Pretty much everyone loves a good steak. After all — unless you’re vegetarian or vegan — there’s nothing quite like a nice cut of beef, grilled or fried nicely with a little bit of seasoning, and served with a nice batch of fries or potatoes. The problem is, however, that there is such a thing as a bad steak. And there are plenty of mistakes to make when cooking up a steak, of course: you might overcook or undercook it, you might cut into bone in ribeye cast iron too soon, or, of course, you might start things off with the wrong cut of beef.

It’s probably important to point out that few cuts of steak are genuinely nasty. Some are better than others, sure, but most have some kind of purpose and there aren’t many that you ought to genuinely avoid at any cost. Then again, there is the beef round. It’s a large primal cut of the cow, mainly coming from its rear leg and rump.

It’s made up of three parts — the top, the tip, and the bottom. Let’s start with the top round. It’s basically the most tender part of the round, though that’s not saying much, and tends to be extremely tough and lean. Otherwise known as sirloin tip, this lean, boneless cut might do you a good kabob or stew, but the connective tissue in there means that, unless you braise it, it’s going to turn out all chewy and gross. Finally, there’s the bottom round — which includes the eye of round, a cut of meat The Splendid Table once called “one of the few unredeemable cuts of meat.