Either kitchen staff didn't know what they were doing, or whoever placed the meat order bought the cheapest cuts of beef (cut as well as quality) to keep a lid on costs. I wager it's probably the latter and the kitchen staff did know what they were doing but were told they had to do cook it to conform to the menu. I'm finding a lot of beef these days (from a premium supermarket at that) - or even the past few years - can be pretty tasteless even if tender and cooked correctly. This supermarket chain when privately-held boasted that it only sold the top 14-16% of AAA-graded beef. Standards were eventually relaxed and defaulted to the supplier's claim of top 2/3rds of AAA-graded beef (it's branded), and the last time I checked, even the supplier has dropped the top 2/3rd claim.