I’m not one to leave negative reviews, but I am honestly taken aback by the steak I received today from El Ranchito. I’ve cooked hundreds of steaks myself, I’ve eaten steak at every level of restaurant imaginable, in multiple countries, and never have I been so offended to have paid for food.

I’ll fully admit I was taking a risk ordering steak for takeout from a Mexican restaurant. But I’ve gotten great steak skewers from Arriba in East Aurora, it’s my birthday, I was busy shuttling around the kids, and I decided to roll the dice. Hopefully my loss can heed as a warning to others.

I ordered “Fiesta Carne Asada” for $28.99. Fiesta is Spanish for “an event marked by festivities or celebration”. I would fathom a guess that whoever cooked this steak has never participated in a fiesta with the exception of secondhand or through the eyes of others. This steak was prepared by someone who not only has an overwhelming contempt for others, but likely for their self. If you asked me a day ago if you could psychoanalyze someone by the way they prepared a steak, I would have laughed at you, but here I am debating whether or not I should order another and submit it to Quantico so they can study it and add it to their toolkit in identifying serial killers.

I honestly do not know how you get a ribeye cut to taste so displeasing and offensive. Did they forget to season it? Did they boil it? It appeared as if they boiled it and then seared both sides for 45 seconds resulting in a well done appearance with the texture of an old shoe. That might sound like hyperbole, but I kid you not, I now understand the phrase “shoe leather” when referring to steak.

The cherry on top of all of this, the pinnacle of this tragic experience, is that I thought, well, at least my cat and my dog might get something out of this. I proceeded to feed a few pieces of the steak to my dog and one or two to my cat. Before I could throw the rest away, my ears were greeted with the unmistakable “glug, glug” noise that my dog makes as she’s about to puke. I managed to get her outside just in time for her to throw up copious amounts all over my porch. Then, thinking she was done, I brought her back inside. She was not. She proceeded to puke all over her bed and the floor. I’ve learned two things from this experience: these steaks are not fit for consumption by man or beast and that my cat has the constitution of a sailor three months at sea.

Look, I’m not one to harbor resentment. Live and let learn. But my one request, my one hope, is that whoever prepared this steak seeks the therapy they desperately need. That cow was a living creature too and deserved so much better.