Steak is made of cows. Cows hacked into pleasing shapes and subjected briefly to intense heat – all the ingredients needed for a party in your mouth!
Sadly, most steak tends to be pretty expensive – anywhere from $20ish to $150 onwards, which means that parties in your mouth will be few and far between, unless you happen to be rich. In that case, why are you reading a post about $10 steak? Go to Just Steak or Morton’s already.
For the rest of us, while you might be able to afford a good steak now and then, what if you had a sudden and untimely craving for delicious cow-flesh?
There’s always food-court hawker ‘Western’, of course, but steak from such establishments (save a few notable exceptions) tends to be thin, seriously fried and not very nice to eat. Steak-with-ketchup style at $5-8: are you willing to suffer so, for a marginal improvement in austerity?
Today, our four main contenders in the $10ish Steak: Final Battle!
Contendre Numero Uno: Jack’s Place and Eatzi, aka Pseudo-Jack’s Place.
A venerable institution by local standards, dating back to sometime in the ’60s, with 13 outlets (and two ersatz-outlets) islandwide. It may seem strange to include them in this battle, since their steak prices start at around $18, but their set lunch specials start at $9.20 and that’s what we’ll talk about. Have a look. I believe it is called the ‘NZ Steak with Cajun & Fried Asparagus’.
First thought – we’ll, that’s a terrible thing to do to asparagus. Perhaps someone in the owner’s family was once killed by a stalk of asparagus cruelly thrust into the eye, and in their vengeful remembrance they ritually deep-fry asparagus in batter, to be consumed by unsuspecting rubes as a great sacrifice. I certainly felt like I had sacrificed something when I ate it; a small portion of my lifespan, perhaps, or a little fraction of my soul. It was quite astonishingly disgusting, being thoroughly soaked with rancid peanut oil – cringing and grimacing with every bite, the tepid oil gushing obscenely through my teeth, I thought to myself, “I make this sacrifice for the readership, that they may never order this dish.”
Greatly dispirited by the ordeal, I attempted to revive myself by consuming an old favourite, delicious buttered corn. Sweet, crunchy, salty and buttery – right? Not here, at any rate: freakishly mealy and generally tasteless, apart from the distinct, deathly flavour of hydrogenated vegetable fat. It was quite telling that the yellowed cucumber tasted about the same.
We were now positively catatonic with despair. The world itself was stripped away in streamers of purple flowers, leaving only the void and the porcelain expanse of our stained dinner plates. Faint laughter could be heard on the wind, the acrid laughter of mockery and derision. Were we to be condemned to this formless waste? There yet remained the matter of the final test, the Steak itself, and we could already see that it appeared pale and boiled, thin and stringy, hardly any browning to speak of.
It was exactly as it appeared. Stringy. Tasting of the meat-chiller. Strangely stretchy as well – try to cut it and the meat starts separating, pulling apart. The end result reminds me of bloody tripe. I’ve also decided that Jack’s Place staff simply don’t know how to do a rare steak. The regular clientele probably orders well-done or (scandalous!) medium-well. I mean, lunch special on a ceramic plate notwithstanding, this is a place that serves steak on sizzling hot-plates – throw your desired done-ness out the fucking window.
I’m willing to submit that the establishment serves junk meat for the lunch specials, since I have in fact had reasonable steak from them at dinner. That doesn’t change the fact that their lunch steaks are simply terrible and unworthy of consumption at any price. Junk meat or not, you can’t disguise a total absence of culinary skill, or the use of the cheapest raw materials.
Interestingly, their lunch special menu recalls vividly the military cookhouse roots of the founder – generic meats differentiated day by day with glops of different sauce, fairly standardised sides, designed to be cooked in and served from huge metal trays, along with 1-2 exceptions as suicide prevention.
Dessert was, as should be obvious by now, shitty. The coffee was the best part of the entire meal, and it was burnt. And it came with a strange, brownish milk-analogue.
Contender Number Two: Botak Jones’
I’m thinking long and hard for something cute or funny to say about Botak Jones’ as an opening line and I realise that the effort would be terribly, terribly futile – If you’ve ever had the occasion to leaf through their menu or visit their website, you would be familiar with their sickeningly ham-handed humour, the likes of which mere mortals, such as myself, could never hope to best. It is, perhaps, quintessentially American in the same way that some Tokyo cafes are supremely French.
Of course, the fact that I’m willing to eat at their outlets despite their numerous faults should tell you something about their food. The object of our salivating attention? The cheapest steaks on the menu – the Botak Jones’ Sirloin(180g/$12.8) and Lady’s Cut(100g/$10.8). Both happen to be cut from the flesh of Australian Prime Steer, and each comes with a choice of two sides.
The steaks are cut around an inch thick, give or take – quite a pleasant surprise, as one tends to expect cheap steak to be relatively thin. The lunchtime steak at Jack’s Place might be a little less than half an inch thick, for instance. About the only tradeoff is that the smaller Lady’s Cut, at that thickness, doesn’t really take up much space on the plate, making it seem smaller than it really is.
The beef is good, flavourful, well-seared and tender – quite certainly one of the best steaks I’ve ever had in that price category. About the only quibble I have is the presence of straight, regular grill-lines, which reminds me unpleasantly of Burger King and their painted-on-with-food-colouring shenanigans. I think a steak ought to be covered with irregular patches of searing, almost to the point of carbonization, under which one finds delicious raw flesh. It’s not just a matter of appearance – the searing involves the breakdown of certain proteins, which contribute additional flavour and depth. Add to that the Maillard reaction undergone by residual glucose in the flesh, which releases a whole zoo of flavourful compounds and contributes to the development of a nice crust as a counterpoint to the tender, juicy flesh – that’s where the party in your mouth really starts. So if the searing is restricted to a few lines, there’s less party in your mouth. DO YOU TAKE KINDLY TO BEING CHEATED OF A PARTY IN YOUR MOUTH? I DON’T THINK SO.
The major problem with Botak Jones’, though, can probably be attributed to its status as a sort of ur-American establishment; when it comes to meat and frying, they select good product and prepare it well, but almost everything else is roughly analogous to huge, steaming turds. Their house salad, for instance: utterly surreal salad dressing on Iceberg lettuce, of all things, along with miscellaneous bits that don’t belong anywhere in a reputable eating house. Similar tendencies may be observed in other side dishes and starters – I think the next time I go, I might try asking them to hold the sides. They’re terrible, but the beef is just too good to pass up. We didn’t even manage to take a picture before gorging ourselves on delicious bovines.
Contender the Third and recent recipient of the Stupidest Name Award: Fish & Chicks!
It’s so stupid I don’t have to say anything funny about it. All you need to do to get your jollies – lean back, assume a thoughtful expression, and say it slowly, “Fish and Chicks.” Something very grotty East London about their signage as well – it looks like Ladbrokes, or the BNP.
It’s up by the renovated Sembawang Shopping Centre, and gets more crowded by the day – I suspect it may soon metamorphose into some degenerate franchise, so try it before it dies a horrible screaming death.
Being located next to a pestilential fucking jungle does have its disadvantages, e.g. curious insects in many shapes and sizes. Seems like the sort of place which demands a pith helmet, handlebar mustache and staring nervously at the heart of darkness, clutching a blunderbuss and muttering evilly about those filthy brown savages whilst eating a good, civilised meal of half-burnt, half-raw cow. Port would be a good bonus, except this happens to be a Halal establishment.
That’s a surprise in itself; it may be seditious to say so, but when an existing set of dishes is adapted to be acceptable to the Islamic palate, it does tend to suffer a little. A botched conversion, so to speak; the business of redesigning dishes for sale to Muslims requires more care than cutting out the pork and using fruit juice and malted drinks instead of wine and wine vinegar. It’s like porting food to a vegan diet – one needs to find a substitute, not just for flavour, but for the physio-chemical properties of the foodstuff in question. I am quite pleased to report that Eatery-with-a-Stupid-Name has succeeded quite admirably.
This eatery’s association with the culinary traditions of the region has some pretty interesting outcomes. On one hand, the menu suffers from a mild case of schizophrenia, offering grilled meat and potatoes alongside regional rice/noodle based dishes. On the other (more fortunate) hand, there are flavours and aromas in their marinades and sauces that aren’t quite familiar, given the milieu, but work wonderfully – a sweet-salty-sour hint to the interior of the flesh, the well-rounded, garlicky sauce for the vegetables on the side.
Overall, I’d call it above average on all counts, though it does suffer when compared to Botak Jones’. Their side dishes are certainly superior.
And the Fourth Contender, who was foretold in prophecy a score of generations past: “Yea, I say unto thee, that thou shalt keep these words well, and relay a reservation to the Steak House Astons this very night, so thine distant descendants might actually have a chance to eat there.”
Or so it was, in the past. I remember well the Queues at Astons, with a twinkle in my eye and crusty rheum all down my face: the likes of which the finest bards from all across space and time would find themselves invariably drawn, driven by mad dreams of immortal fame and renown to attempt to chronicle the Horror of this World; the vast, snaking queues, the precise dimensions and geometry of which do not bear mentioning in a decent, family-friendly blog. What could drive men to such a fiendish, recurrent nightmare of the most grotesque variety that would drive them to acquire illegal amphetamines of the most exotic kind, since even the most lethal overdoses of caffeine aren’t enough to ward off the horror of sleep; lives crashing and burning in pretty, pretty flames as friends and possessions slowly evaporate, leaving behind a shattered husk, the merest shadow of a man.
Mark well this Queue! This indistinct swarm, this menancing phalanx of blank faces and cold, clammy skin, mouths barely moving as their faint voices united in a harsh, metallic susurrus, that dread chant: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh C’thulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn! Give to us the burnt flesh of the Dark Star-Cow of the Million Satisfied Appetites, that we might raise Great C’thulhu!“
And then came the fateful day, when we decided not to heed the warning of our own, beating hearts, when we cast aside all caution or scruple, re-joining once again the Path of the Hero! What did that steak taste like? Was it good? Endless insanity be damned, we’re going to Astons!
And… the Queue was nowhere to be seen. What happened? Very quiet. Did the ravening horde move on, having found some other flash-in-the-pan fad, like Bubble Tea and Roti Boy? Could it mean that the steak… was bad? Or did it signify some as yet unremarked flightiness of the Horde, that whether or not their chosen nexus promised disgust or delight, they simply cared not? That all that mattered… was being à la mode? A Fashion Horde, then. Not nearly as exciting as a Fascist Horde. No, not with ice cream, you filthy American.
So, my taste for epic heroism unassuaged, I had to settle for my taste for delicious cow. I believe we ordered the two cheapest steaks on the menu, in keeping with the spirit of this article, where the only drama given to us was the fact that we had to ask three times to successfully order a rare steak. A very good sign of the Fashion Horde’s recent passage.
It did take a little while to arrive, though, which is a bit of a mystery – I mean, the restaurant certainly wasn’t crowded, and a rare steak takes no time at all to cook. But arrive it did, looking a little… yellow.
It doesn’t really come out in the light, but it really was… peculiarly yellow. And what’s that odd thing in the middle of the steak?
I’m not sure how I feel about a signboard in my meal. It doesn’t actually come out in the image, but the signboard says, rather helpfully, ‘rare’. I’m fairly certain I can remember what I ordered, so perhaps it’s an aid to the staff. Even if I didn’t remember, I’m sure matters would be perfectly clear once I cut into the steak – except it was actually medium-rare. The other steak was rare, though.
Despite these rather unusual features, along with the problem of regular grill lines, the steak really is rather decent. A bit on the dry side, due to the excessive doneness, but otherwise quite flavourful and pleasant to eat. It’s also not particularly thick, perhaps about the same thickness as was offered at Fish & Chicks; an endemic problem, which probably accounts for the failure to deliver the desired doneness – in other words, both of the major problems of this steak would be eliminated by having it perhaps half an inch thicker. Possibly purveyors of steak prefer thinner cuts, so as to take up more space on the plate and fool the customer into thinking he’s having more beef than he really is. But it would be so churlish to think that a business concern would stoop to such craven depths to serve Mammon. But hey, it’s still good beef.
As with Botak Jones, there are a few problems with the side dishes. Not nearly as severe, but they bear mentioning nonetheless. Firstly, the proffered pot of sauce was just weird – a bizzarely tangy mushroom sauce. It was just… strange, perhaps some sort of illegal synthetic acidifier derived from the tanned skins of boiled infants, I don’t know. I believe there may have been a similar ingredient in the salad dressing, which was left pooled like leftover jism in the centre of the bowl, coating a few shreds of red cabbage and carrot atop a bed of green leaves, the variety of which I can’t quite remember. Unremarkable, though.
On the positive side of things, the coleslaw was pretty good; tasted fresh, seemed handmade. I won’t say anything about the baked potato, because, seriously – how bad can you fuck that up? Something about tinfoil-wrapped potatoes makes me think of some unthinking convention, though, rather akin to the neon pineapple ring on ham steak, or the little sprigs of plastinated parsley that appear on your food for no particular reason.
And look! Actual milk in a little pot, emphasized for rarity. Take that, Jack’s Place.
Verdict!
You need a verdict, an executive summary after reading something? No, you need to work on your reading comprehension. Well, alright – whatever you do, don’t go to Jack’s Place or Eatzi.
I’m showing a work there. Might post something detailed about it here at some point.
