Beef battle
Kobe producers steer consumers to the real deal
If you’ve never tried Kobe beef, you should. It’s one of the rarest types of beef produced, with a flavor and texture that combines the richness of butter with the intense meatiness of the best steak you’ve ever tasted. It is produced in a tiny area of Japan, and only a small amount is imported into the United States. It’s also very expensive, with a 4-ounce portion selling for more than $200. It’s the ultimate special occasion splurge.
The problem is, you never really know if you are getting Kobe beef. Over the past decade, restaurants have marketed “Kobe-like” beef that is often very good but no match for the real thing. That “Kobe burger” you occasionally see on menus is most definitely not true Kobe beef.
So how do you tell if you are getting the real thing? This was the question faced by the Japan-based Kobe Beef Marketing and Distribution Promotion Association. It represents the farmers who produce the cattle that becomes Kobe beef (Kobe is the city in Japan near the areas where the cattle are raised). After years of seeing knock-off beef labeled as its own, the association has recently taken legal steps to assure that only the authentic product is sold in stores and restaurants.
The first step is to certify that the restaurants listing Kobe beef on the menu are serving the real thing. Recently, B&B Butchers in Houston acquired that certification, one of only nine restaurants in the U.S. to gain the approval of the association to serve Kobe beef.
The certification process included filling out forms that were mostly in Japanese. “We had to get help with that,” says Benjamin Berg, proprietor at B&B. Then after several phone interviews with Berg and B&B’s executive chef Tommy Elbashary, the wait began. Six months and several thousand dollars in membership fees later, B&B became the only restaurant in Houston certified to serve Kobe beef.
But the Kobe beef association didn’t stop there. It recently petitioned the Japanese government for a “geographic indication,” which is a type of trademark that requires Kobe beef to be produced in a specific geographic area of Japan; specifically, the Hyogo Prefecture.
This move was critical because cattlemen in other areas of Japan and even the United States were raising similar breeds of Japanese “Wagyu” cattle and incorrectly labeling them as “Kobe.”
Armed with these legal tools, the association has slowly started asserting the claim that only certified restaurants are legally allowed to serve Kobe beef produced in Hyogo. If the restaurant isn’t certified and lists “Kobe” on the menu, you can be assured it is a counterfeit and often of a lesser quality.
How to tell if it’s certified? Every shipment of Kobe into the U.S. comes with a certificate showing the provenance of the steer that produced the beef. If “Kobe” is listed on the menu, the restaurant is obligated to show you the certificate.
Problem solved, right? Sort of. Prevented from using the term “Kobe,” producers of Wagyu cattle from other prefectures near Hyogo decided to get into the certified-beef game. You will now occasionally see “Kagoshima beef” or “Miyazaki beef” as often less expensive alternatives to “Kobe beef.” They market this beef as the same quality as Kobe — known as “A5 grade” — but just from a different geographic area. “A5” is the equivalent of “USDA Prime” grade in the U.S., with even more marbling (the intramuscular fat that gives beef its rich flavor).
Under pressure from the Kobe beef association, restaurants have slowly stopped using “Kobe” as a catch-all to describe highly marbled Japanese beef. Now, the menu description will be something like “A5 Japanese Wagyu, Kagoshima Prefecture.” Japanese cattle breeds raised in the U.S. will be listed as “American Wagyu.”
B&B Butchers serves all three types of Japanese beef — certified A5 Kobe, A5 from other Japanese prefectures and American-raised Wagyu.
At a recent tasting there, I sampled all three side by side. Indeed, there was a noticeable difference in the versions — the Kobe had an even more intense flavor and buttery texture than the other flavors of Wagyu. At $55 per ounce, it is extravagantly expensive, but at least you know you’re getting the real deal at B&B Butchers.