Wagshals is the best for off the shelf. Whole Foods is pretty close competition as they do offer dry aged, and meat is usually pretty well marbled. Costco often has USDA prime for a very good price, however, though Whole Foods is not USDA certified, it often has marbling comparable to USDA prime.

I actually get my meat from Costco more often than not and dry age it myself in my refrigerator for 28 days. A lot of waste, but amazing steakhouse comparable taste for a fraction of the price.

I'm guessing you don't have time to dry age yourself, so go with Wagshals or Whole Foods dry aged steaks.

Wagshal's steaks are all prime and a NY Strip was about $28 a pound the last time I was there (so basically $28 for one steak). They are very good but that will be an expensive barbecue!

I bought steaks last week from Fresh Market. They were amazing. I could have cut them with a butter knife.

Organic Butcher in McLean.

Costco's also very good.

BTW I think Whole Foods has great steaks, but the Wagshal's recommender sounds like he/she knows what she's talking about.
If you're ever in Georgetown, Stachowski's, at 27th & P St., is a great meat shop.

Careful with the grass-fed. It requires a whole different grilling technique.

Conventional steaks (feed-lot, corn-finished beef) are highly marbled, i.e., streaked with fat. That creates a very juicy steak. The conventional grilling method is high direct heat for a few minutes on each side, to create a sear on each side, followed by a bit of time on the cooler side of the grill (or in the oven) to finish the inside to the desired degree of doneness.

A grass-fed steak is much lower fat, more lean/muscular. Great beef flavor. But you can't do the high-heat searing technique. You'll turn it into shoe leather. Instead, you want to do it lower and slower, for a gently cooked-through result. (The Argentinians, whose beef is all grass-fed, do it this way.) It won't be as juicy and melt-in-your-mouth as corn-finished steak, but if you do it right, it will still get tender and will have a through-and-through beef flavor. You may do better with a sauce of some kind for this (chimichurri, bearnaise, your favorite BBQ sauce, whatever).

I'm all for grass-fed beef--more humane, sustainable, etc. But if you haven't done it before, and you're grilling for guests, go with the regular steaks and do it your regular way.

Your local farmers market for grass-fed beef. Yum!

it depends , our safeway is better than whole fools because there is a butcher

Anonymous wrote:Yes, Whole Foods steaks are much better than Giant and Safeway's. Even better than WF is Wagshal's. The location in Spring Valley/AU Park isn't far from Bethesda at all and it's definitely worth a trip.

Thanks very much! I will try Wagshal's.

They all suck go to rockville, Halah butcher

Costco also has fantastic steaks for half the price of Whole Foods.

Whole Foods or Fresh Market are both leaps and bounds above Safeway/Giant.

Yes, Whole Foods steaks are much better than Giant and Safeway's. Even better than WF is Wagshal's. The location in Spring Valley/AU Park isn't far from Bethesda at all and it's definitely worth a trip.

I want to grill seome steaks for friends coming into town, but I want higher quality than you can get at Giant, Safeway etc. Is Whole Foods much better? Any recommendations? I live in Bethesda.