WAGYU beef from Japan is the King of Steaks. It’s high-grade beef known for its excellent marbled meat, which contains various amounts of intramuscular fat beautifully distributed in its meat. It comes from Wagyu cattle, whose genetic predisposition and special diet gives it an excellent sashi (marbling). It has a tender, melt-in-the-mouth texture and an exquisite flavor coveted by steak lovers the world over.
There are four major breeds of Wagyu—Japanese Black, Japanese Brown, Japanese Shorthorn and Japanese Polled. Japanese Black accounts for a big percentage of Wagyu in Japan. The renowned Matsuzaka, Kobe and Saga beef all come from the Japanese Black cattle, which is bred in small cattle farms in the Saga Prefecture, with 34 heads per cattle farm. Tender loving care goes into the breeding of Wagyu beef, which are grain-fed with rice straw, barley, corn and soybeans for over 20 months. During winter, calves in the cattle farm even get handmade calf jackets to help them cope with the cold weather.
Developed as unrivaled beef cattle based on Japan’s high breeding technology, Wagyu beef is graded by the Japan Meat Grading Association using an outstanding method of grading system that takes into consideration both Meat Quality Grade and Yield Grade. Meat Quality assesses the meat’s marbling, color and shine, firmness and texture, and fat color and shine, with Grade 5 being the highest and Grade 1 being the lowest. As for Yield Grade, it is evaluated as A for above average, B for average, and C for below average. The ultimate Wagyu beef is therefore one that is graded A5, which assures diners of melt-in-the-mouth goodness for that ultimate Wagyu steak experience.
Just recently, the House of Wagyu Stonegrill, considered as one of the country’s finest steak houses, hosted an exquisite Wagyu dinner at its Two EComm-Mall of Asia Complex branch to announce that it now proudly serves A5 Wagyu from the Saga Prefecture of Japan. It’s a special type of Wagyu known exclusively as Saga-Gyu, and it ranks among the best of over 200 beef brands in Japan because the cattle from which it comes from is bred on fertile land and clean water.
Saga-Gyu boasts of a rich, sweet aroma similar to that found in peaches and coconuts and is a retronasal aroma and flavor that spreads when chewing the meat in one’s mouth. This aroma is released when the meat is heated to 80 degrees Celsius. It stays in the meat and is released again when chewed, therefore giving the meat that elusive Umami taste.
The House of Wagyu Stonegrill takes the ultimate Wagyu steak dining experience a notch higher by serving the King of Steaks—Wagyu beef—on a lava stone grill heated at 400 to 450 degrees Celsius for six to eight hours. Guests are made to wear exclusive House of Wagyu Stonegrill aprons as a hot lava stone grill is placed in front of each of them and a slab of raw Saga beef is served with a side of vegetables and condiments of salt and pepper. Guests can thus enjoy the pleasure of cooking and eating their own steaks on the table, exactly to their doneness preference and at their own pace, with each portion hot to the last bite because the heat of the lava stone grill lasts a long time.
