11.324 L-Bone Steak

11.324

24 (Tue) November 2020

L-Bone Steak

2.5

by me

at home

-Changgok, Sujeong, Seongnam, Gyeonggi, Republic of Korea-

solo

JohnCook Deli Meats is a meat company.  Founded 2005 in Korea.  Specializes in locally produced American and European-style sausages, hams, and steaks.  Sells on-line and through brick-and-mortar stores, with products also available in national grocery chains.

One store is located in Seongsu Yeonbang, directly above Indica.
Initially, I’d dropped by to procure some kind of smoked sausage for the stamppot that I made a couple days back (see 11.322 Stampot von Zuurkool met Rookworst) – incidentally, they hadn’t had any smoked sausages in store, but the cervelat that I ended up using was also a JohnCook product, purchased elsewhere.
Steaks, dry-aged on the premises.
In addition to the time, effort, expertise, and equipment needed to dry-age a steak, it ends up costing a lot more than a regular piece of meat because the thick crust that develops during the process must be trimmed away to get to the edible flesh underneath, resulting in a large loss of weight; this has always reminded me of whisky, which also loses volume of distillate through evaporation during the aging process (“the angels’ share”), leaving less product as time goes by, thus making it more expensive.

While I was looking around, the guy behind the counter offered me pre-cut frozen dry-aged steaks at 30% off the regular price of 10,000 won per 100 grams – no way to resist that.

376 grams x 7,000 won per 100 grams = 26,320 won (savings of 11,280 won).
Bits of the tenderloin are still attached on the outside of the L bone.

To summarize differences among 3 related steak varieties, all from the short loin of the beef with an attached cross section of the lumbar vertebra bone: (1) the Porterhouse includes a large portion of tenderloin (aka filet) on one side of the bone, and an equal portion of sirloin (aka strip) on the other side; (2) the T-Bone includes a smaller amount of tenderloin; (3) the L-Bone removes the tenderloin side entirely/mostly, leaving only the sirloin.

As sirloin/strip is my preferred beef type, and the bone provides for a more flavorful meat, the L-Bone should in theory be my favorite cut of steak.  It’s just so rare to find, at least where I’ve lived over the past 15 years, that I’ve never encountered it before, so never thought about it.

Frankly, I find that bone-in steak is more difficult to cook, and more of a hassle to eat.

The steak was okay.  Sourced from American beef – probably USDA Prime, which seems the most common among imports here – the natural marbling was fair, though nowhere close to Hanwoo (see for example 11.189 Hanwoo 1++ Sirloin Strip Steak).  And so, being slightly overcooked to medium, almost medium well, the texture turned out a bit dry.  Still, the dry-aging helped keep the meat tender.  It was very beefy in taste, as dry-aging intensifies the flavors, and yet kinda blah.  Nobody fought over the last piece.

Not that expensive, but I think that I could do just as well with a well-selected piece of American ribeye at half the price.

Actually, Louis enjoyed the last piece.

(For more details re food, see WHAT)

(For more details re venue, see WHERE IN KOREA)

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