Kobe Beef

"I tried Kobe beef, and it wasn't anything special." Maybe not...or maybe what you tried wasn't really Kobe beef. The words Kobe beef are misused more than any other food term I can think of. If you'd like all the details, try Wikipedia or simply google the term. Here's the Reader's Digest version.

Inclusion of the words Kobe beef is pretty much meaningless in the United States. There's no law specifying what that means, so we're in the same situation we used to be in when sparkling wine from West Virginia was labeled Champagne. The term Wagyu refers to Japanese cattle, but for even more complex reasons might not refer to cattle raised in Japan, or even to a strain of cattle which is 100% pure Japanese. Frequently, "Kobe" beef turns out to be something far inferior to the original.

True Kobe beef comes from a small area in Japan (and don't even get me started on what "comes from" means). This area is renowned for top quality beef. There are several breeds of cattle collectively known as Wagyu; Kobe beef comes from the Tajima breed of Wagyu.

As near as I can tell there's no true Kobe beef available in the United States. Yes, it's been legal to import for some years now, but I've been told that there are no authorized exporters (from the Japanese perspective), thus no way to import the beef. I don't know if this is true or not, but I've never found a place claiming to sell Kobe beef which, on closer examination, was actually selling the real deal.

While Kobe beef is the most famous premium beef from Japan, it isn't necessarily the best. Ōmi beef, the official beef of the Japanese Imperial Household, is one competitor. Another is from Mishima (the Japanese prefecture, not the similarly-named American ranch). Yet another is from Kagoshima. Does any American beef match the best imports? Not that I've found so far.

To complicate things even further, there are grades of Kobe beef, so even true Kobe beef varies in quality quite a bit. The "5" in "A5" is the top score for overall quality; A4 is next in quality. Kobe/Wagyu beef comes in both grades. However, the marbling score, which is seldom specified (at least in Las Vegas) is what gets everyone hot and bothered. Thus, A5-9 is valued more highly than A5-8, and if you can find A5-10 you've hit pay dirt. A5-12, the highest possible grade, has probably never made its way to the United States; I get the impression that, even in Japan, mere mortals can't order it.

The bottom line: find a restaurant you trust. Otherwise, you may be disappointed by lower quality meat.