Yes, after a bit of a hiatus, I’m back and blogging baby! Been a busy time in real life, but now that I’m back I’d like to get straight to the important issues that have been plaguing the blogosphere. No, not the iPhone, not the DRM conversation, not Anna Nicole-Smith, not the Shilpa Shetty race story, not the BBC dealing with the license fee increase, or their poll for feedback on the iPlayer…

Nope. None of that. I’m here today to talk about… steak (damn, gave it away in the title). So Hindus, vegetarians, and anyone else likely to take offense, now’s the time to look away from your screen.

So I had a steak last night, at Las Iguanas, a restaurant in the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank. On the menu was Argentine steak. Now, if you’re like me (i.e. a REAL MAN) when you see steak on the menu you feel drawn by it. You may not order it quite every time but you will feel temptation. You will be lured in by the call of the succulent, tender, juicy meatiness of it all. And on this occasion, further tempted by the Argentinian pedigree of the meat in question, I succumbed to temptation.

“How would you like it sir? Medium well? Medium?” asked my waitress, clearly impressed with my choice, but woefully underestimating my manliness.
“Rare,” say I.
“Rare?” she checks.
“Rare,” I affirm.

There was no doubt that rare was the cooking level of choosing, and the cooking level of choosing was rare. And yet, much was my disappointment when I was presented with a steak that leaked absolutely no blood onto a plate! Am I alone in thinking that good, fresh steak when rare or even medium will ooze a little bloody goodness onto the plate, which adds to the overall flavourfullness of it all? In the end, it wasn’t bad. But it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for.

I’ll admit that in my squeamish youth I had a few well-done steaks. These days, I no longer take the risk of ordering medium rare steak because it too often comes up too heavy on the medium side of things. Do I need to start asking for blue steak? Quick poll below to see what my loyal blog readers prefer. For reference, my favourite steaks in London have come from the Gaucho grill (fantastic), Bodeans (very very tasty on good days, and their spicy butter is tasty), Chez Gerard (standard, tasty fayre) and a couple of very nice steaks lately from the Captain Kidd pub in Wapping (on separate occasions). The worst steak I ever had was a 24 oz whopper in a Fatty Arbuckles in Oxford, but that’s another story…

Where’d you have your best steak of late? Let me know in the comments.