Porter Road
Porter Road Reviews - Best Online Steaks
About Porter Road
Located in Kentucky, Porter Road is a small online beef purveyor that specializes in selecting beef from local farms and doing their own butchering. Their goal is to provide a realistic alternative to having to buy meat from local groceries that sell inferior products. The beef they select from local farms has no hormones, no antibiotics, and the cattle is pasture-raised. They deliver nationwide and do all their dry-aging and butchering at their Kentucky location. They also promote their beef as being raised outside, dry-aged for at least 14 days, and fed vegetarian non-GMO feed, although they do not state if the feed is grass or corn.
Porter Road Product Label from a Product We Purchased
As shown on the label above, these steaks are inspected by the USDA, but they are not graded. Are they Prime? Choice? Select? We don't know. Knowledgeable consumers will have an issue not know what grade of beef they are buying. It's not uncommon, as Omaha Steaks built a considerable business doing it, but steak gourmands and many chefs do not respond positively to Omaha or any company that sells ungraded beef, because you don't know what you are paying for. Imagine if you were to buy a diamond without knowing the grade. It's not the best of practices.
We also didn't care for weighing the steak at .57 lbs, instead of using ounces, which is the standard practice for selling steak online. On the website, it said that these Boneless Sirloin Steaks were $9 and weighed between .44 and .56 lbs. Converted, this would be 7 to 9.1 ounces. The two we purchased weighed 7.5 and 7.9 ounces respectively, and as you can see, they weighed less than what was posted on their label. We would think butchers would be able to ensure their customer's product weights that match their labels. This difference converts to 1.28 ounces short.
We also felt the company's use of "dry-aging" could be misleading to the average consumer. All beef has to age between 15 and 28 days to allow enzymes to tenderize the fiber of the meat. Dry-aging refers to allowing the meat to dry out, reducing the moisture content and increasing the flavor of the beef. 14 days hardly accomplishes that task. We would think most butchers know this.
Top Sirloin Filet on a Bed of Sauteed Mushroom with Garlic Spinach and Fingerling Potatoes
Our Porter Road Review
USDA Ungraded - Top Sirloin Steak 7 oz. - $9
It should be no surprise to our readers that the Top Sirloin Steak has become one of our favorite cuts for overall flavor, texture, and value. The one we purchased, cooked and tested from Porter Road was okay, but given the selections available from other websites that grade their beef, this one ranked last in our testing. We thought the ungraded Omaha Steaks Top Sirloin was better.
It is advertised as being Dry-aged, and to be honest, we couldn't tell the difference when we compared it side-by-side to a wet aged D'Artagnan Top Sirloin. We would say the moisture content was the same. The company only describes the diet as "vegetarian," but we thought this steak tastes more like a corn-fed Omaha Top Sirloin than a D'Artagnan Grass-fed Top Sirloin, which will have a cleaner, but less beef flavor.
For a $1 less per steak, we would recommend the Creekstone USDA Prime Top Sirloin Steak over this ungraded version.
Pan-seared Beef Heart Steak with Roasted Brussel Sprouts and Fingerling Potatoes
Beef Heart Steak 12 oz. - $8 ea.
Finding this steak is what compelled us to place our first order with Porter Road. We are fans of beef calf liver, chicken livers, and chicken hearts. We would order beef hearts too, except when they are available, they are available as a whole heart. Kudos to Porter Road for cutting them into steaks and making them available at a very affordable price.
Once again, our weight was over an ounce less than the posted weight on the packaging. We purchased four beef heart steaks and found one to be a favorable cut where it would look like a steak. The others were much thinner and more spread out.
We didn't soak these in milk, as some liver and organ recipes may have you do. We wanted to experience these beef hearts in their full glory. We pan-seared ours and finished them in the oven. We let them rest and sliced them as you see in the picture. We found the flavor to have a strong "mineral" flavor, yet clean. If you have a taste for this type of meat, you will love these steaks!
Pan-seared Teres Major with Sauteed Mushrooms and Roasted Brussel Sprouts
USDA Ungraded Teres Major - $18
This Teres Major steak is really "The Chain" of a whole filet mignon tenderloin. There is really nothing new about it. If it wasn't sold with an entire trimmed tenderloin, it was customarily stashed away by the butcher or chef for amazing steak sandwiches later on.
Our was about 12 oz., and the weight on the package equaled our scale. The beauty of this steak is that a Filet Mignon from an online purveyor will typically cost more (and often 50% more) than this and you'll get a much smaller steak. It's a great value.
We would prefer to know the USDA Grade, but we think the marbling and flavor qualified this steak as Choice. Usually, we would need two Filet Mignon Steaks to make a hearty meal. One of these was large enough for our heartiest eater.
The steak itself was delicious and the best offering we've had so far from Porter Road. If we order again, we plan on filling up our freezer with about ten of these.
Grilled Bavette Steak with Roasted Acorn Squash and Sauteed Asparagus
USDA Ungraded Bavette - 3 lbs. - $42
A Bavette steak is very similar to a flank steak. The cut is supposed to be a little thicker than a flank steak, but we didn't observe that with our order. The Bavette is part of the sirloin primal and harvested from the lower chest muscles of the animal. Once again, the steak weighed less than what on the package.
We seasoned and grilled ours. We found the two-thirds of the steak on each end where thin, but the middle of the steal was much thicker. The plated portion shown in the picture is from the center of the steak. Generally, these cuts are reserved for fajitas, but we found our purchase to be exceptionally flavorful and worthy of being the featured entree of a fantastic steak dinner. Critically important is that you slice this steak against the grain. Do so, and you'll experience delicious beef flavor that almost melts in your mouth.
We wish the company would have the USDA grade their beef, so consumers knew what they were paying for. Ours cost $14 a pound, which we thought was a good value for the thicker middle section, but not worth the money for the other two-thirds of the steak on each end.
Our Porter Road Final Thoughts
We love the idea of local farms bringing their products to market online. With that, we are accepting these companies marketing efforts are not perfect. USDA Grading, product weights by the ounce, weights that matched what was posted on the label, and a 100% satisfaction guarantee would all be examples of improvements we see would help create consumer confidence.
We would probably go back to Honest Beef Company before we would reorder from Porter Road. Both have similar stories behind their motivation for being in business. We felt Honest Beef was a superior product and Porter Road's quality and business practices are similar to the grocery market they are trying to separate themselves from.
We do look forward to revisiting this company down the road. If there is one benefit of these local services, it's their ability to learn as they gather experience. Often that translates to an improved service and a better value that's good for everyone.
Kevin Bouchard
BestOnlineReviews.com
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