€20, uvedobletaberna.com Restaurante Sollo, Benalmádena Extraordinary, ambitious dishes at this out-of-town restaurant feature sturgeon meat, caviar, trout ceviche and ox-steak – all beautifully presented.
The texture of the latter may be more squid than steak, but ox tongue, here seasoned with salt and lemon, delivers a sensationally beefy flavour – better, in fact, than most modern beef.
As an alternative, there was halibut with ox tail and smoked fillet steak with shallot, egg yolk and foie gras.
It lies in the gutsier, more robust cooking and laid back vibe at the likes of Flinty Red with its small plates, the smokey woodfired oven of Bristol Lido, the recently reborn Bell's Diner, glorious steaks at the Ox, and the terrific Wallfish Bistro, on the site of what was the great Keith Floyd's first business.
A nice steak helps, as does an ox or horse to pull a plough and make the agricultural life more productive.
So look for cuts such as shin of beef or ox cheek, which look a bit gristly, rather than casserole steak.
This is Captain Ho, 89 years old and still serving Mrs Beeton favourites like Ox Tail or Mulligatawny soup, Welsh Rarebit, and the Coliseum special, Sizzling Steak, which sizzles so much on the hot plate that diners are obliged to endure a ritual of hiding behind a large white bib.
The three-course menu features one regular dish, a 20oz fillet steak, in addition to such changing concoctions as ox-cheek paired with cod.
The beef and pork they display is from the family farm eight miles up the road, and cuts both traditional and in tune with modern Cork are on sale; in addition to rich red ribeye and rolled joints, customers can buy ox kidneys with the suet on and the beef skirt and flank steaks popular with the local Brazilian community.
Ox hearts, as the beef variety are more commonly known, could be mistaken for a lean steak when flash-fried, while the same treatment for lamb hearts would make you think you were eating the liver.
