The One Word To Avoid When Ordering At A Steakhouse

If you've ever eaten at a steakhouse, you know that there are plenty of different ways to order a steak. Regardless of your preference, though, there's one word you should avoid adding to your request — the word "plus."

In the context of a steak, plus refers to the internal temperature. You're essentially asking the chef to cook your "plus" steak to a slightly higher temperature than the norm. For example, medium rare steak is usually cooked between 130 and 135 degrees Fahrenheit, while medium is 140 to 145, so a medium rare plus steak would be cooked somewhere between 135 and 140 degrees. There are plenty of chef-approved steak secrets to achieve juicy steaks, but this is not one of them.

The main reason you should avoid ordering your steak this way is because it's incredibly hard to achieve. Fine-tuning the temperature to that level of precision, especially when chefs likely have multiple other steaks cooking simultaneously, is almost impossible. To this end, the chef may cook your steak according to the standard chart regardless. According to a chef commenting on Reddit, if a customer ordered a steak medium rare plus: "I would cook it to an internal temp of 130 [degrees Fahrenheit]. Which is medium rare."

The inverse of ordering steak plus is "minus," where you're ordering the steak at a slightly lower temperature than the norm. However, this is no more advisable than ordering plus, for the same reasons. Ordering steak plus or minus is not widely accepted in the restaurant industry, and serving staff may not be happy with you for being so particular. One server on Reddit says of customers ordering a steak plus or minus: "I always hated it and I always will. You have to be so incredibly entitled [to order this way]." 

Despite the old saying, the customer isn't always right. If you want a steak fine-tuned to the point where you need to specify the temperature beyond the normal steak cooking range, it's best just to make it yourself at home. If you're attempting the perfect steak in your own kitchen, don't make the biggest mistake home cooks make according to Bobby Flay — not searing at a high enough heat. And make sure you know the difference between cuts, like a ribeye and New York strip.