What is Kobe Beef?

The kobe meat is tender because the poor animals get no exercise. The best beef you can buy is Aberdeen Angus or Aberdeen Angus X Hereford which has been naturally reared with the calves having mothers milk until weaning then spending the next 2 years on good quality natural grassland that has not been sprayed with weed killer. This contains all the natural herbs which give the meat its natural flavour. Not a profitable venture which is why it is difficult to find. I know because I produced my own.

Give me a bison ribeye any day. it's naturally grass fed and has a great flavor without the cost of kobe.

If it isn't imported, how do all you so called beef eaters figure you ate real Kobe beef? There is even a picture of a cow beside this story which says it must be born and raised in Kobe region of Japan to be real. So either the Japanese are lying or the writer is. My bet is the Japanese are telling the truth and the restaurants and whoever else says they are selling you Kobe beef are lying to give you a high price piece of fake Kobe beef. Money and greed will get anyone to lie for profit.

Wagyu is worth it, but watch out for the price. While in Manila, I had a grade no. 8 steak (there are 12 grades -- the higher the number, the more marbled). It was about $45 US for ~8oz. It was by far the best steak I have ever had. Another person in our party had a grade 12 which was $125 for about ~4oz. I think the 8 was a little firmer and better, but judge for yourself.

By far, the best thing was how the restaurant (upon request took some of the fatty trimmings off the steaks and deep fried it). Obviously it seems like it'd be terrible for you, yet it was like the most incredible soft jerky or bite you could have -- and not the least bit fatty tasting. Maybe the best comparison is if you took the best bacon you can imagine and multiply that by 10! If you're in the Philippines, the place is called Melo's and I think they have two or three locations.

Kobe beef is nothing special. I had a steak in Japan. I have had better steak at Applebee's.

Wagyu is without a doubt the finest breed of cattle in the world. I do not care how much you age or whatever else you do to your Angus, it will never stack up to wagyu "Kobe".

The wagyu have a unique flavor that cannot be had with any other breed, and university studies have shown wagyu to have three times more unsaturated fat than typical breeds, so basically you get all the marbling without the guilt or bad health side effects. I have had Kobe in Japan and here in the USA. Like the other people said, even the wagyu burgers are extremely good.

I recently vacationed 10 days in Japan with my sister and my husband called me every day asking me "did you try the Kobe beef yet?" I never had a chance to while I was there. But to his surprise, the morning of my departure, I picked up a small Kobe steak, which cost me about $100 USD, had them pack it on dry ice, then smuggled it in my check-in baggage (I was surprised they didn't catch it). I came back with it to San Francisco 10 hours later. My husband was so surprised and said it was the most delicious meat he has ever had in his life.

I would try anything but kobe just sounds over hyped.

I grew up on a ranch in Texas and did not eat much beef because it was our cash crop. Our cows ate grass during the warm months and the hay we grew and bailed. Texas beef is pretty high-grade. But I can't imagine any beef could be better than that from pampered wagyu cattle.

I live in Spokane and just had dinner before the Elton John concert at The Wild Sage. I ordered the Kobe Beef hamburger. I was raised on family raised beef and i am hear to say I've never had a better burger. It was excellent! best hamburger I've ever had.

@anon80312: i can imagine a lot of more boring jobs. Like massaging word and excel day in day out.

I'd rather eat the beef and drink the beer, than eat the beef that drank the beer.

To anon89217, while in Japan I have drank, in the same restaurant both sake wine and sake beer. Sake merely means that the liquor is obtained from rice.

They feed them beer during winter periods where the animal's appetite decreases. Beer is for keeping the animal's appetite up. They brush the animal with sake to keep the coat nice because they believe a nice coat has indirect benefits such as cleanliness etc.

There is a difference between Angus or Kobe. When you put the Kobe beef in your mouth it melts. If you like that sort of thing, then Kobe is for you. I'm going to Japan tomorrow. Ha!

they don't physically give them a daily rub down. there are machines that the cows lean against that knead out muscle knots and generally relax the cow, and no, kobe is definitely better than the next.

Kobe, schmoby. As a beef producer, I can say that any beef that is fed properly, aged properly, cut right and cooked right is as good as the next, right down to the angus, hereford, simmental, charolais, or whatever.

Who are you to say that this is wrong and they don't massage the beef? do you know anything about beef farming? And sake is a wine, not a beer.

Just ate a kobe burger at monster burger in Tampa. It was very good! I would like to know the fat content, since the article says it's very marbled meat.

i found this article very interesting.

they don't actually message the cows; this is false. they are normally kept in crates and the farmers wipe the dirt off once in awhile, which has been spread as messaging. they give them beer to stop them from dying too early.

who the hell wants to massage cows?

i am getting hungry.

awesome.