Thanks for the replies yall. I think I have figured out where the difference lies in good cuts of meat from an actual meat store and meat from the supermarket. To experiment a little further I went to the local supermarket and asked for some bone in ribeyes. The butcher said OK no problem so I thought I was in business, I told him how thick (1.75") and he went in the back to cut it for me. He cam back and the meat looked good, but it was different in presentation first of all because this butcher cut where ever the blade landed...in other words he would cut through the bone on one of the steaks and there was two peices of two different bones onthe other steak. (And there was no bone sticking out of the end to grab a hold of after a few beers). No big deal but you eat with your eyes first right? The meat market butcher actually took time to give me 1/2 the meat on each side of the bone and one bone per steak, not two half peices of bone...but again no big deal. *Side note these steaks were SELECT, not CHOICE like the photos at begining of post. So I took these bad boys home and unwrapped them and seasoned them up
similar to the way I did the other ones, I say
similar because the end result was kind of salty, I think because I put more seasoning on these this go around. After it was all said and done they cooked up good, I may have cooked them a little too much for my liking, but all in all it was good eatin.
Sorry I forgot to take a picture before the wife got her little nibble of of this one. Oh and I threw on some chicken wrapped in bacon and stuck on a skewer. How about that though...this is the second steak and that is all the wife eats is one little nibble, the rest is mine!
But back to the conclusion of the experiment. I believe it has to do with how the meat was aged. DRY AGED vs WET AGED. The dry aged meat from the higher end meat market was far better than the other meat, but I guess for me...because of the price it will only be a treat every now and then because the select grade steak from the supermarket was good enough and much cheaper. I will say this though...if you have not treated yourself to some good DRY AGED beef, go ahead and give it a try and see for yourself if you can taste a difference...because I sure could.