Venison? Oh, *raw* venison. Gee, sounds yummy.

:puke:

Occasionally, we'll go out to dinner with some friends and we try to pick a place that we've never eaten before. Sometimes it's an exotic little hole in the wall, sometimes it's a comfy neighborhood diner, and sometimes it an expensive, pretentious restaurant. Last night, we chose (c). I don't mind places like (c) in general, as long as the food is good and the atmosphere is comfortable and they don't kick me out for wearing jeans. But I've noticed a trend among the higher priced plates in town: the more expensive the food, the less they cook the meat.

Someone, please explain that one to me.

This place was in the $30 per plate range. The menu had about four items on it for dinner, and the only one that looked even remotely palatable (and pronounceable) was the Venison Et Cetera plate. I asked for it medium-well (in the common tongue, that means "cooked"), but the server said the chef has a special way that this meat must be prepared to bring out the taste. He told me to trust him, as it was a house specialty. That should have warned me.

Apparently, this special culinary method involves putting the raw meat on a pan and not turning the burner on. I've seen venison pan-seared, where only the outside is cooked and the inside is blood red. That wasn't good enough for this chef. This meat was red from top to bottom, inside and out. You know, I can respect that there are some people who like meat that way, but for fuck's sake, why in fuck's name would you fucking serve raw fucking meat to someone who fucking asked for it medium fucking well??

The Et Cetera portion turned out to be two pieces of asparagus, 1/2 ounce of diced carrots, a teaspoonful of wilted spinach and some gooey mashed potato-sauce.

Bon fucking appetit. :puke:

I mean, maybe I don't understand this quite well. But aren't you supposed to cook the meat a LITTLE bit?

Terry

the butchering knife after the animal is killed provides too much heat and overcooks the meat. That's why I like to get a few good mouthfuls of the deer right after the kill, before the knife friction ruins the quality.

Much as I like my meat red, I *DO* want it actually warmed throughout.

Your meal sounds gross; but then, I've never tried raw venison, so who knows? Some people like steak tartar, which I've also never had the courage to try.

But count me in as someone who prefers my meat at least warm.

in my meat-eating days, I would eat raw ground round. And my steaks would just be seared and bloody red.