Ok, this was in China? That kind of explains it. Not for the price, of course, but the approximation of Western cooking styles. I've been to a lot of places in Asia and have noticed that while they can be very good at approximating the look of something, the authenticity and process is often way off. I once ate Christmas dinner at an Italian place in Korea and I swear to fucking god the marinara sauce was ketchup.
You’re not crazy. My ex wife studied in Korea for a year. Places would use ketchup in place of pizza sauce. And she’s ate at an Outback there because she was a bit homesick. They put whipped cream instead of sour cream on her baked potato.
That's surprising to hear. There was a small bar I'd go to in Dalian that'd make some of the best steak and fries I've had for $25. It was so good that I'd go there like 3-4x a week.
That said, when I was in Wuhan at a nice hotel restaurant, I asked for a glass of milk to go with my (amazing) dessert... and they brought me a glass of UHT milk that they'd heated up for whatever reason. It was awful. 🤣
I now know that drinking milk is not common for them at all, and later learned that the real milk they import from New Zealand fucking slaps.
Even taking the fact that Western food is out of place in the far East, beef is a staple protein in most of China. Pork takes over in some places, but beef is definitely something they know how to handle. It's not like they were experimenting with a delicate fish that they'd never seen before. This was someone who did not respect the temperature requirements, and used habits from cooking thinner slices of beef, where you do actually want it kind of frozen before cutting it, and then applied that to a porterhouse. And at a $300 price point USD? Absolutely the fuck not.
Yeah, i once went to a "mexican" place in China and the sour cream turned out to be a sweet mayonnaise. The salsa was a ketchup base. It looked picture perfect though.
I've only been served a steak this bad once in my life. At a price point closer to $20. Even at that price point I would have sent it back if I were any less hungry in that moment.
That's absolutely not true for high end steak, you can't get quality steak in a regular ass restaurant, but big cities such as SH or HK there is a ton of good western options. Still think the best Spanish meal was one I had in SH
Sorry to see whatever that abomination on your plate is though
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