> Only in the US of A :)

More like "only in a steakhouse." We USAians have normal restaurants, too; in those, a steak is 6oz or 8oz. Sometimes 12oz, if they're trying to be ostentatious about their large portion sizes.

But at least you have actual steakhouses as opposed to pretend steakhouses that don't understand what "rare" means (most places will deliver a medium, medium-rare if you're lucky), and believe a steak should be seared enough on a charcoal grill to taste like coal. And those are the good ones in the UK.

UK "steakhouses" make me grumpy.

My local pub is actually the only place I've found that does a tolerable steak. What I'd expect at a cheap roadside diner in the US. Certainly not a big treat, but at least edible. Everyone I know in London that's been there that haven't had steaks outside the UK have hailed it as having the best steaks they've ever had. To everyone else it's ok in a pinch but nothing more. To me that says it all.

Sorry - it's a sore subject, I absolutely love steaks.

Better still, it actually tastes like steak. Unless you go to the US of A (or at least as far from England as you can get), you might never find out what that tastes like. You might even want to eat 3 times as much of it!

Sorry for the outburst, but I'm going nuts in the land of British Beef. My last good steak was over a year ago, and I'm not going to make it back to the 'states until xmas.

  Day One: Mama's Mexican Kitchen.
  Day Two: Proper 16oz New York Steak from a proper butcher

you forgot to @Mortons your comment...

It's not the restaurant, it's the beef.

I actually have a friend who's a beef farmer over here, and we've talked about this at length. There's no UK equivalent of the USDA grades of meat, and thus no incentive to selectively breed cows for flavor and quality.

You can go to a specialty butcher over here and get the absolute best steak they have, and it still won't be as tasty as the one you'll find on sale at any grocery store in the US.

Heston Blumenthal did a show on steak in the UK on his show "In Search of Perfection". He tested and tasted various UK steaks. If you're interested, you may want to look up the episode.

Hang on, in defence of UK beef: you can buy incredible beef here, you just got to know where to buy it (probably not tescos).

I actually thought all US beef was pumped full of growth hormones and other nasties? Your cows are about 50% bigger than ours :)

I thought the difference was corn-fed vs grass-fed.

To be fair, he shared it with his cat.