As a true lover of great food and wine its not often I find myself having a great steak from my local major supermarket, Ralph’s, a subsidiary of the giant Kroger grocery chain. The Ralph’s chain was started in 1873 by a guy named Ralphs and funny enough the first location was in downtown Los Angeles at 6th and Spring, which is where I now live. In 1873 it was a business district in the small Western town of Los Angeles.
I bought a 3/4 pound New York bone-in choice steak that was on sale for $3.99 a pound, so it cost me only $3.51. This was marked down from $10.55, at the normal price of $11.99 per pound. The steak was beautiful, well cut and about an inch thick.
I live in downtown Los Angeles and the opening of a new Ralph’s supermarket in 2007, the first full supermarket to open in 50 years was a big deal. It wasn’t the first new store to open in 50 years, its the first and only store to open and operate in the downtown Los Angeles, the first store in 50 years of area residents not having this basic service. It was a vote of confidence in the upcoming area, and allowing for the growth and development that has exploded since.
The store carries a wide range of produce and fresh food options, including organic fruits and vegetables. However it is lacking in natural and organic meats and poultry and could sell a lot more of those items if it just stocked them.
This whole thing started with a lunch I had, a steak salad, where the salad exceeded the steak. Now don’t get me wrong, this steak salad had a lot of tender, yummy, juicy steak. I was impressed. It was actually a great meal, made by my favorite local cafe, the LA Cafe. It was their Mexicali Steak Salad, fresh chilled mixed greens with grilled steak, chopped tomato, cheddar cheese, something called cotijo cheese, chopped cilantro, yummy crunchy tortilla slivers, salsa fresca with an amazing zesty chipotle ranch dressing. Its a big salad, so after one meal, I was done with the steak, but had a lot of salad left. This started the odyssey to Ralph’s to get more steak. Fortunately, Ralph’s was having a sale on steak, so the price was right, at under $4.00.
I cooked it simply. Hot pan, splash of olive oil. Some French sea salt, some ground black pepper. Took about five minutes per side and it was finished. I let it sit for about five minutes to let the juices circulate. I then cut it up for the salad, and noticed how juicy it was. I had to have some slices, alone and they were great. That’s the sign of a great steak, it tastes amazing on its on, no real spice or sauce. I layered them on the salad and had my second meal, which was equally as good as the first.
I bought two steaks at Ralph’s and had the second one for lunch the day after that. Same thing, cooked it up simply in a pan, and it really was lovely, just a perfect cut of meat, tender and juicy with a great flavor, not needing any extras. If you care to know, my dessert was some Ben and Jerry’s vanilla ice cream topped with some of those big juicy blueberries available now, these were from Argentina.
