Choose Your Steak Online

Among all the different cuts of steak, the strip steak is up there with the best of them. It is very tender cut as it comes from the cow’s muscles, which do relatively little work and can be cut with or without a bone. While t-bone is considered as the premium cut because of its size and quality, the strip steak is the next most popular choice for meat connoisseurs.

Strip cuts are known for having a marbled texture, often with some fat on the sides. If you search New York strip steak online, you will discover there are many different varieties and ways of serving this cut of meat.

The best, but also the most expensive, strip cuts are Kobe steaks. These come from the beef of the same name and at an astronomical cost. This sort of meat has a price tag in the region of $500 per pound but is also far more marbled, far juicier, far tenderer, and definitely far more flavorful than your average beef. It is produced exclusively in Japan where it is a famous delicacy. When not eaten raw in the form of sushi, it is served as teppanyaki, sashimi, shabu shabu and sukiyaki.

Kobe beef comes from the black Tajima-ushi breed of Wagyu, a Japanese word that simply means Japanese cow. These cows were primarily considered as beasts of burden by early Japanese farmers but were bred specifically for their meat once public demand for beef soared.

Another variety of strip steaks is cut from Kobe-style beef. This meat is so-called because it became popular in the US market as an American imitation of Japan's prized Kobe beef. It is also sometimes referred to as American Wagyu beef, because American farmers imported Wagyus from Japan to raise them in their own farms with the Angus cattle, a cow native to the United States. Though American meat producers tried to mimic Japanese production methods exactly, they were still unable to attain the necessary quality standards to replicate the unique way of raising cattle. Kobe-style beef is sold in markets for about $50 per pound.

Before the explosion in popularity of Kobe beef, the US widely produced its very own Angus beef—meats from either Red or Black Angus cows. Although not as tasty or marble-textured as Kobe beef, Angus beef is still rather juicy, flavorsome, tender and much more affordable than Kobe or Kobe-style beef.