A favorite dish of President Donald Trump is reportedly an aged and ‘well-done’ steak. Aged until tender and then grilled into a tough chewy slab—oh, and smeared with ketchup. That’s exactly how he likes it and how he had it on Saturday evening.
Trump’s motorcade pulled out from the White House grounds just after 8pm, reports the Independent Journal Review, and headed to the BLT Steakhouse in the Trump Hotel for a private dinner with British Brexiteer Nigel Farage, adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner, his daughter Ivanka, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
After a starter of shrimp cocktails, Trump ordered his New York cut.
“He ate it with ketchup as he always does. The sides and appetizers on the table were shared,” a waiter later remarked.
Now, anyone who has read the work of traveling chef Anthony Bourdain will know that he warns his readers against the practice of ordering your steak this way.
“‘Saving for well-done’ is a time-honored tradition dating back to cuisine’s earliest days,” he writes in his culinary expose Kitchen Confidential.
“What happens when the chef finds a tough, slightly skanky end-cut of sirloin that’s been pushed repeatedly to the back of the pile? … [S]erve it to some rube who prefers his meat or fish incinerated into a flavorless, leathery hunk of carbon, who won’t be able to tell if what he’s eating is food or flotsam.”
“Ordinarily, a proud chef would hate this customer, hold him in contempt for destroying his fine food,” Bourdain continues. “But not in this case. The dumb bastard is paying for the privilege of eating his garbage! What’s not to like?”
If the chef was true to form, however, Trump didn’t seem to notice. He tipped the waiter $100 and seemed in good spirits throughout, even stopping to sign red hats and pose for pictures with patrons.
“It was hard to serve him because he is so funny and relaxed, it makes you laugh,” his waiter also reportedly said. “At one point, the president looked at his watch and remarked, ‘They are filming Saturday Night Live right now. Can’t wait to see what they are gonna do to me this week.’”
Well, SNL writers have no shortage of material, but a messy Baldwin-Trump downing a cremated jerky doused in the red stuff could be absolute slapstick gold.
H/T IJR
