent in these three steaks. Personally, I found the cheapest – the Angus – to be obviously the worst. It had large strands of connective tissue in the cut, It wasn’t nearly as tender as the other two and tasted more like beef than steak. The other two were much better and much closer to each other. Both incredibly tender, with excellent crusts. I would have been ecstatic being served either at a restaurant or family table. The Prime Dry Aged was slightly more tender, but it would have been hard to tell had I not been eating them back-to-back. The Prime Dry Aged was also incredibly rich. Not as rich as a Wagyu steak, but it did remind me of that specialty cow/cut. While I would rank the prime cut slightly higher than the choice, I do not think it merits the additional $5/lb, and will be reaching for the middle shelf USDA Choice int he future.