Can You Import Kobe Beef to the Us

Kobe beef is the globe'due south nigh famous red meat, but likewise misunderstood, extremely rare, and cloaked in mystery. Kobe is an actual place, and its beef is 1 regional fashion of Japanese Wagyu (the cattle brood), as Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon is to all American cabernet. Japanese Wagyu, including Kobe, is more widely bachelor in this land than ever before, which is skillful news for food lovers. The bad news? It is even so scarce, and merely a sliver of the many restaurants claiming to serve it offer the real thing. Instead, many serve what'due south known in the trade as "wangus," a hybrid of domestically raised Wagyu breeds and common Angus and call it Kobe. Some don't even bother using any Wagyu breed at all.

An Inside Edition report a few months ago publicly shamed New York establishments Old Homestead Steakhouse and Le Bernardin for having Kobe on their menus that wasn't Kobe (Le Bernardin, which did actually apply another high quality existent Japanese regional Wagyu, apologized and quickly inverse their menu wording). After upscale brands including McCormick & Schmick'south settled course action lawsuits for erroneously claiming to serve loftier-priced Kobe beef, many menus switched to the vaguer "Wagyu." Despite the outcry, consumers still don't often know the difference betwixt the terms.

Wagyu

Meaning "Japanese moo-cow," Wagyu traditionally refers to four historically Japanese breeds: blackness (the most prevalent, nearly 90%), brownish (aka red), polled (hornless), and shorthorn. Genetics gear up pure Wagyu apart from all other beef with vastly superior marbling and fat quality. At its best, fat is evenly dispersed and does not appear in bands or clumps, but every bit either tiny pinhead dots or a web of ultra-thin veins throughout the entire muscle. While well-nigh raw steaks are red and white, Wagyu is uniformly pink, a highly integrated blend of meat and fatty. It'south too unusually high in healthier unsaturated fatty acids—peculiarly oleic acid, which is responsible for flavor. These monounsaturated fats have a lower melting point, beneath man body temperature, so they literally melt in your oral fissure . Instantly recognizable, Japanese Wagyu looks and tastes markedly different from almost all other beefiness.

Nippon has amid the world's strictest meat grading rules, and while each carcass is graded on four characteristics, near important is "Beef Marbling Standard," from 1-12. USDA Prime, our highest marbling grade, equates to about four. Most domestic Wagyu or hybrids would score 6-9, while Kobe usually ranks ten or college. The four factors are converted into a final score from one-5, and assigned a alphabetic character based on yield, and then the highest possible score is A5, though A4 is withal splendid.

Nigh cattle have been repeatedly crossbred to abound bigger, faster, hardier, or fattier. Our about pop beef breed, "Angus," is and then diluted that the USDA definition does not crave even ane drop of genetics from its namesake precursor, Scotland's prized Aberdeen Angus, "The Butcher'south Breed." Conversely, Japanese Wagyu ranchers captivate about pure bloodlines to preserve the coveted traits. Legal rules for Kobe beef, raised but in Hyogo prefecture, require the cattle to exist 100% pure Tajima, a strain of black Wagyu, built-in inside the prefecture—and whose every known ancestor was besides, sometimes going back centuries.

Kobe Beef

Kobe is the near acclaimed of several prominent regional Wagyu, though as with the Napa cabernet comparison, the all-time from other regions are just as succulent (top regional Wagyu include Matsuzaka, Omi, Sendai, Mishima, Hokkaido, and Miyazaki). Stories of cattle reared on classical music, beer, and massages, while allowed, are largely myths. But, the Hyogo government keeps the 12 most platonic bulls in a special facility, using their semen to inseminate all cows. Every ounce of Kobe beef eaten worldwide was fathered by i of these dozen perfect marbling specimens. However, not much is eaten worldwide. Later slaughter and grading, just half the Tajima cattle qualify as Kobe, 3-iv,000 head per year, less than i midsize U.S. cattle ranch. Today, enough reaches the U.S. to satisfy the average beef consumption of just 77 Americans. It's and then scarce that Kobe's marketing board licenses individual restaurants, and real Kobe beef is available at just eight restaurants in the entire country (encounter the listing) , while none, ever, is sold at retail.

Flavor Wagyu is very rich, tender, and fatty, oft compared to foie gras or butter. The beginning bite is amazing, and as fat coats your tongue and suppresses taste, each subsequent seize with teeth is a piffling less so. For this reason, portions in Japan are very minor, 3-four ounces as an entree, thin slices seared rare, served off the bone. You never get a 32-ounce Wagyu T-os. Real Wagyu/Kobe is too fatty (and much too pricey) for burger grinds, so Wagyu burgers are most surely not the real thing —they may alloy in some domestic Wagyu or hybrid wangus, but often only slap the name on normal beef (this is legal for restaurants).

Wagyu elsewhere is often crossbred to mirror local tastes. Every crossbred generation loses one-half of the special marbling and fatty characteristics of true Wagyu. Commonwealth of australia, a major producer and exporter, typically crosses Wagyu with traditional dairy breeds such as Holstein. In the U.S., Wagyu is most often crossed with Angus, and USDA regulations require only 46.9% Wagyu genetics for beef sold at retail. Exempt from these labelling requirements, restaurants tin can call any beefiness Wagyu, and often practice.

Tips

Domestic or Australian Wagyu and Wagyu hybrids tin be excellent meat, often superior to practiced conventional beef, and is not something to be afraid of. Only information technology will almost certainly not give you the uniquely succulent experience of Japanese beef. If you are not at ane of the eight certified restaurants, simply presume any Kobe beefiness merits is a lie, especially "Kobe" burgers and hot dogs. More menus are listing domestic or American Kobe: Avoid this, it's a semantic impossibility on par with domestic Scotch Whisky.

Wagyu is a murkier result. Places that bother to source the existent thing well-nigh always highlight information technology, then look for "from Japan" and the name of a specific place such as Miyazaki, one of the more available regional Wagyu. Japanese beef can only be legally imported in boneless cuts—run abroad from whatsoever porterhouse or rib steak posing as imported Wagyu. The real thing is always boneless, usually strip, ribeye or filet. While high price is not a guarantee of quality, depression price is a big red flag: Always expensive, Japanese Wagyu typically starts at $twenty an ounce and can easily run twice that, then fifty-fifty a pocket-sized serving for under $60-$80 is likely an impostor. If still in doubt, ask what region information technology's from and where the restaurant got information technology, as there are very few suppliers. If the waiter or chef hesitates or doesn't know precisely, that'south a bad sign, as real Wagyu takes a lot of try to procure. Finally, many pundits propose request for official paperwork, but while all Japanese beef does come with impressive certificates boasting seals and nose prints, these tin can be old, faked, and fifty-fifty when authentic, are nigh impossible to make sense of.