There's a lot at steak here Ted ...

Taste Of Foreign Utopia anyone? … aka Tofu. My carnivorous circle all looked at me like rabbits caught in the headlights and quickly ran off when I suggested a Tofu taste test just for something different.  My leaf loving friends were far more encouraging, but strangely none were available on any of the five tasting dates I offered???.

 

What could I do? A taste test had to be done. I decided to put a steak in the ground and tracked down three of the best sirloin steaks I could find within a three mile radius of my abode.  You didn’t really think I was going to do Tofu did you?

 … so … moooving along to the good bit … the steaks are high!

Rhug Estate: Welsh beef - organic, grass fed. Rhug pride themselves on sustainable farming and everything happening on the farm from breeding to butchering. They supply 20 Michelin starred restaurants around the world, and they have loads of UK awards. They were the most expensive by a country mile, was it was worth it?  ... Pretty much, especially when you consider that it's organic as well.

Good firm texture, juicy in the mouth, clean, deep savoury flavour with a slight (delicious) salty tang on the finish.  8/10.

The Ginger Pig: English beef - free range, grass fed. Ginger Pig like to ensure that the beef they offer comes from slow growing animals, living as stress free as possible in their paddocks, while eating a natural diet (for cows) of grass and hay. Does a stress free life equal better meat then? ... Yep indeed it seems so.

Cut through it like butter (probably my fabulous cooking), medium texture, good beefy taste, but not overpowering. 7/10.

Barbecoa: Scottish beef - free range, grass fed.  The butchery is part of the Jamie Oliver restaurant of the same name.  They say “we have searched the length and breadth of the UK to find the very best meats, and its quality is second to none”.  A bold claim in such talented company, so how did they fare? ... Well okish.

Good texture, about the right resistance for a juicy chew. But, there was a funny "sweetcorn" edge to the taste. 5.5/10. 

I had the Doll join me and she "blind" tasted them. Oddly, we came to exactly the same conclusions. To be fair all of it was pretty good stuff really, especially when you consider it was judged by exacting Doll standards. Mind you it should have been, given that I paid cattle rustlers prices!