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Who would pay $265 for a steak? I did, so you don't have to. And it's not even vaguely worth the money.

We tested four Kobe/wagyu steaks: At Harbour Sixty (in the historic Toronto Harbour Commissioners building), we paid $265 for a 12-ounce Japanese Kobe strip loin. At Jacob's & Co. (the hot new steak house downtown) we paid $170 for a six-ounce Japanese Kobe strip loin. At Prime (the new steakhouse in the Windsor Arms Hotel), we paid $115 for a 10-ounce U.S. Kobe. And at the venerable Edo, we paid $60 for a three-ounce Japanese Kobe.

Kobe beef comes from wagyu cows bred in Japan. It's ironic that the world's most expensive steak hails from a nation that prohibited meat eating for about a thousand years before 1868, because of the influence of Buddhism. After that, Japan's leadership began to lean toward the West, hence the legalization of beef.

But Japanese people continued to eat little beef, mainly because they couldn't afford it. In 1980, the average Japanese ate 5.1 kilograms of beef annually, while in the West we were eating 10 times that much.

By the early 1960s, Japan's rice production had become mechanized, which led to a glut of cattle since they were no longer needed to work the rice paddies.

Rapid economic growth in the postwar period also put enough money in Japanese consumers' pockets to get them on the beef bandwagon.

Beef became so exciting that the Japanese government soon decided to recognize and register premium wagyu cattle, in the same way that France regulates premium wines and cheeses.

Why wagyu? Because those cows give beef with an unusually high degree of fat marbling, which makes the steak outrageously tender.

Then the United States got in on the act. Ranchers in California and Idaho bought wagyu cows from Japan and raised them on the best-quality feed. But inbreeding has its limits, so they began to throw a black Angus into the mix sometimes.

This also weakened the gene pool, with the result that American-raised wagyu isn't the same quality as the Japanese. On the upside, the U.S. beef is much cheaper.

At Jacobs & Co., we eat a six-ounce wagyu strip loin from Japan for $170 and a 12-ounce wagyu strip loin from Idaho for $94.

The Japanese steak is so marbled it's pink instead of the usual red. It's so tender you can cut it with a butter knife; both taste and mouthfeel are halfway between butter and steak. This is where steak meets foie gras.

The Idaho wagyu, on the other hand, is neither fish nor fowl. It lacks the juicy red manliness of a normal steak, and isn't nearly as fat-marbled or as tender as its Japanese cousin.

We count the occupants of the (full) dining room at Jacobs one evening. The ratio of men to women is 9:1.

This is the crowd that likes a luxe resto where you're led through the big basement bar, up some stairs, past a long glass meat-aging room and finally into the expensive-looking dining room with big beige ultrasuede banquettes (for big men) and low lighting.

The fixings at Jacobs are as much fun as watching paint dry. Warm cheese popovers stand in for bread, but they aren't a patch on my mom's Yorkshire pudding, being a tad dry. Lobster Cobb salad ($18) has no taste, the dressing is AWOL and it's thrown together in a bowl instead of the traditional little lines of ingredients.

They make a big show of prepping Caesar salad tableside. Taste buds say ho-hum. The sauces that appear with steak (ponzu, chimichurri and blue cheese with bacon) are appallingly heavy.

As for spinach gratin, a big cake of not-quite-melted cheese atop plain spinach is no fun. And the $11 frites are overcooked.

At Harbour Sixty, which has a flashy and trashy look and serves truly heinous apps and sides (flavour-free lobster martini for $35.95, fries that taste frozen, creamed spinach with way too much gummy white sauce), we eat a 12-ounce Japanese wagyu steak for $265. As at Jacobs, this pedigreed hunk of meat (yes, they have a scroll to prove its lineage) is too fatty. I love steak. I have rarely met a steak I didn't enjoy - until wagyu.

To confuse matters, Prime, the new steakhouse in the Windsor Arms Hotel, serves American but not Japanese Kobe; their American Kobe strip loin ($115 for 10 ounces) tastes better than the other American Kobes.

Could the gorgeous room (textured bamboo wallpaper and comfy hound's-tooth banquettes) have influenced us? The happy fixings? Because the Windsor Arms seems to have fixed its previously pathetic kitchen: Clam chowder is light and brimful of fresh tender clams. Ungreasy fried oysters sit pretty atop a small chunk of lobster in richly tarragon-scented béarnaise.

The frites are fresh, crisp and blessed with dangerously creamy house-made mayo.

The Kobe steak arrives proud, naked, in the centre of a plain white plate.

It has fabulous flavour and is significantly more tender than a normal steak but does not veer into the excess fattiness of the Japanese Kobe. Prime also does a Kobe burger for $27. This hunk of pleasure between crispy buns is thick and red, a carnivore's dream.

If one is going to try Japanese wagyu beef, Edo is the place to go. Think roots: It's Japanese meat, bred in Japan, and shouldn't be treated in the Western manner.

Wagyu is appropriately used as an accent, a small special flavour hit in a Japanese meal.

Chef Ryo Ozawa of Edo only does wagyu with two days notice, as part of a $150 omakase menu.

You get a three-ounce Japanese wagyu rib eye, broiled rare. As with foie gras, a little goes a long way.

Served small in the middle of omakase, wagyu morphs from overwhelming and obnoxious to divine decadence.

Jacobs & Co.

12 Brant St., Toronto. 416-366-0200. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $500.

Harbour Sixty

60 Harbour St. 416-777-2111.

Wagyu dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $500.

Prime Steakhouse

in the Windsor Arms Hotel

18 St. Thomas St. 416-971-9666. Wagyu dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $450.

Edo

494 Eglinton Ave. W. 416-322-3033. Wagyu omakase dinner for two with wine, tax and tip, $375.