Peter Pappas: Fill & Download for Free

Oh boy… There are many, but I will try to keep it short. Others can add.Programmer thinks:Gee, If only I could get a position in company X… I would be like this:I hear they have chairs like these:I would be making stuff like that (Programmer on the left):Reality:958th Meeting about how to optimize the solution of something that no user ever will see or realize that exists.Back to your desk and to your actual chair:What you will be looking at:Programmer Thinks:Gee, I could work from home and I would be so much more efficient.Reality:“Just for a while to clear my mind; I am stuck. I ‘ll just have a Redbull.”Programmer thinks (After landing a job interview at company X)Gee everybody is a genius in this place, and I barely managed not to crap myself when they asked me to write on the board 2 lines of code… They ‘ll know I m a fraud.Mindset during the interview:Mindset after leaving the interview:Mindset after they have made an offer to you:Impression of what your colleagues will be like once you start working:Reality:Your colleagues Mike, Bill, Sabrina, Helen and Tom:Your colleagues Paul, Mary, Joan, Fred and Ted.Your colleagues Peter, Lois, Stan, Stewie, Bonie and Mort.Your boss:Now The Worst Of All….Programmer thinks:W O W ! I am done! Everything is tested to the extreme, extensively, exhaustively all sort of exstuff, have been done. Woohoohoo!!*Programmer meets the client super confident to demo the product*Never think that you are done with bugs or that you have thought of everything and you are ready to present some sort of end product.

I’m not sure what you mean by destabilizing? If you mean in regards to their name, well the truth is they are borrowing an Ancient Greek name and a current territory of Greece as their own and trying to usurp another countries cultural history. Current day “Macedonians” are Slavs who did not appear in that region until over 1000 years after Alexander the greats death. That would be like Germany calling itself the Roman Empire (oh wait they tried doing that in the Middle Ages). No one is trying to destabilize anything. In fact Greece and Fyrom just agreed on an official name for them. The Republic of Northern Macedonia. I’m sure not all Greeks will be happy with this but it’s better than Fyrom which sounds like the name of a drug company more than a country.

Best steak I’ve eaten:Well, this is a personal question and we’ll each have a personal preference for the best steak. But I can give you my humble opinion. I’ve also consulted my family (filled with a dozen professional chefs) for advice. There is also a Top 25 at the end of the post.Let’s talk steak, one of my favorite subjects! There are A LOT of places in this world to get a REALLY, REALLY good steak. I’ve been to some notable spots across the globe to satiate my unrelenting appetite for beef!Out of contentionYou certainly WILL NOT find the perfect steak at America’s fake-Australian, nationwide chain known as Outback, possibly the most atrocious steak on the planet. It’s even ancillary to the subpar franchise Western Sizzlin’. If you feel like Outback has good quality food, you probably don’t need to read any further because you’re not a steak aficionado, and that’s fine.You won’t find the best steak at Ruth’s Chris either, satisfactory for a chain restaurant, but certainly not in the elite category. Ruth’s Chris isn’t even a top ten steakhouse in my hometown of Nashville, not to mention the world!Paying an exorbitant amount of money at a high-class restaurant DOES NOT guarantee a good steak. I consumed one of the worst steaks I’ve ever eaten at Capital Grille in Kansas City, a very expensive restaurant with deplorable beef! They should be ashamed! So we’ll have to do MUCH better than some of these lackluster examples I provided.Why I’m qualified to answer the questionI’m nobody special, but I do have a lot of experience. I’ve had the highly coveted Kobe Beef while visiting Japan, eaten Wagyu Beef in Australia, had impeccable sirloin in Argentina, and I’ve done just about every one of the famous steakhouses in America now. I even had a 32-ounce tomahawk steak flown in from New Zealand to Nashville one year for my birthday. I’m blessed to say that my beef-eating experiences are certainly beyond the average person.Unfortunately, as a world traveler and having been raised by two chefs, I’ve even become jaded and almost impossible to impress with most restaurants. My father and grandfather, both chefs and restaurateurs, made the most amazing steaks you could imagine. My mother was also a professional chef. So yes, I know food pretty well. However …Disclaimer: I DO NOT think my opinion is superior to anyone else’s. Sure, I do come from a family with expertise in food. When a chef gives you culinary advice, you should listen. But we are all entitled to our own opinion. This is simply our favorite experience and not the world’s best steak. Please take it as a mere opinion and not fact.And the award goes to …So here is my award for the best steak I’ve ever eaten, broken into two categories:The best traditional steak I’ve eaten (cattle only)The best steak I’ve eaten from any mammal in the world (and it was even better, story to follow)Category 1: BEST STEAK (cattle only, not other animals)Wolf Creek Steakhouse (Spokane, Washington)I once flew across the country from Tennessee to Washington just to eat this steak! I had heard unbelievable things about this restaurant from Washington natives, travel writers, food critics. Admittedly, I had business to handle in Seattle, so I had another reason for visiting Washington. But I drove all the way across the state to Spokane just for the steak!As the hostess sat me, I bragged about how far I had traveled for the occasion. I thought she’d be impressed. But she nonchalantly replied, “Yeah, we hear that every day. Heck, people come from foreign countries just to eat this steak.” What?! Well, I guess I’m not so special after all. I guess Wolf Creek had an international reputation. It was indeed featured in a number of top 10 lists.This was a legendary place with extra large hunks of beef, a menu offering cuts as small as the Lil’ Dude at 10 ounces (283 grams), and the deceivingly-named Cowgirl cut at 16 ounces (454 grams). And it got larger than that! But do not confuse this with one of those gimmicky restaurants in Texas with 72-ounce cuts of beef to lure tourists while serving up nearly inedible steaks. Chewing your way through a giant slab of beef with horrid quality is nearly impossible.Nope, Wolf Creek was no gimmick, and the critics agreed. It was the real deal, aging their beef in house and offering top quality and large cuts! I’m sure many men sheepishly ordered the Cowgirl, an impressive size for anyone to devour. But not this man. I have a motto when it comes to steak, ‘Go big or go home!’ With 26 ounces being hardly enough to satisfy my voracity, I ordered the Rancher, a 40-ounce monstrosity that looked similar to the picture below.OH MY GOODNESS! Not only was it massive, but IT … WAS … PERFECT! Even after the hostess had inflated my expectations with tales of international travelers, even with doubts that a steakhouse with massive cuts of beef would be of lesser quality, it still impressed me beyond my imagination! It was better than the Kobe I had in Japan, the Wagyu in Australia, and all those other experiences. I did not expect that at all! I ate the entire steak, with a lobster tail on the side, an appetizer, mac ’n’ cheese, a salad, A LOT of rolls, and a cheesecake for dessert. YUMMY!Unfortunately, their quality eventually declined in 2017 for unknown reasons, a change in ownership I believe. Ratings were near-perfect, but slipped to a respectable 4.3 out of 5. The glory days were over. But I had enjoyed the perfect steak at the peak of their award-winning run. The restaurant finally closed their doors on February 24, 2018. Perhaps it was difficult running an upscale business in a medium-sized town of Spokane, barely over 200,000. Maybe the owners retired, or the new owners couldn’t maintain the quality. You’ll have to read the Top 25 list below for options that are currently open.Fortunately, you can still have a similar experience. Their sister restaurant Wolf Lodge Inn lives on in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, a popular stop for tourists and locals alike, one of the best-known steakhouses in the United States and still keeping quality high. They’re currently ranked a top 40 steakhouse in the U.S., and they serve a pretty good steak!(Wolf Lodge Inn, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho)Yes, I visited this establishment too where I devoured a 53-ounce steak (1,503 grams) also called the Rancher. That’s over 3.3 pounds of delicious beef, definitely my personal record. The Quora story about that incident can be found below.It didn’t beat out the steak quality at Hitching Post II in Southern California, or Pappas Bros. in Dallas, or Bern’s in Tampa, or other great steaks around the world. But it was very good! The menu has been altered now. Sadly, the 53-ouncer is no longer. A mere 32-ounce Rancher (907 grams) is the maximum cut these days. You might picture me as a stocky gentleman, but I’m actually quite thin.Thankfully, Wolf Lodge Inn has kept quality high, maintaining a 4.8 rating on Facebook, a 4.7 on Google, and a 4.5 on TripAdvisor, just for proof of quality. And its spin-off Wolf Creek was far better in its heyday.Category 2: BEST STEAK EVER (any animal allowed)Sumaq Hotel (Aguas Calientes, Peru)When in Rome … or in this case, when at the base of Peru’s famed Machu Picchu … do as the Peruvians do, right? Our family was vacationing at this lovely five-star resort with a heralded chef. The restaurant was highly recommended. After a day of hiking all over the magnificent Incan ruins of Machu Picchu, we sat down for dinner. On the menu, I noticed an alpaca steak, something uncommon in America but popular in Peru. This was my opportunity! Being an adventurous eater, I went for it.(alpaca above, cute and also tasty)This steak was the most tender, delicious, flavorful steak I have ever eaten in my life, similar in appearance to the alpaca steak pictured below! It was almost indescribably amazing! OH MY! My compliments to the chef!A steak should practically melt in your mouth, with soft, succulent texture, overwhelming your taste buds with beefy flavors as the tender meat effortlessly separates as you bite into it. It’s a heavenly experience! This surpassed the steak of any cattle I’ve ever had, not because alpaca is superior to beef, but because the chef was so darn good! And that will probably be the best steak I will ever eat in my lifetime.Although, when I prepare my filet mignon medallions with red wine caramelized onions at home, it’s right up there with the best!Will we ever agree on the best steak?Absolutely not. We all have different tastes. There are many wonderful recommendations in the comments below, and many amazing steak experiences around the world. And of course, the usual trolls have made an appearance as well, those who don’t read the post thoroughly before publicizing their misinterpretations for all to see. But what can you do?Some people will give McDonald’s a five-star rating. Some think Outback Steakhouse serves quality food. Some will give one star to the best steak in the world because they cannot taste the difference A good friend of mine can’t tell the difference between Parmigiano-Reggiano imported from Italy at $23 per pound, and that fake Kraft Parmesan that comes in a green can. Again, what can you do? We’re all entitled to an opinion.The best American steakhouses right now!Tired of hundreds of Top 10 steak lists that all disagreed with each other, many of which were disappointing experiences, I created a Top 100 steak list for the U.S. and drove all over America for years to try them all. How did I objectively come up with such a list? As mentioned, we all have different opinions, so nailing down a top 100 list is difficult. There was only one way for me to apply my two math degrees and compile a reasonably accurate, purely objective top 100 list.Step 1: What do the experts say? I tracked down all the great steakhouses that have impressed professional critics and chefs. Michelin, Gayot, Zagat, etc., I combed through every one of them to narrow down my list to just under 200 impeccable choices.Step 2: What do the customers say? I scoured TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google to compile user ratings. Are they perfectly accurate? Of course not. But when the people have spoken, and thousands of customers bestow a five-star rating on your steakhouse, with very few one-star reviews, you must have something special. It’s a large enough sample size mathematically to be reliable. Of course, these ratings are for the restaurant and not necessarily the steak. But all of these contenders are steakhouses, and I’m sure a large consideration for most of the ratings were based on the steak experience, not the salad and rolls. So I’m okay with it.I’ve used this method to sort out the best in America, and I’ve never been disappointed by the results. It’s worked for barbecue, pizza, fried chicken, cheesecake, seafood, you name it. And it worked for steak as well. So, according to professionals, and the public, here are the top 25 steakhouses in America right now!Give them a try. This list will be a lot more accurate than those ridiculous lists you’ll read in a magazine. Our family has visited all 25 of these and they were all very good. Enjoy!Top 25Jeff Ruby’s The Precinct (Cincinnati, Ohio) - 4.635 (tied for the best on Google, 3rd best on Yelp, 4th best on TripAdvisor)Pappas Bros. Steakhouse (Dallas, Texas) - 4.631 (tied for the best on Google, 4th best on Yelp, 3rd best on TripAdvisor)Guard and Grace (Denver, Colorado) - 4.590 (2nd best on Yelp, 7th best on TripAdvisor)Archie’s Waeside (Le Mars, Iowa) - 4.589 (9th best on Yelp, best on TripAdvisor)Chandlers Prime Steaks & Fine Seafood (Boise, Idaho) - 4.588 (7th best on Yelp, 2nd best on TripAdvisor)Doris Metropolitan (New Orleans, Louisiana) - 4.584 (5th best on Yelp and TripAdvisor)Barclay Prime (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) - 4.577 (tied for best on Google, 6th best on Yelp, 16th best on TripAdvisor)J. Gilbert’s Wood-Fired Steaks & Seafood (Omaha, Nebraska) - 4.565 (tied for best on Google, 12th best on Yelp, 10th best on TripAdvisor)Cattleman’s Club Steakhouse (Pierre, South Dakota) - 4.550 (tied for best on Google, 8th best on Yelp, 19th best on TripAdvisor)Cattleman’s Steakhouse at Indian Cliffs Ranch (Fabens, Texas) - 4.545 (10th best on Yelp, 8th best on TripAdvisor)The rest:11.) Butcher & Singer (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)12.) Chamberlain’s Steak & Chop House (Dallas, Texas)13.) Lewnes’ Steakhouse (Annapolis, Maryland)14.) Mahogany Prime Steakhouse (Omaha, Nebraska)15.) Alpen Rose (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)16.) Bohanan’s Prime Steak and Seafood (San Antonio, Texas)17.) RPM Steak (Chicago, Illinois)18.) Oak Steakhouse (Charleston, South Carolina)19.) Maple & Ash (Chicago, Illinois)20.) Metropolitan Grill (Seattle, Washington)21.) Perini Ranch (Buffalo Gap, Texas)22.) Bern’s Steak House (Tampa, Florida)23.) Al Biernat’s (Dallas, Texas)24.) Kayne Prime (Nashville, Tennessee)25.) House of Prime Rib (San Francisco, California)If you interested: My favorite food in every state, another Quora articleWhat about Peter Luger’s?Having fielded several comments about Brooklyn’s famous Peter Luger Steak House, and its conspicuous absence from the Top 25 list above, allow me to address that topic below to hopefully minimize such comments where I find myself repeatedly explaining our point of view.The Top 25 above is simply objective statistical analysis, and not necessarily our personal opinion. Complain to Zagat, Gayot, Yelp, TripAdvisor, etc., and not to me. Now, despite being based on food critics and thousands of public reviews (rather than our viewpoint), the rankings do correlate pretty closely to our personal experiences (our family has done all 25 steakhouses, I’ve done the top 100). The public has spoken as a large, statistically relevant sample size, and the herd offers tremendously accurate ratings. Critics, chefs, and diners (as an average) rank Peter Luger’s just outside the Top 40, if you must know. So it’s highly-regarded, just not Top 25 material. Sorry to disappoint you. If you have a different opinion, write an answer to the original question.Our family of professional chefs has been to Peter Luger’s several times (we literally have family living right down the street from it) and we typically enjoy the steak. We find that it’s a bit overrated for all the hype, but family members rank it somewhere between 26th and 40th in the U.S. depending on which family member you ask. We also find that this Top 50 rating is becoming indicative of its former climax rather than its current state as the quality seems to be declining.If you haven’t eaten at ALL of the Top 25 above (as we have), or even 10 of that Top 25, how do you know Peter Luger’s is the best?A New York Times critic wrote in 2019, “Peter Luger used to sizzle. Now it sputters.” People, not just us, are noticing the decline.Our list does not suddenly become invalid and our reputation tarnished just because you think Peter Luger’s should be in the Top 10, while a family of chefs and numerous critics disagree with you. That’s unnecessary.If you were truly confident that Peter Luger Steak House deserves a spot at the top of the list, wouldn’t you have written an answer to the original question for all to see, rather than hiding in my comment section?