Sunday, September 14, 2008

Brontosaurus Ribs!

Man, the past week could not have been better.

The good stuff, I will not share. Instead I will talk about the steak.

First, the crowd: Mike Le's fateful return from abroad and his birthday necessitated a celebration of sorts. Hannah, Melissa, Melissa (not a typo), Ruthson, Matt, Michael and Eric made it out for dinner.

But more importantly, the steak. At Ben & Jack's (free plug). Funny thing, I've been talking about them as Ben & Jerry'; still have work ice cream on the brain.

So this steakhouse, looks all fancy in their front bar and everything. Go into the back and it feels like an old Italian restaurant. Fine. Moving along, we get seated and everything's cool.

Then everything is uncool. We open the winelist and it's depressingly overpriced. Fine, it's Mike's birthday, we'll compromise and get two bottles instead of three. (Last time we went all out at Bobby Flay's, we spent $90 a person). Wine comes, it's decent whatever. (Yes, getting to the steak).

There are a series of steak choice, striploin, prime rib, rib eye. The one that caught OUR eye: a 'Steak for 4'. Jay, Matt, Mike and myself were going to hit that so hard. We had visions of a brontosaurus rib. For posterity, we asked the waiter to NOT cut the meat so we could bask in its meatiness.

Waiter: "No no no, we do the cutting for you, you don't understand, we do it right."

Fine, this steak better be amazing. Precut meat is not something expected. Between the order and the arrival, a waiter comes and put a little sauce plate upside down on the table. Curious, we stare at it wondering (but not touching) the odd placement of this dish.

The arrival.

The meat comes and the dude says the plate is HOT. When he sat it down, it sizzled the table. It was two giant T-bones, all cut up. We get one of each side of the T (whatever they are). It was like 3/4 inches thick and cooked perfectly. Beautiful sear on the outside while maintaining this nice juicy interior.

Steak for 4. Perfect amount for 4 dudes. The rest of the night? We drank a ton at the Park. We all know how that story goes.

And the plate? It was used to tilt the steak dish so we could harvest the fat as sauce. The fat made the night all that much better.

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Song Of The Moment: The Rocker Summer - Colors
Comment: Should be spelled with a 'U'