buying steak in Manhattan

I know this is going to sound crazy, but have you tried Costco's steaks? Great price/value relationship and worth the trip to stock up. There, I said it.

Where is there a Costco south of 34th Street?

Todaro Brothers on Second Avenue between 30th and 31st streets has excellent prime meats and while far from cheap, prices are below those of Whole Foods. Its also a small store and rarely gets insanely crowded.

Fresh direct has great sales on their steaks and they are quite good. I buy them on sale and freeze them. I don't know how much they cost but the best butcher downtown to me is Florence Meat market - I think it is on Jones. it's a great old fashioned place that the restaurants order from. I guess Citarella is good but I have no idea how much it costs

PathMark has steak. $6 a pound on sale, about $8 a pound off sale.

PathMark has strip steak for $6.99 a pound.

Traider's Joe comes to mind...

After seeing the Documentary FOOD INC. I only buy organic meat, pricey but staying healthy is priceless.

I've also been often pleased with FreshDirect's steaks, but I think the variability of their quality is greater than in most supermarkets. (Of course, with FreshDirect, you give up the ability to inspect the meat before you buy it.)

They're good lots of the time, but some weeks we've gotten some duds.

Western Boeuf.

The best thing about Fresh Direct is they will give you your money back if you complain. They fix all my orders and give me credits so I don't have to return things to the store. I find that easier. Yes I have also have had a few duds but I do from everywhere. I don't usually order the prime.

Whole foods does have cheaper cuts close to $10/lb. It is not filet mignon or aged but have found these cuts to be pretty good for regular dinner.

I'm very picky about my steak, but I'm not price-sensitive. I think Whole Foods steaks are kinda crappy: for about the same price, Citarella is much better. If you want to go all-out, Japan Premium Beef on Great Jones is the best I know of downtown, but you pay for it.

But you want to go in the other direction. Let me tell you a little secret. Like all things human, beef goes through fads. There are cuts of beef that become very popular, and then reverse. For example, skirt steak was never on restaurant menus 10 years ago outside of fajitas. Now it is, and retail skirt steak has seen a marked increase in price. On the other hand, sirloin has been in a decline for 20 years now. You pretty much never see it on restaurant menus.

So, my recommendation is to buy the sirloin at Citarella at $13 or so a pound: it'll beat the pants off a superior cut from a lesser cow. It's a huge piece of meat (2+ pounds) that you can cut down into 4 individual steaks. With this cut, I have had comments to the effect of "wow, this tastes like a steakhouse steak". Not "this is the best steak I've ever had in my life, Peter Luger etc. included" as occured once with the Japan place (just the right cow?), but pretty damn good for the price.

BTW, make sure your heat source is super-hot. If your hand doesn't burn after 1 second at the surface, it's too cold. Drizzle with olive oil to make up for a cold fire: the flare-ups will raise the temperature. A steak should never spend more than 8-10 minutes on a grill or pan or oven if it's 1.5 inches thick, which I think is the right thickness.

8 minutes for medium-rare, that is...

nada, thought you only do deep thinking about real estate and stock market!!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204423804574286451880334042.html

>BTW, make sure your heat source is super-hot. If your hand doesn't burn after 1 second at the surface, it's too cold. Drizzle with olive oil to make up for a cold fire: the flare-ups will raise the temperature.

You don't want to use olive oil for high-heat cooking.

Nada and I have similar philosophies on cooking steak, though I'd salt it first.

I tend to shop near my listings... since I'm currently selling in FiDi, I've been hitting Zeytuna on Maiden Lane a lot. A great butcher and especially fantastic ground meat.

Another option south of 34th street would be the Ukranian butcher in the East Village.

ali r.
DG Neary Realty

Put aside that south of 34th rule and go to Esposito on 9th and 38th. Meat don't get much better.

Think the steaks I've had from whole foods have been pretty poor - even pricery cuts. The best place I've found for meat is Eatly at 23rd and 5th Ave.

I agree on the salting, FP. Just was pointing out the heat issue because it's the #1 reason steaks cooked at home don't come out the same as steakhouses.

On the olive oil thing, any oil will do: the residual amount on the steak will have some flavor profile, so whatever suits your taste. BTW, I'm not suggesting you cook it in the oil and therefore be worried about the smoking point of the oil. Rather, you want the oil to drip on the fire and burn into flames so as to bring the temperature of the fire up if the fire is too cold.

For indoor cooking, a good old-school gas broiler works very nicely. A little trick is to put the steak on something hot that retains heat, like cast iron or a pizza stone wrapped in aluminun, so as to up the temperature. My old stove was some fancy-name electric that needed that trick, my current stove is gas with flames that will light up the fat if you're not careful.

Another great option is an unenameled cast iron pan on the stove with a slight amount of high-temp oil. The smoke & splatter will be immense, so buy a screen to keep down the mess.

"nada, thought you only do deep thinking about real estate and stock market!!"

All that deep thought needs a source of energy ;). Make sure you put a big fume hood in your new place.

BTW, that sirloin at Citarella is prime and dry-aged for $13. Or maybe $14?

"Put aside that south of 34th rule and go to..."

Well, if we're going to start thinking outside of the box, how about this...

http://features.peta.org/VegetarianStarterKit/index.asp

Always use Kosher salt or thick sea salt. Never use regular salt. Arthur Schwartz - the food maven website- gives you perfect cooking directions for the broiler.

Sunday - clearly you've never been to Esposito's

Wendy's.

I didn't even think of Eataly, and it's right in my nabe. I walked right by Citarella yesterday, it didn't even occur to me to check it out. Esposito's is really not that far north, on my list.

Ali, does ukrainian butcher place have a name (or a more specific address)?

I SO agree with nyrenewbie...costco steaks are really really good and better than we have found anywhere else. we usually buy the black angus but you can also get prime there and still save money.
one trick with steaks though and it really makes a difference. Salt the steak the night before on a plate and put in fridge. it will slowly release some juices due to the salt but after a few hours will rehydrate itself and thus the inside of the meat will become seasoned. amazing flavor enhancer.
and though i love the smell of a steak on a grill, the best flavor is in a piping hot pan on your range, and with smoke detectors dismantled, searing one side completely and then basting the other with butter you add to the pan. mmmmmm...

139 2nd Ave., at 9th Street; the sign says "J. Baczynsky." It's a little intimidating, but they're actually very sweet.

ali

fwiw.

if you want to cook at home, lobel's.

why would you want to cook steak at home?

should be eating this once or twice a month. go out and enjoy.

I'm not sure I'd take columbiacounty's advice on steaks.
Here's another one of his interests:

http://streeteasy.com/nyc/talk/discussion/27775

columbiacounty
38 minutes ago
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Florence Prime Meats (5 Jones Street, 212-242-6531).

"Invented in the 1940s by mater butcher Jack Ubaldi, Newport steaks are available at only one place: Florence Prime Meat Market in Manhattan, in the shop Ubaldi founded in 1936.

Ubaldi never intended to create a new type of steak, but one day while breaking down a bottom butt, he followed his instincts and sliced the piece that is shaped like a triangle (and often sold as triangle roast or tri-tip, especially in California) into steaks about an inch thick, then folded the two ends together to make a neat little package. (Straightforward triangle steaks are common, but Ubaldi cut these a little differently: his exact method remains a secret). They were an immediate hit with his customers, who liked the taste, the size, and the price. Ubaldi, who passed away last year at 90, sold Florence in 1976, but the steak remains one of the shop's signature items. It sells over a thousand a week to locals and mail-order customers. And how did Newport steaks get their name? Ubaldi thought the steaks resembled the quarter moon featured in a Newport cigarettes ad."

If you eat steak a lot, it'd probably be better to look for grass-fed beef. Anyone reccos for grass-fed besides the union square farmer's market (http://www.grazinangusacres.com)?

Fresh direct sells hardwick grass fed steaks. Not cheap - 21.99 for ribeye and 15.99 for sirloin. I buy the ground beef grass fed when it's on sale

One other thing - turn the steak only once and, if grilling, keep the lid closed. I see people at my grill who are constantly opening the top to check on the steak and turning it. That ruins it. I rarely go to steakhouses because I find the steak I cook on my grill is actually better than the steak I get at a steakhouse (except Wolfgang's). I put kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper and garlic on both sides of the steak. Then I let the grill heat up to at least 500 degrees. Only when the grill is at least 500 degrees do I then put the steak on. I cook about 2 - 2.5 minutes on each side and then take it off. I will actually wait for people to take their steaks off the grill before putting mine on so I don't have to worry about somebody contstantly opening the top and letting the heat out. One time, I watched a guy cook a steak that was less than an inch thick for 20 minutes. He must have turned the thing 8 times in 20 minutes. I'm sure the steak tasted like shoe leather by the time he was done.

They are pricey, but I really like the steak at Whole Foods - usually the strip but sometimes a porterhouse.

Steak? Steak you ask? The bulls are lying dead on Wall Street. Pick up a carcass there and see what you can do. Interesting, it seems all the animals have had the hearts cut out of them. Steak you ask? Lucky if you can get some chopped meat.

the key to indoor grilling... cast iron!

Heat a cast iron grill pan on double gas burners at full throttle for 10+ minutes... 1-1.5 minutes per side for 1.5 inch thick cut... then straight to a separate cast iron skillet sitting in the oven, preheated to 425... 5 minutes in the oven then straight into tin foil tent for 5 more minutes (this allows the fat to redistribute throughout the meat)... perfect crust and rare/medium rare internal temp

try with buffalo sirloin for healthy alternative if u need to eat meat more than once per week

A really good option is mail order steaks (and not from Omaha). I have ordered from 8 O'Clock Ranch a couple of times, and the quality has been amazing and the prices very reasonable. You can pick the cut and size. I was a very happy customer.

and where does one procure exceptional caviar?

Can you buy these better cuts of meat w/food stamps. Now that "the number of Americans taking advantage of the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) -- more popularly known as food stamps -- shot to an all-time high of 45.8 million in May, the USDA reported. That is up 12 percent from a year ago, and 34 percent higher than two years ago" this is an important point.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/193271/20110805/food-stamps-increase-percentage-record-45-8-million.htm

"Can you buy these better cuts of meat w/food stamps."

Yes.

But anyone on food stamps is most likely in extreme dire straits and shouldn't be blowing such a huge percentage of their food money on expensive steaks.

45.8 million Americans " in extreme dire straits "....Change You Can Believe In

>45.8 million Americans " in extreme dire straits "

"let them eat skirt steak"

Now they have to eat crickets!

I have to "third" the Costco vote. Coat a Costco prime NY strip with Kosher salt and crushed black pepper and you'll never again think that Cap Grille or DelFrisco's are places to go for dinner (when YOU are paying).

Nice one, Sunday. These are my favorite, Smoked Apple Sage:

http://www.fieldroast.com/products.htm

Lucy, if you do wind up at J. Baczynsky, make sure to pick up a jar of spicy ajvar.

Have to agree with Japan Premium Beef on Great Jones as the best. But also 2x more expensive than anything else downtown.

Never had a complaint on the filet mignon from Costco (other than it's not kosher).

Great comments here. The reason we're unlikely to go to Costco is because the steak urge frequently hits us while we're just walking around, and we'll just want to go buy a couple in our nabe (Chelsea) on a whim. Costco is way the heck uptown, and the urge would likely be gone after 3 subway stops. I could see doing a "planned" trip to Costco, picking up steaks, and freezing them for future urges.

I'm heading to J. Baczynsky on Thursday to assess. Spicy ajvar....mmmmmm.

We make a great green sauce for our steaks.....a million cloves of crushed garlic, olive oil, minced basil, minced parsley, and whip it good. My mouth is doing ping-a-pangs as I type. Not only is it great on steak, it keeps vampires and marauding Joisey youths far away.

>One other thing - turn the steak only once and, if grilling, keep the lid closed. I see people at my grill who are constantly opening the top to check on the steak and turning it. That ruins it.

Absolutely, I do this with chicken as well. I cook the bone side first, letting it get real hot, hot enough to cook through to the meat on the other side. When the skin and the visible top side of meat appears cooked, then I flip.......only once.

isleofL
If your in Chelsea, the meat at Garden of Eden ain't bad.
I really like their Murray's chicken.

The red meat at Whole Foods on 6th does look pretty good to.

^truthskr, we did indeed go to Garden of Eden, and although meat looked good, the steaks were way too thick, at least the afternoon we were there. I'm talking two inches. I can't stand them that thick, because then they're nice and charred on the outside, but purple rubber on the inside.

Yes, I like my steaks cooked.

:::ducking and covering:::

Yes what Ive learned with Garden of Eden, it's like Century 21.
You need a pair of dress pants, you cant go to Century 21, coz the day you go may only have a shirt for you, or a jacket. Not like Bloomingdales where you guaranteed to find something that will do.

I used it in a joke earlier but I like skirt steak, it is the poor man's filet. It's always tender,cooks fast, and Garden usually carries it. And it certainly ain't thick. :)

And speaking of salt, for those cooking on outdoor grills and don't already know, keep a cup of salt water nearby. When you get those mini grease fires starting on your grill, rocks, etc. from accumulated fat, just dip your hand and flick the salt water on the fire(s) and it puts it right out.

we're all gonna die!!

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44073673

I recommend rastellidirect.com steaks. Rastelli supplies all the top steakhouses. They now ship direct in about 1 day from there facility in south jersey. Prices comparable to whole foods quality higher.