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Grades of Beef

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Victor Albisu: Hi, my name is Victor Albisu. I am the Chef de Cuisine here at BLT Steak in Washington, DC. We are talking about beef basics. Today, more specifically, we are talking about different grades of beef. Here at the restaurant, we specialize in Prime and Certified Black Angus beef. Prime is not so easily found in your local butcher shops or grocery stores, but what you will generally find is 'Choice' which is the majority of the meat that the USDA approves. Certified Black Angus is a higher level of Choice. In that, the grading system comes more from the intramuscular fat within the beef or the marbelization within the actual muscle which intensifies flavor and tenderness. There are all different types of rating, there is also 'Select' which we do not use here at the restaurant, but you see those a lot in the grocery stores. But I would always recommend to somebody to go with either Choice or Prime. Although, Prime is a little bit more difficult to find, because it is only 3% of all the beef produced is Certified Prime. There are also different kinds of meat that we get here at the restaurant namely, the Japanese Wagyu or the Kobe beef that they refer to. Kobe is actually, the area in Japan where it comes from, Wagyu is the actual cattle. 'Wa' implying that it's Japanese and 'Gyu' implying that it's actually cattle. It has the most intensified marbling within the actual muscle and it is very rich in Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids, making it a very clean, although fatty piece of meat. Next, we will be talking about different cuts of meat and showing you the places they come from.

Expert: Victor Albisu

Chef

www.bltsteak.com

P: (202) 689-8999

Victor Albisu may have been born in northern Virginia, but he seems “born” with Latin food in his blood. Victor’s mother is Peruvian, his father is Cuban; one grandfather was a baker; and two aunts owned their own restaurants in Miami – Latin food was central to his upbringing. In fact, he doesn’t have a single childhood memory that doesn’t involve some delectable Latin cooking or More »