Wagyu is really amazing, but benefits from Japanese cooking styles (or Korean ;-) ). Although some people with a lot of money eat wagyu steaks, I would readily

Wagyu is really amazing, but benefits from Japanese cooking styles (or Korean ;-) ). Although some people with a lot of money eat wagyu steaks, I would readily trade one for a well hung British steak. The texture and depth of flavour is better as far as I'm concerned. But if I'm eating yaki niku, nothing is going to come close to wagyu. A colleague in London mentioned to me that there is a hamburger restaurant that is offering Australian "wagyu" burgers. That seems completely messed up to me as I can't see any advantages (other than marketing) to doing that. You just get an expensive burger where most of the money has melted away and been deposited in buckets under the grill. Personally, I'm happy to see Australia get in on raising this kind of beef. There is quite a lot of demand for wagyu and there is no way that Japan can supply it. I would like to see an appallation for wagyu, but even now everything in my supermarket clearly indicates where everything is from (in some cases down to having a picture of the farmer!), so it's not such a big deal in Japan. One interesting point in the article is the ever present US complaint about the Japanese not buying their farm produce. Especially for iconic Japanese food like wagyu, nobody is going to buy anything foreign. The best you will get is some big beer garden restaurants buying it to save some money. Even then, it's unlikely because Japanese people either demand local produce or produce produced in famous areas. If it is the latter, they are willing to pay truly exorbitant prices for it.