Well some people, including the young me, would send steaks with spices and sauces back. I liked them thick, bloody and without anything. Somehow I always thought that most cooks put way too much salt on really good meat so I asked, in restaurants as (annoying) little boy, to leave the salt and spices and would send it back if it had any. It was a short phase I guess. Now I find it boring.
But you are right; you can make exciting food with mostly anything. Even, god forbid, veggies! (seems that angry meat eaters are also dead against anything that resembles a vegetable; they eat the steak, leave everything else on the plate).
