Prime Tri-tip at Costco - worth it?

[Omnivore]

Since it's tri-tip there's obviously no cross cut to see the actual marbling but from the top it looked pretty striated with tasty fat. Costco charges $7.99 for choice tri-tip (highway robbery, I know), but prime is only a dollar more a pound. I've worked in a couple butcher shops so I realized that "prime", "choice", and "select" are practically useless indicators but I'm just wondering if anyone's tried these.

 

[johnmeyer]

I see absolutely no reason whatsoever to get get prime tri-tip. I too have seen it at Costco, but wasn't even tempted. My local Costco has three different tri-tip offerings: the prime cut with two tri-tips (the one you're talking about); the choice equivalent of that same cut; and then a huge four choice tri-tip package where the tri-tip is butchered quite differently. My wife accidentally picked up this huge package two weeks ago, and the exterior of each cut had a lot of fat, almost like a packer. However, even after I trimmed them, the price/pound for this huge amount of meat was unbelievably low.

 

[Omnivore]

Thanks for the input John. The Costco here currently sells the 2 packs as well as these massive 15 pound vac-packs for cheaper. I'm guessing these don't come trimmed as well.

 

[tropics]

$7.99 is cheap they run around $13.00 a pound here.
Richie

 

[jlud]

Our Costco seems to only have either the prime or the choice at one time unless you wanted the marinated ones.

Prime isn’t that much more when they do have, only had the choice once, can’t recall telling the difference.

Just cooked up two of the primes tonight though....no complaints. I’m new to the cut moving to the west coast in the last year and feel amazed why this is just regional. I literally have not bought steak since buying these.