evansk7

Oh, you can. For a while, I lived right by the Chop House restaurant in London, and their steak was excellent. Little shop tacked on the side was even better... they'd get me dry aged steak, fresh lobster, or pretty much whatever I wanted. Now, however, I live in Sheffield. It's England's answer to Trenton, NJ :) It used to be a heavily industrialised steel city, and much of the steelworking industry is now gone. There are other industries here, and it's starting to recover by means of inward investment in other sectors (like mine, the high-tech sector) but there just isn't the disposable income to support "shrunk" beef. The better butchers in town will sell me fairly decent ribeye steaks, but it's all wet aged in vac-pac bags. They just look at me like I've got two heads (and a salary for each!) when I ask if they can get dry-aged beef. I guess I could drive the 150 miles to London to get it, or slightly further into some of the border towns near Scotland where you can get dry aged angus beef, good venison, etc from butchers... but I'm almost as interested in trying the ageing as in eating the result :) Kev

Oooh. I'm new! I've been reading this site/board/thread for all of about 4 minutes, and I'm posting already. Scary! :) My perspective on this kinda echoes that of a couple of other people who've posted to the thread: - the steak houses get better beef than I can - I don't have to wash up afterward. I lived in NYC for 2 years (right around the corner from Sparks) and the steak there (the city, not necessarily Sparks) was mindblowing in comparison to the beef I could buy uncooked. Even S&W, who sell steak raw, don't sell you the cuts they want to keep for their restaurant customers. Now I live in Sheffield, England (I'm a brit) and the best I can manage for steak is pretty average sirloin... how depressing. Cooking-wise, I make a pretty mean steak. One of the few advantages of my current abode is the wicked gas stove - combined with a REALLY heavy (2-handed lift) cast-iron skillet, and a complete disregard for smoking out my house, my steaks get HOT, fast. But it doesn't make up for the lack of prime beef... not in the slightest. So yeah.. steak houses still get my vote. They've got a bar, on the whole, which is a bonus. If I get bored with wine and want a beer, they bring me one. If I want coffee, they bring me that too. The sides are usually pretty good... well, sometimes. And they've got the best beef - did I mention that? Now - onto more important matters :) I can't find, for love nor money, dry-aged beef here... so I'm going to do it myself. Anyone got any tips? I found a site (the AZ grill association, or something like that) with a method of dry-aging beef in a refrigerator wrapped in clean towels, changed daily. Anyone tried it? Anyone got a better method, in a city where the average monthly income is about the same as the average NYC steak house bill for a meal for 2? Kev