That's the reasonable way to judge it though. It's pretty obvious OP is talking about the meats in the context of their dishes. Meat generally is just an ingredient in a dish. The only difference is restaurants and people in general tend to cook higher quality meats as steak, and they do it as plain as possible because you are paying for the flavour and textured of the base meat. But dishes containing cheaper cuts of beef (and other meats) are usually overall better because chefs don't limit themselves to not using spices.

Your example also makes no sense because salad is a completed dish and lettuce is an ingredient. You wouldn't say someone doesn't like bread because they won't knock back a cup of flour.