Walking through the Strip District past Strip District Meats I noticed Ostrich Steaks for sale on their sign. We were pretty intrigued. We’ve never eaten ostrich before and I think that’s enough reason to try something. So we bought two.

The lady checking us out didn’t seem to agree with our curiosity. She said “Whoa, this much money (I think it was a little under $20) for these two little guys. They’d better be some damn good steaks.” Not the most encouraging checkout conversation.

I found out that ostrich meat is kinda cool. I was curious about dark red poultry. Which makes sense with ostriches not flying and running really long distances. So, lots of slow twitch myoglobin heavy muscles. Also, ostrich meat is lower fat and they grow faster and reproduce more often than cows. They eat anything too, apparently.

I checked modernist cuisine for a cooking temperature, decided on 55.5. I intended to cook them in my circulator, then sear them, then a quick sauce. I got them vacuum bagged, but opened them up, seasoned them and foodsavered them. The vacuum pulled on them for original packaging was too high and squeezed the ends to points. The flesh was pretty tender, so this probably wasn’t too hard to do. That’s why it looks sorta like liver. Not the most appetizing steak shape.

I think we built up how exotic we thought it was going to taste. We were a little underwhelmed with the flavor. Not that it was bad at all. It was just a whole lot like beef. I think I could feed people ostrich in place of beef and trick them. But it was like a pretty good steak and considering the possible benefits over beef its pretty neat.