CALF_News_August_September_2021

42 CALF News • August | September 2021 • www.calfnews.net By Walt Barnhart Contributing Editor  CALF BEEF REVIEW Perry's Steakhouse & Grille Denver, Colo. BEEF? Where’s the Really Exceptional I t’s been said that you don’t go out to celebrate with a chicken dinner. Steak is the name of that tune. Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille is ideal for celebrations. While its prices might make the weekly steak dinner date out of reach, its ambience, great food, wonderful service and attention to detail make it a wonderful spot for celebrating the special occasions that regularly happen in our lives. Perry’s got its start more than 40 years ago as a Perry family butcher shop and deli in Houston, specializing in corn-fed beef. In 1986, the owner’s son talked his father into adding dining tables and, in 1993, Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille was born. It’s now a highly popular, award-winning restaurant with locations across Texas as well as in Denver, Chicago, Birming- ham, Miami and Nashville. It prides itself on top-quality selec- tion and service, with the motto “rare and well-done.” My wife, Chris, and I celebrated the waning pandemic and reopening of restaurants at the Perry’s at Park Meadows Mall near Denver and had a tremendous experience. The restaurant was nearly full on an early Tuesday evening in July, with lots of energy and happy people. While it was crowded with tables placed close together, we found the surroundings comfortable and relaxed. We started with an appetizer of crab cakes, which were made from large whole pieces of crab – not the minced, molded product some restaurants will try to pass off. These cakes had a delicate crust, light sauce and fine haystack top- According to the 2020 Steak Preferences Report , 37 percent of respondents said a key aspect of a quality steak was that it was cooked to order, trailing only freshness, tender- ness, overall taste and juiciness. In that survey, 3 percent of respondents said they wanted their steak rare, while preferences for other doneness levels were fairly split between medium rare (25 percent), medium (26 percent), medium well (26 percent) and well done (21 percent). Do all restaurants understand those designations the way you do? With restaurant dining getting so expensive, it pays to visit with your server about what a restaurant chef follows when it comes to doneness and the level of cooking you want in your steak. A Taste Satisfaction Report from 2016 found that overcooking was more common than undercooking and was strongly associated with lower satisfaction. Remember, you can send it back for more time on the grill if needed but paying for, and gnawing through, an overcooked steak is an ordeal no one should have to endure.  DON’T ASSUME ON DONENESS