With the best of a city’s dining scene now visible online, ordering takeout is easier than ever. Nevertheless, there are at least five foods you should avoid ordering for delivery. An option especially prone to disappointment is steak. As home cooks tackling meat know, finding the ideal temperature for rare, medium, and well-done steaks comes down to only a few moments in the pan. Once the restaurant slices up and packages the beef, condensation matched with residual heat trapped inside the package keeps upping the internal temperature, potentially by 10 degrees or more. Subsequently, the delicate dance of attaining a perfectly pink interior is thrown off. By the time the steak arrives home, you get a piece of beef cooked more than you expected. So, no matter the quality and preparation of the original steak, home enjoyment doesn’t translate.
All the while, you’re also gambling with mishaps during transportation. Even if the restaurant accounts for the handling process by cooking the beef slightly below desired doneness, it can’t predict precise door-to-door logistics. It’s also possible you get not only overcooked beef, but a cooled-down piece that’s turned extra-chewy. Needless to say, save your meat enjoyment for dining out, perhaps at one of the best U.S. steakhouse chains.
The luxurious aspects of restaurant steak do not translate in takeout
Steakhouses come with an associated dining routine. Waiters inquire regarding your desired cut and doneness, and serve appetizers and drinks while you wait on the beef. Oftentimes, this style of restaurants leans upscale, with fancy furnishings and polished service. Subsequently, when you order restaurant-quality steak for takeout, you still pay the premium cost — but don’t receive the entire experience. Combined with steep beef prices, you risk spending extra on your takeout that isn’t even served at the proper temperature. Not ideal value.
If you’re dead set on enjoying restaurant-prepared beef in the home, you can make a few adjustments: Request that the beef comes in one whole intact piece to prevent some overcooking, make sure all sauces are separated, and order the steak to a doneness below what you’re used to. Then, when you get your steak, fire up your skillet at home and briefly sear the meat to completion. In part, restaurant steaks taste better by way of their sourcing, dry-aging, and seasoning, so you still enjoy such attributes (although you can’t replicate the high-heat preparation and precision of a good steakhouse). Plus, you still need to get your skillet ready, so there’s not much more effort than beef crafted fully from scratch. Therefore, steak is a meal best left to restaurant environs or assembled fully in the home.
