Category Archives: Non-Steakhouse Steaks

Burgers, Flash Deals, Full Points for Flavor, Italian, Nolita/Soho, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, NY Strip, Parms, Press Reviews, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye

Osteria Morini

April 7, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Morini has a new burger and I tried this strip steak too. BOTH INCREDIBLE!

My wife was recently browsing around the Instagram foodporn landscape when she came across this image of a massive rib eye:

osteria morini — Photo Credit: Osteria Morini: @OsteriaMorini on Instagram

I was immediately intrigued when she shared it with me, but I kind of just put it on the mental list of places that I needed to try. Like any fool who is just looking at photos and not actually READING captions, I missed the integral part of what was going on and why my thoughtful wife sent it to me:

“BIG news. Literally. Tonight only we are serving 120 day dry aged Tomahawk Steak. It’s on a first come basis and there are only 7, so call to reserve yours now.”

120 fucking days?!?? Wow. So a few days go by and I get this frantic text from my wife: “GET YOUR CAMERA AND MEET ME AT OSTERIA MORINI TONIGHT AT 6PM!”

I responded. “Okay. Why, what’s going on?” Then she proceeded to explain to me the details of what I had glanced over a few days earlier. She’s a very patient person. I do this often, apparently. But my mouth dropped. She had secured us one of the seven 52oz, 120-day dry-aged Pat Lafrieda/Creekstone Farms rib eyes just a week or two in advance of our 7-year wedding anniversary. They only offer them on the first Wednesday of every month, so scheduling is limited. Anyway, I ran home and got my camera, because we were about to celebrate with the best steak we’d ever eaten.

The steak is not trimmed of any excess fat, and the bone is left with all the meat still attached prior to cooking, as you can see in the Instagram photo above. This is ideal when dry-aging, because eventually you have to trim off the outer bark and you inevitably lose some meat when that happens. Better that it be fat and gristle than your spinalis dorsi. Even still, this particular cut is still left with tons of surrounding meat and tenderized fat. Ours came out to the table pre-sliced, beautifully plated and ready for gorging:

Everything is edible on this. Even the fat breaks down into a really delicious beef jelly after that much time aging.

The cap was truly something to behold. Packed with tons of flavor and so fucking tender. As for the eye (longissimus dorsi), just take a look at this perfectly cooked masterpiece of a slice:

I half expected something so funky and nutty that it would almost be unrecognizable as steak, and more akin to blue cheese. But it was mild and pleasant, not so robust that it became odd tasting, like what can happen with some long aging processes. This was just right. I was smiling the entire time. This is the best steak I’ve ever eaten. 10/10, and still a 10/10 on a second visit years later.

But let’s not brush aside the other great Italian cuisine going on here at Osteria Morini. The bar has a great selection of Italian-inspired cocktails that are really unique and interesting.

The atmosphere is home-ish and comfortable. It’s warm and inviting, with lots of wood tones.

By 8:30pm the lights had dimmed significantly and the place was wall-to-wall jammed. The food is so great, it is no wonder why. But when you take the stellar service into consideration, a packed house becomes a no-brainer. GM Phillip Buttacavoli made us feel very much at home, and all employees from servers, to kitchen staff, to bartenders were really helpful, pleasant and nice.

The foccacia table bread was warm, toasty and nicely seasoned.

We started with the stracci pasta: long, wide ribbons of egg-forward pasta with a braised wild mushroom sauce and rosemary oil.

Perfectly cooked, and delicious through and through. The other pasta dishes all sounded great too. I will definitely be back to survey more of those selections.

The steak, which was a very fair $145, came with our choice of two sides as well. We went with the parmigiano roasted asparagus and the parmigiano fingerling potatoes.

The asparagus reminded me of the kind my mother used to make. Very simply cooked but with parmigiano over the top to add in some salt and flavor. And the potatoes were perfectly crunchy and nicely seasoned all around.

For dessert, we tried the gianduja budino: a baked chocolate and hazelnut custard with candied hazelnuts, brown butter and salted chocolate cake crumbles.

I loved it. It had just the right amount of sweet and savory to strike a great balance. They even gave us some complimentary glasses of saffron and cardamom amaro to go with the dessert.

We ended up using a great Gilt City deal on this meal. My wife paid something like $145 for $200 worth of credit to apply to the bill at pretty much any Altamarea Group restaurant (except for Marea). That left us with a little bit to cover at the end.

What a fantastic meal. I can’t wait to go back!

UPDATE 8/1/18

Had a bunch of pasta dishes, which were all excellent:

Octopus was really tender, and had a nice char on the outside.

Incredible “White Label Burger.” Custom Pat LaFrieda beef blend with tomato, speck aioli, and fontina cheese with sides of parmesan and parsley onion rings and fonduta.

And crispy breaded veal wrapped in prosciutto and covered with truffle cream sauce.

OSTERIA MORINI
218 Lafayette Street
New York, NY 10012

Italian, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, NY Strip, Restaurant Reviews, West Village

Crispo

April 3, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Crispo is a gorgeous Italian joint down on 14th Street near 8th Avenue. My buddy and his girlfriend have been coming here for years. I had never heard of it, but when he told me about it, I knew we had to try it out together as a group.

We started with a bunch of apps. For that reason, and because I knew we were also going to eat pasta and steak, I took it easy on the delicious and generously portioned table bread.

First, we had a sampler app trio of speck, aged goat cheese and mozzarella rice balls. The meat and cheese came with dried fig and an apricot/fennel jam. Both the speck and the cheese were great, top quality products.

The rice balls were addicting. You can easily catch yourself popping a bunch of these in a row without even realizing what’s going on. They were perfectly fried to a golden crisp on the outside, and the inside was both firm from the rice yet oozing with delicious melty fresh mozzarella cheese. Not heavy, salty or greasy, which is the opposite of what you sometimes get when these are done wrong.

The next app was a nice, simple fried calamari. This also came with fried zucchini. There was a cornmeal aspect to the breading here, which made for a nice crisp crunch. That’s fried parsley on top, too.

Our favorite app was this crispy pork belly topped with a melted gorgonzola-stuffed fig. Underneath the pork belly was crispy polenta, and a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

This was one of the most tasty apps I’ve had in a while. In fact, I think this could be an incredibly successful entree as well if just magnified in proportion. Seriously, I could eat this all day. The fat is cut with the acid, and the funk of the cheese takes the flavors off onto a ride that’s more wild than the fucking Great Space Coaster.

So after all of that, we were finally ready for some pasta. This place seems to be somewhat famous for two pasta dishes in particular: the Spaghetti Carbonara and the truffle ravioli. I know what you’re thinking. “Spaghetti Carbonara? I can get that crap at any halfway decent Italian joint.” But here’s the rub: most Italian joints fuck up their Carbonara with cream, making a dense, salty and overly-heavy pasta eating experience. Real Carbonara, from what I understand, doesn’t have any dairy, other than the cheese you grate over the top! The creaminess is achieved via egg yolk.

Break the yolk, mix it around a bit, and you’re ready to rock. Just sprinkle in a green veggie and some crispy pig bits. I must say, this Carbonara was divine, and like none I’ve ever really tasted before. Not only was the pasta cooked just right, but the ingredients were well-balanced, and nothing was too salty. A big problem I usually have with Carbonara is sweating like a pig while I eat, because of all the FFFFFFFFFFUCKING salt that’s usually in it…

The hand made truffle ravioli were nice and al-dente, served in a simple brown butter type sauce, and the portion was large for a very reasonable price. I was expecting like six somewhat large ravioli in the bowl, not a dozen.

Now to the meat. My wife and I shared the New York Strip steak, which was simply grilled and then topped with a mound of red wine reduced onions.

The steak was cooked perfectly to medium rare.

While I wasn’t a huge fan of the onions (I’m a purist), I did find myself going into them every so often out of an enjoyed curiosity. The meat itself was nice, tender and flavorful. 8/10.

The steak also came with parmesan herb fries. These were really crispy, and the parmesan acts as a cheese-funk seasoning that replaces the standard salt. Very nice.

Last, we had some creme brûlée, pot de creme and pistachio gelato. I didn’t snap the gelato pic for some reason, but I did pull the trigger on the cremes (the two come in one dessert order – bonus).

I was blown away by the quality of the food here, the service, the ambiance and decor, and the portion sizes. I’m ashamed that this place never made it onto my radar in all its years in operation. But not just that: the prices are really fair. All of the food described here, plus about two or three alcoholic drinks per person (wine, cocktails, beer, after dinner drinks), plus a round of coffee for everyone with dessert, only came to $105 per person, with tax and tip included (we had four people at the table total). I was shocked.

Needless to say, I’ll definitely be back here, because there is a lot of shit on the menu that I want to try (like the pork shank).

CRISPO
240 W 14th St
New York, NY 10011

French, Midtown West, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye

Brasserie 8.5

March 9, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Brasserie 8.5 is part of the Patina group of restaurants. If you’re loyal to them, they’re loyal to you. What I mean by that is simply this: go to one of their restaurants, and at the end of the meal they provide you with a contact and comment card. When you supply them with an email address and date of birth, they send you a free $50 credit for your birthday, which can be used within two months of the date. My wife and I have been to many of their establishments, and we haven’t been disappointed yet. The $50 credit makes it all a bit sweeter too.

So we came here with the $50 credit this time because it was within two months of my wife’s birthday. But, to be honest, we’ve been meaning to come here for quite some time. This joint offers an amazing happy hour deal with $5 quality draft beers, $1 oysters, and a bunch of other fairly priced items. In addition to that, they have a regular $29 three-course price fix lunch, a regular $39 three-course price fix dinner, no corkage fees on Sundays and Mondays, and on Sundays they have an awesome $32 bottomless mimosa brunch buffet that takes over the whole lounge area. Amazing, and you are truly dining in elegance with impeccable service at this massive midtown restaurant. The bar area is really nice, too, and the cocktail menu has some very nice concoctions.

So let’s get down to business. My wife did the price fix menu. Her appetizer was octopus with bean puree. The octopus was soft and tender, but it had a bit of skin slime going on. Perhaps a quick char on the grill would have knocked that back a bit before plating it on the bean puree.

Her entree was branzino with kale and calamari. These were nicely cooked and the skin was crisp. However the fish taste was a bit stronger than we are usually accustomed to for branzino. Not bad in any way, just a bit more powerful than expected.

Her dessert was a pear tart with vanilla ice cream. This was a beautiful dish, and the tart was perfectly executed.

I started with this nice cylinder of tuna tartare. The tuna was fresh and the cucumbers were crisp. The dressing was minimal so as to allow the simplicity and quality of the tuna stand on its own.

My entree was, as you might have expected, their dry-aged cote de boeuf, which was topped with sauteed mushrooms.

This nice bone-in rib eye was cooked to perfection on the inside. An even medium rare through and through.

I’m giving it 8/10 for flavor. I’d say it came in at about 20oz., if I had to guess. While the meat was perfectly cooked, there was a lot of bleed out due to the fact that the outside did not have a great deal of sear or char to it. That char tends to lock in all of the meat juices, that way, when you let it rest after cooking, none of the juices pour out of the meat. I wondered if it was cooked sous vide style… but the fact that the mushrooms were plated on top of the steak didn’t help much either, as that heat and moisture would work to remove any trace of searing that was done during the cooking process.

On the side I had an order of fries and sauteed spinach. The spinach was a bit watery, but it had a good buttery-garlic flavor.

The fries were perfectly crisp, though a little light on the seasoning.

I skipped dessert and shared some of my wife’s tart. All in, this was a pretty good meal. And we did well with that $50 birthday credit. Check out the William:

BRASSERIE 8.5
9 W 57th St
New York, NY 10019

Carcass Club/Beast Feast, Chinese, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, West Village

Decoy

March 3, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

The Cake Dealer and I took on the Peking Duck feast here at Decoy with Chubby Chinese Girl and her husband. This is one of the best deals in town. For $65/pp you get four starters, two main courses, one side or rice dish, and one Peking Duck with ten pancakes, three sauces, pickled leeks, cucumber and green onion. While this isn’t a huge single carcass, it is definitely a beast feast worthy of the Carcass Club.

So let me get right down to business. The cocktails here are really nicely crafted. I tried two, the Timelessness (Hibiki, pomegranate molasses, sherry, yellow chartreuse and Laphroaig mist) and the Sitting Down For Dinner (duck fat-washed George Dickel, lemon, egg white and red wine). That second one is pictured here, along with my wife’s Smoke N Spice (Thai chili-infused Fidencio mezcal, pineapple, Aperol, Sriracha bitters and lime, served in a pineapple mug). Notice the shape of the duck created in the foam in mine:

In fact, ducks are everywhere in here as decor in paintings, or even just hanging over the tables:

You can kinda see them over the bar here as well:

Notice that guy on the right? That’s “Quinn” from the hit show Homeland. I didn’t want to intrude and get a photo (he was with a woman), but I did manage to snap this pic of the back of his head.

Alright. So here’s a nice set of snacks that came out to the table before our appetizers. Roasted Shishito peppers, roasted cauliflower, curried carrots, Chinese broccoli stems, marinated mango and pickled cucumber.

The star of the night, though, was probably this plate of “Decoy Chips,” which are fried branzino skin. These were so freaking good. They were nice and crispy, well seasoned and lightly dressed with pickled green and red onion.

Alright. Now onto the starters. First was this Kumamoto oyster topped with caviar and dressed with Yuzu. Refreshing and crisp.

Next up was oxtail dumplings. These were lightly breaded and fried to a golden crisp, and jam-packed with a generous amount of tasty stewed oxtail meat.

These grilled wagyu chunks were pretty nice. I was unable to readily identify what cut of beef they were, and I forgot to ask, but they were tender and flavorful. They came with a little mound of kimchi.

This next item is a fois gras and strawberry tart, designed and plated to look like a goose or swan.

Absolutely stunning, and really decadent to eat. Velvety smooth.

After the starters, a little shot of duck consomme came out to prepare out gullets for the Peking Duck. This was both savory and sweet. Really nice. I would drink a cup after running every morning, if I could.

We devoured the Peking Duck pretty quickly. It wasn’t all that big, but we had a lot more food coming so we didn’t mind so much. The skin was crisp, the meat was tender and flavorful, and the sauces and toppings were all really good. This may not be the best Peking Duck I’ve ever eaten, but it is certainly up there considering the value.

Our main courses were a grilled rib eye ($10 extra) and a pork “toro” dish with Korean rice cakes and Chinese sausage.

The rib eye was nicely cooked to medium rare and pre-sliced for us on a beautiful plate:

I’m not sure if that was all bleed-out underneath, or a purposeful sauce. The flavor score would be about an 8/10 on my ranking scale, mostly due to the proper cooking temperature and the wonderful char that stood up to the liquids on the plate. That’s asparagus served with it there, as well. Those were a bit under-cooked for my liking, but the tips were good.

The pork dish was actually a bit light on the actual pork, but we all enjoyed the rice cakes and Chinese sausage that were mixed in.

Our side dish was unique and delicious. This is a bowl of lightly sauteed snow pea leaves, simply executed with garlic and oil. It reminded me of some Italian greens that I cook in a similar way, like escarole or spinach, but with a more watercress-like texture.

To sum up, this place is definitely worth visiting for the duck feast. You get a ton of really good quality food for a reasonable price. In addition, the drinks and bar snacks (like the Decoy Chips) are exceptional if you just want a quick drink or a bar bite.

DECOY
529-1/2 Hudson St
New York, NY 10014

East Village, Latin/Mexican & Caribbean, Lower East Side/Chinatown, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Restaurant Reviews

Yerba Buena

February 29, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS PLACE IS CLOSED!

My sister told me about this place a while back, and she later got me and my wife a gift certificate so that we’d give it a shot. Specifically, she told me to try the “poquito picante” cocktail, made with gin, cucumber, jalapeno and lime. It was really delicious. It had that heat from the jalapeno, but it was rounded out nicely with the sweetness from the lime syrup and then cooled off with the cucumber. My wife tried the “concoction,” a fresh fruit riff on a classic egg white whiskey sour. We ordered both cocktails at the bar while we waited for our table, and we were happy to learn that all drinks were half price for an all-day happy hour at the bar on Sundays.

We started with a hamachi ceviche. This was fresh and flavorful, and garnished with sesame seeds and dried, puffed corn. It had a mild flavor and wasn’t too overpowering on the citrus.

We also shared this trio of fries: hearts of palm, avocado and watermelon.

These were really interesting. The avocado was super creamy, as expected. The hearts of palm had some starchiness to it, about which we were both a bit surprised. They tasted great though. The watermelon was an even bigger surprise, however. It was sweet, yet savory, and crunchy, yet juicy. It went perfectly with the smokey ketchup that was served with these fries.

For her entree, my wife ordered the Lechon Confitado, which is suckling pig with sunchoke-black truffle puree and kale-red chiles.

This was the winning dish. The pork was cooked perfectly – like a juicy pulled or shredded pork without the over-saucing that typically occurs at BBQ joints. The confit coking method surely helps in that regard. It was topped with some greens and pickled red onion. The earthy and delicious sunchoke puree was drizzled around the plate.

I intended to order the rib eye that was listen on the menu, but they were out. Instead, they offered me a skirt steak, so I gave that a try.

It was cooked nicely to medium rare, but just wasn’t up to standard with some of the other places I’ve had skirt recently.

I’d say this came in at about a six out of ten for a combination of flavor and quality. It was juicy, but did have a bit of bleed-out, and lacked a good sear on the outside.

It was served with an avocado, tomato and onion salad, and some yucca fritters.

For dessert, we shared the “panqueques,” crepes filled with dolce de leche and served with a scoop of ice cream. The menu said it would be pistachio ice cream, which we were excited about, but they gave us chocolate instead.

In any case, dessert was delicious. The crepes were made fresh, and the dolce de leche was smooth and creamy.

This is definitely a place worth visiting if you’re in the Alphabet City area and looking for a bite or cocktail.

YERBA BUENA
23 Avenue A
New York, NY 10009

American, Burgers, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Pub Food, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Union Square/Flatiron

The Clocktower

February 13, 2016 Johnny Prime 2 Comments

My wife and I came here for an early Valentine’s Day date. We chomped though a good deal of food, so I’ll just get right to it.

The decor here is incredible. It’s elegant yet old fashioned-inspired. High ceilings, big fireplace, wide-planked dark wood floors, dark wainscoting, etc.

The bar is a destination in itself, and they make some really unique cocktails that utilize ingredients you’d never expect to see in a drink, like chicken stock and pea puree.

Table bread is a nice warm and toasty loaf that’s served with a soft, freshly salted whipped butter.

We started with a dashi cured smoked salmon appetizer that was topped with puffed rice, greens and a soft boiled quail egg.

This had a bright and acidic pop to it. A great way to start the meal.

Our next course was a burger, which we shared.

This this was pretty much perfect. By far, this was the best thing we ate here.

It was seared to a nice crisp on the outside, and a beautiful medium rare on the inside.

On top was lettuce, bacon, red onion, pickle, cheddar cheese and special sauce. Nothing too fancy – just really good quality shit. The bun was toasted and warm on the outside but soft like a potato roll on the inside. Just the right balance.

The fries were thick, long and hand-cut – like John Bobbitt’s dick – only crunchy on the outside and soft inside, like mashed potatoes. They could have used a little bit more seasoning or salt, but they were so perfectly cooked that I didn’t mind.

Our awesome waiter Jake, who had really great suggestions on drinks and food items, cleared the table and presented us with these kickass plates as we awaited out main course.

For our main course we ordered the cote de boeuf for two, which was a 40oz bone-in rib eye that came with gratin potatoes (two servings), a green bean salad, and bone marrow jus.

This thing was beautiful. The sear on the outside was like a salty and crisp meat bark, and the aroma was out of this world. It was dressed up with some lightly roasted garlic cloves and thyme.

As you can see, the meat was cooked to a gorgeous pink medium rare, and every bite was tender and juicy. The fat was so soft and mushy too – completely edible. Nine out of ten!

I wasn’t much of a fan of the bone marrow jus. For some reason it wasn’t working for me in the flavor department, but it did smell wonderful.

The potatoes were pretty good. With gratin style potatoes, I always find myself wishing that the chef had done several thinner crisped preparations and then layered them before serving, that way there is some more of that delicious top crunchy texture as you work your way down into the middle.

The green bean salad was nothing to scoff at. It was topped with truffle and tossed with foie gras! This thing was so earthy from the truffles, the truffle oil, the toasted hazelnuts and the foie that it was almost like having another meat course.

By time dessert rolled around we were pretty full, so we just shared this chocolate custard item with a cocktail that was made from cheerios milk and bourbon called “The American Seriel Killer.”

To our surprise, Jake later brought over a tin of shortbread, brittle and English toffee, along with a special dessert plate of grapefruit sorbet since he learned that we were celebrating a special occasion. Killer service here.

I highly recommend this place. At $25 the burger may seem a bit steep at first, but it’s a half pound of some of the best eating you’ll ever have, and it also comes with those delicious fries. Similarly, at $135 the steak for two may seem steep, but you get three sides with it, and I guarantee you will go home full and satisfied.

UPDATE 12/26/2022

We came back! This time for Christmas dinner. We tried the steak tartare, the scotch egg, the Beef Wellington, the prime rib, and the sticky toffee pudding. Everything was great! 9/10 on both the prime rib and Beef Wellington.

THE CLOCKTOWER
5 Madison Ave
New York, NY 10010

American, Midtown West, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Restaurant Reviews, Restaurant Week

The Back Room at One57

January 30, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED

NYC restaurant week now includes this joint at the One57 building on Billionaire’s Row, “The Back Room.” They offer a really great menu. The decor is beautiful and vast. It’s a huge place. Tables are wide and spacious. Very different from the usual situation in NYC.

The onion bread with garlic and herb cream cheese is a delicious way to start the meal here:

We also sipped on some really excellent cocktails.

The charcuterie board had five different styles of cured meat with some pickled items. I thought this was really generous. The quality of these meats was top notch, too. Coppa, cacciatorini, fennel sausage, soppressata, spicy nduja, lardon. The fat content was so soft and sticky that it was clinging to the bottom of my tongue like peanut butter. So good.

We also had the reginetti pasta, which are like little squiggly brain shapes that hold the sauce nicely in the convolutions.

For our main courses we went with the beef cheek and the quail. The beef cheek was braised in red wine to a perfect tenderness that still retained a nice juicy inside. It was served on a parsnip and rutabaga puree, and topped with crispy onions and a red onion jam.

My wife’s quail dish was nicely cooked and had good flavor, but it was slightly gamey. The quail was in no way bad. It just didn’t hit the same high mark as the beef.

Dessert was pretty great. Maybe restaurants in NYC are finally understanding that people want to see something different than tiramisu, creme brûlée, chocolate cake and fucking flan. First up was this cocoa toffee pudding with brulee’d bananas, salty cocoa nibs and malted coconut ice cream. Excellent.

We also had the meyer lemon zabaglione with whipped tea, lemon confit and earl grey ice cream. Very inventive and unique, and a nice bright way to end a meal.

The waiter, Ivan, was great. He even brought over a candle and complimentary glass of honeyed dessert wine for my wife since they knew it was her birthday (was mentioned on the Open Table reservation).

On a second visit I tried their two-course lunch for $32, along with a taste of a few other things that the rest of the table had.

First was this delicious grilled octopus.

The texture was perfect. While the chimichurri-esque green sauce was a bit bland, I did like it a lot with the octopus, and even with the table bread as well.

I went with the skirt steak for my main course.

The dollop of garlic butter on top really added a great flavor and creaminess to the cut. It was perfectly cooked to medium rare.

While the steak itself was a bit small, it did pack a ton of flavor. 8/10.

Here’s a look at the lobster roll on the lunch menu. I think it could use a bit more quality, large chunks of claw meat. The bread was solid, but I’ve had better lobster rolls elsewhere.

The duck leg confit was brilliant. So tender and juicy, and beautifully plated as well.

And speaking of beautiful plating, this bowl of fried oyster mushrooms with lemon are served with an edible chive blossom.

For dessert we sampled a trio of eclairs and a chocolate espresso cake, which was super soft, smooth and decadent. The texture was more like soft fudge or a thick custardy pudding.

Of the three eclairs, I liked the pink and red one the best. All three had great creamy fillings and were beautiful as well as tasty.

THE BACK ROOM AT ONE57
157 W. 57th St.
New York, NY 10019

Filet Mignon, Florida, French, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, NY Strip, Restaurant Reviews

Monsieur Paul

January 20, 2016 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Epcot Center in Disney World is famed for its “world walk,” highlighting about a dozen countries and offering some cuisine and culture from each. This place, in the French pavilion, is known to be one of the better places to eat in the park.

My wife scored us some reservations in advance of our trip, and I was looking forward to trying the steak selections.

First off, the bread at this place is amazing. You can choose from about four different kinds: mushroom onion bread, Swiss cheese bread, traditional baguette, poppy seed, etc.

My wife and I each had a price fix menu. For $89, we received the following:

The escargot was great. It had the texture of clams and a great truffle essence.

For my starter, I went with the oxtail soup. It was okay – not as robust in flavor as I hoped, but the use of truffle was generous, and the popover on top of the soup bowl was magnificent. French cuisine is great for shit like this.

My wife went with the lobster item, which came with a truffle broth, quail egg and some fancy foam.

For my entree, I went with the strip steak. It was cooked perfectly to medium rare. My only gripe is that I like my steak seared hard on the outside with a crust, whereas this was served almost like a sous vide style. It was still excellent though. I’d say an eight out of ten.

It came with some tomatoes, potatoes and asparagus:

And a nice truffle wine reduction sauce for the top:

My wife’s lamb rib chop was crusted with pistachio, and also cooked absolutely perfectly.

Some other guests at the table ordered the filet, which was equally delicious and nicely prepared. On top is a mushroom and bacon mash of some kind.

La Myrtille is a short bread base with a pistachio cake, topped with fresh blueberries and compote, vanilla cream, and creme fraiche ice cream. Not only was it beautiful, but it was the best dessert of the night, and we sampled a bunch from other plates. It was unique, and the right balance of sweet and savory for me. Perfect.

Here’s a look at the almond, mango yogurt and strawberry concoction that I also tried – pretty good!

And this was my wife’s dessert, L’ile Flottante, which was light meringue, vanilla creme Anglaise, rum raisons, toasted almonds and a vanilla tuile.

American, Brooklyn, Full Points for Flavor, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye

The Pines

November 2, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

NOTE: THIS JOINT IS NOW CLOSED

Last month when I was at Meatopia I had the pleasure of meeting John Poiarkoff, the genius chef behind the wheels of steel at The Pines in Brooklyn.

In our inevitable conversation about meat and steak, I discovered that his carnivorous endeavors at the restaurant were not only out of the ordinary and interesting, but exemplified that rare love of beef possessed only by a true connoisseur.

For example, he explained how the blade steak (aka Denver cut, part of the chuck) on the menu was prepared sous vide style. It bathes for several hours in a sealed bag, allowing the tentacle-like marbling to render down, making the steak super tender before it gets seared off in a pan for a nice outer crisp.

He also mentioned that he had some rib eyes in an outdoor walk-in that he converted into a dry-aging room. When he said how long they were in there, 106 days, I nearly lost my shit. I kindly asked him again. “How long did you say?” 106 days!

He went on to say that they would soon be breaking the rack down into portioned cuts and serving them as special menu items. Needless to say, I was all over it. I made sure to follow The Pines on Instagram and to keep my eye out for any news about that steak. Sure enough, just a few weeks later I saw the post announcing that they were going to be serving those rib eyes. The very next day my wife and I headed over.

To my excitement, the menu was chock full of delicious looking meat goodies. We sipped on a pair of nice cocktails while we wrestled with what to order.

On the left is The Pines, a rye drink with douglas fir (burnt/smoked pine needles for a really nice woodsy, aromatic nose) and yuzu; on the right is the Air & Sea, a gin drink with dulse, lemon and violet.

We ended up going for three entrees instead of the traditional apps, sides and entrees routine. But before our first item came out, John sent over an order of duck rillettes. This is aged duck served terrine style with a pastrami sandwich theme: dill sauce (it tasted like pickles), a cabbage kraut, mustard and crunchy puffed rye grains.

This inventive dish threw us for a tasty loop, and it set the tone for what was one of the most fun, innovative and delicious meals we’ve had in a long time.

John paired the duck with this really smooth, clean sake:

Oh and there was this nice little amuse of carrot soup/puree with sage oil. It had a spicy and smoky kick to it.

Our first entree was pork jowl. If you’ve never had this, it is essentially bacon from the face of a pig. It’s cured, smoked cheek meat. If you know anything about the cheek meat of an animal, you know that it is some of the most tender and sought after bits of goodness you can find. This tasted like really awesome smoked bacon. It was savory yet slightly sweet, and sat on a pumpkin and cabbage pancake that was somewhat reminiscent of corn bread.

I could very happily eat that shit every morning for breakfast, though I may be tempted to throw a fried egg on top – you know – because breakfast is the perfect time to eat like a savage barbarian. Anyway this dish wasn’t heavy or greasy like you might expect from bacon. The curing and smoking helps in that respect.

Our first steak dish came out next. After hearing about that blade steak, I couldn’t pass it up.

John mixed the normal blade steak plate up a bit and served it with some roasted broccoli, braised oxtail and cheesy potato puree.

As you can see, there’s even a bit of shaved horseradish over the top to punch up the salt and tie the meat in with the potato. Really nice.

This steak is incredibly good. John has taken a lesser known, less desirable and rarely featured cut and showcased it in a way that will have you searching for it in every restaurant. It’s easily 10/10 for flavor. It was so juicy and tender inside. Perfectly cooked, as you can see, and the sear on the outside locked in all that flavor. It was super crispy on the outside without any part of the inside getting cooked beyond medium rare. Just awesome!

John paired this with a unique and unexpected rose, which had some tartness to it. The cool thing about The Pines is that, if you’re interested, you can learn a lot about the food you’re eating and the stuff you’re drinking. John gets to know all the people who provide his source material. The vintner of this wine, for example, or the farmers and ranchers who provide the meat and produce. He gets to know their stories, and he shares it with diners for a more rich, engaging experience. I dig and appreciate that, and it’s exactly what I was talking about on here recently – that I want to see more of it.

I should probably mention here that The Pines sources all of its beef from Happy Valley Meat Co., which is based out of Central PA. Both John and his sous chef Neel Patil (the creative force behind the duck rillettes dish, featured above) are extremely modest in that they attribute so much credit for the success of their menu to those farmers. While much credit is indeed deserved by the farmers, it is very easy to fuck up good meat if you don’t know what you’re doing. John and Neel clearly deserve as much credit as the farmers, because they knocked the beef dishes out of the park!

So now comes the big boy – the 106-day, dry-aged rib eye. John explained that the process for these is as follows: First it hits a hot grill for a little smoke and sear, and those lovely grill marks. Then it gets a nice warm sous vide bath. Last, it hits a hot pan to lock in all the juices and get a crispy sear. Thrice cooked rib eye! Here’s a shot of John holding our cut before it hits the pan:

And here it is after the pan, resting, but before serving. Just look at that gorgeous sear!!!

While we waited for it to be sliced and plated, John rolled out another pairing for us.

This wine was truly incredible. He poured us a taste from two different bottles: one that was just opened 30 minutes prior, an another that was already opened for two days.

The difference was astounding. The freshly opened wine was really nice and flavorful, full bodied and robust without being overpowering. It had a nice round, smooth finish. The wine that was opened for two days had all the same characteristics, but the after taste was of dry aged beef or truffled charcuterie. It was incredible! I kept going at it. It was like having a delicious meat snack with each sip, and it reminded me of the awesome Trufa Seca sausage I had with my latest Carnivore Club box. It paired perfectly with the steak.

Anyway then the masterpiece came out:

It was plated with grilled Japanese mushrooms, bone marrow, potatoes that were pretty much confit style, and this awesome kimchi cabbage that was finished with rendered beef fat:

This right here is the best steak I’ve ever eaten at a non-steakhouse, and I can tell you it seriously rivals the best steakhouses as well – it may even be better than all of them.

I’m still trying to wrap my mind around how incredible this thing was, and I don’t know if it can really compare to anything I’ve had at a steakhouse other than the long bone wagyu rib eye at Del Frisco’s. This thing is really in that kind of league. And look at how perfectly executed this thing is:

It was so tender and flavorful. Every bite was a “wow,” and the cap was fucking INSANE! I’ve never had anything like it before. I was expecting a lot of game and funk with this meat, but it was just the right subtle amount of “blue cheese” flavor. It came out most when I smeared some marrow onto the slices of eye meat. And the fat around the cap was even softer and more delicious than the marrow.

I don’t know how we did it, but we managed to fit dessert into our guts as well. Probably because what we saw on the menu was new and unique. We had to try something.

We went back and forth between two and ultimately left it in John’s hands. He came out with both; the chocolate cake, and the miso butterscotch pudding.

The chocolate cake was mildly sweet because it was expertly cut by the cashew and sage ice cream. The pomegranate balanced the whole thing with a nice acidic and tart zing.

The miso butterscotch pudding is definitely something for the more adventurous dessert person. I seemed to focus my attention more on the celery ice cream than the pudding at first, but that pudding was so freaking good. The ice cream was like a palette cleanser, and the pudding was creamy and velvety – almost like a liquified peanut butter in texture – extremely innovative.

With dessert, we sipped on a trio of amaro selections, as well as a bitter lemon soda digestif that was made in house. Of these, our favorite was the Brovo #1 (center). It had a spicy cinnamon flavor that was easy to drink. And, as is true with the other stuff above, you can learn all about the people who make these spirits as you dine, because John and his staff are happy to share that information with you if you’re interested, like we were.

Want to hear something really amazing? This is the kitchen:

So small, yet so powerful. It is run like a well-oiled machine by incredibly skilled mechanics, pumping out what is absolutely some the finest food in NYC.

Please do yourselves a favor and go here. They may even give you a quick tour of the aging room out back if you ask nicely. Take a look at the ducks and steaks aging away! I think those ducks are at two weeks, and the steak is something like 86 days.

I went back with a crew of food bloggers and instagrammers for a nice meal around the holidays.

Here’s a photogasm of everything we ate, which included a duo of rib eyes – one aged for 35 days and another aged for over 80 days.

Molasses gingerbread cookies stuffed with fois gras and pistachios:

Kale salad with toasted barley:

Grilled radicchio salad:

Roasted broccoli with shaved horseradish:

Fettuccine with mussels and chilies in a Parmesan cream sauce:

Presentation of beef!!!

Post slicing:

Gnawing on the bone is always fun:

Dessert 1: bread pudding.

Dessert 2: herbaceous chocolate ganache.

We even drank some Japanese whisky from a bone marrow slide!

Chef John even got in on the action. Marrow luges rule!!!

THE PINES
284 3rd Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11215

American, Hawaii, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, NY Strip, Restaurant Reviews

Lahaina Grill

October 16, 2015 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Lahaina Grill

Our last meal was a great one, and this joint represents probably the only real-deal fine dining establishment we went to (with Koa’s coming close behind).

We celebrated our anniversary here in style, and had a really great waiter named Justin, who chatted with us about the all-natural grass-fed steak purveyors on Maui, and the Idaho aged beef guys with outposts in San Diego, which is where they get their meats. That naturally lead to NYC steakhouses and this blog, which he actually took the time to browse between check giving and check paying (when all the convo started).

We started with some awesome cocktails. Mine was a tequila, honey and smoked salt drink, and my wife’s was a jalapeño vodka and cinnamon syrup drink. Crazy good.

For starters, we had the “cake walk,” which was a trio of lobster cake, crab cake, and tuna cake. All were good, but the tuna was more like a tartare than a cake. Fine by me.

My wife had a chili relleno for her app. It was served with a blue corn crust and surrounded by a tomato sauce that tasted like homemade chili, and stuffed with cheeses, corn and all sorts of seafood goodies.

My entree, was, of course, the largest steak on the menu. They didn’t have rib eye but they did have a decently sized boneless NY strip steak. Pretty nice for 14oz.

I wasn’t crazy about the red wine reduction sauce, but the meat was good quality. It would hang tough in NYC, I think, though certainly not in my top 10. It was cooked perfectly to medium on a skillet – nothing fancy, just real technique:

My wife ordered the coffee crusted rack of lamb. This was a little gamey for my liking, but it was cooked nicely and the crust had a nice flavor, though not as strong in the coffee department as I might have expected.

We planned to skip dessert, since we wanted more Ululani’s before our trip home, but Justin brought us out a triple berry pie on the house.

This was awesome. The berries were smooth, fresh and delicious. The pie crust was crispy and covered with granulated sugar that gave it an awesome texture.