Category Archives: Non-Steakhouse Steaks

American, Italian, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Union Square/Flatiron

Corkbuzz Wine Studio

January 20, 2014 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I’m not quite sure how to handle this write-up for the website. Is it a review, or commentary? Corkbuzz isn’t a steakhouse, and this meal is kind of a “limited time offer,” so I am going to go with commentary, and not give it a full steakhouse review.

Corkbuzz is a unique place in the food world. Primarily it is a wine bar and wine-centric restaurant, but it is also a home-base for wine education, according to their website. As you all may know, I am generally a martini kind of guy, despite the fact that me, my father, and my grandfather all make/made wine (I’ve even made flavored meads, or honey-based wines). Seriously – and I’m not saying this just because he’s my dad: the best wine I’ve ever tasted was my dad’s pinot noir, which he made from scratch with fresh grapes.

So anyway – a buddy of mine emailed me asking if I knew anything about this place, and if I thought the “Steakhouse Sundays” deal was good. He showed me this page:

$500 for 6 people, including tip, with 4 bottles of wine, Pat LaFrieda rib eye, and sides/apps?!?? Uhh… YES… no brainer, that is a GREAT fucking deal! So I told my wife about it, and we decided that we had to jump on it as well. Check out the results below:

First we sat at the bar and waited for our party to arrive. Nice view, and the cocktails were awesome.

Once seated, they presented the first wine:

And brought us the wedge salad:

And shrimp cocktail (a little pathetic, but whatever…)

Next came the red wines…

Then the sides arrived… Roasted cauliflower, and creamed spinach…

Then the steak with potatoes and onion rings…

And finally a pumpkin bread pudding dessert with ricotta whipped cream…

Here are the wines again, for those who are all about it…

Everything was great. We were all full, but not ridiculously over-stuffed to the point of vomitude. The steak was great. I noted that it was a little under-salted, but the steak sauce (some kind of wine reduction) was plenty salty to inject that back into the meat. The sides were all great – especially the roasted cauliflower. The creamed spinach was a bit too firm for my liking, but it was nice that it wasn’t so overly creamy. The potato item would have been better if it was crispy (was a little soggy), but overall a really great meal. The wine alone was worth the price we paid.

CORKBUZZ WINE STUDIO
13 E. 13th St.
New York, NY 10003

American, Full Points for Flavor, Italian, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, West Village

Piora

September 28, 2013 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

First, you have to watch this video:

Okay… So that is the whole reason we went here. I needed to do an honorable mention here just for that alone, despite the joint not being a true steakhouse. Well, I needed to try that steak AND sample their ridiculously delicious sounding menu, which you can see HERE. I think we tried most of the items on the menu. Seriously.

We started with a few of their awesome drinks from the cocktail menu, which were painstakingly crafted by this dude, who shaved chunks of ice by hand to fill the glasses.

Check out his arsenal of wizard potions too:

Okay so after that we ordered up some monkey bread for $6. A dollar per lump, each about the size of a mini-muffin or small cupcake. My biggest negative of the dining experience – this item should’ve been free. It was small, and I’ve had better bread for free at places like BLT Prime, Quality Meats, Quality Italian, Tellers, etc. This was essentially the same bread as the stuff at Quality Italian, but it cost $6 instead of nothing. Oh – it came with a seaweed butter (big deal) and some nice lard (that was yummy).

Next we shared some starters: BBQ octopus and duck confit. Unfortunately I forgot to snap pics of those items, but they were both really delicious.

An amuse was brought out to us next: apple with chartreuse and beet:

For pre-entrées we shared four items between the four of us: black garlic bucatini with Dungeness crab and chilis; (Riders of) Rohan duck (that’s a LoTR reference, by the way), suckling pig, and sea trout. All were small portions, so it was easy to sock away with four hungry diners. I won’t get into the serious specifics here, since this is a fucking steak blog, not a duck and pig blog, but the pasta was really nice with the crab meat on top. The aged duck was frigging awesome – may as well have been a steak; that’s how flavorful and legit this fucker was. The pork was soft inside with a nice crispy outside. See pics below. And as for the trout – some of the best crispy fish skin I’ve had to date.

Sea Trout. See Trout Swim. See Trout Get Eaten. — Sea Trout.
See Trout Swim.
See Trout Get Eaten.

We sided that shit up with an order of sunchokes with hazelnut, topped with parmesan cheese. Really great shit.

Now for the good shit – the steak. The special, secret, off-menu, bone-in, 40oz rib eye/cote de beouf was … Well … You saw the video. It was fucking great. It ranks #2 in best steaks from a non-steakhouse; behind only the great and powerful Marc Forgione (who just opened a new steakhouse in Tribeca, by the way, called American Cut). This steak was nice – it had a bacon candy-like taste on the edges; great sear, locking in the flavor. The meat was tender, cooked just right. Take a look at the pics, before and after slicing:

It came with two side items: olive oil potato balls, and spigarello (which is best described as broccoli flavored kale, sautéed with garlic and oil). I didn’t care much for the potato balls, but the spigarello was nice. You can sorta see those items here in the plating:

For dessert we had a scoop of salted caramel ice cream (not pictured), and an order of the white peach shaved ice, which sat on a coconut panna cotta with some blueberry sauce. THAT was really flavorful. I wish I had ordered three or four of those for my entrée. The coconut panna cotta was so light and fluffy. Totally gobble-worthy.

And then the bill came:

And then I took a dump in the bathroom. And they all lived happily ever after. The end.

PIORA
430 Hudson St.
New York, NY 10014

American, Commentary, Long Island, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Other Cuts, Restaurant Reviews

Where The Buffalo Roam

June 17, 2013 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

I recently became aware that Long Island has a thriving buffalo ranch out in Riverhead called North Quarter Farm. When I started digging around online about it, I came across a few articles written over the last 10 or 15 years that championed the effort. See the NY Times Article and the Long Island Press Article. I learned that the farm owners also have a steakhouse-type restaurant called Tweeds, run by the husband of the bison ranch team, where they proudly feature many items that derive from bison (buffalo mozz, buffalo hanger steak, buffalo rib eye, buffalo reuben sandwich, etc). There’s even a second restaurant, right next door and run by the wife in the farm team, called Dark Horse. This place is more of a casual bar type of place, with a modern decor and music selection, featuring items like buffalo pate and buffalo pastrami sandwiches. I inquired about whether they use the actual buffalo from the farm in the restaurants. The answer was no (with the exception of the “ground steak” used to make the bison burgers at Dark Horse). Unfortunately their bison must go out to PA to be USDA certified before they can be slaughtered and cooked up into delicious food. But I thought it was cool that they put as much buffalo meat onto the menu as possible to pay tribute to their ranch business. They even offer buffalo meat cuts (steaks of all kinds, pate, chopped meat, etc) to buy and take home for your own cooking adventures.

So my wife and I decided to take a drive out there to try the food and to see the farm. We settled on eating at Tweeds, since we liked the interior better and it was a little more quiet. Since we ordered from the lunch menu I couldn’t realistically give the place a full review here, but I thought it was worth mentioning in a commentary with some photos. The place was beautiful inside, rich with local history and an old timey atmosphere. Apparently the giant bison head on the wall beside the bar is the actual last bison that Teddy Roosevelt ever hunted. Pretty cool. The service was excellent; our waitress Janine was really nice, helpful, and sweet. They had a great selection of German beers on tap and in bottles, and the food was fucking delicious. We started with a bison skewer and a couple of beers. The meat was juicy and tender; cooked just right. For my entree I had a bison hanger steak. It too was perfectly cooked, juicy, and delicious. It came with a peppercorn cognac cream sauce that I could drink by the gallon. So good. My wife had the corned bison Reuben sandwich. Just like a regular corned beef Reuben, but with corned bison. It was incredible, and served with some big sliced pickles. Both of our meals came with potato wedges, deep fried with the skin still on for a really delicious, crispy, homemade pile of steak fries. Needless to say we will definitely be going back here for a proper dinner, where I can sink my teeth into a buffalo rib eye (it wasn’t on the lunch menu).

Scroll down for pics of our food, and for pics of the buffalo at the farm. The bison were right along the fence for a bit, so I got a few close up shots before they walked away. We even had the pleasure of seeing some of the bison “wallowing,” or rolling themselves in a shallow dirt spot, covering themselves in dust.

FOOD PICS:

BUFFALO RANCH PICS:

TWEED’S
17 E. Main St.
Riverhead, NY 11901

American, Full Points for Flavor, Italian, Non-Steakhouse Steaks, Restaurant Reviews, Rib Eye, Tribeca

Marc Forgione

April 19, 2013 Johnny Prime Leave a comment

Iron Chef Marc Forgione’s restaurant in Tribeca is amazing. Recently my wife came upon an article that featured the pig face platter; a dish that comprises a half a pig face and some side items that vary with each week (our week was a taco theme, as is pictured in the article, with a ramp sour cream, jicama salsa, etc.). They don’t offer it every week, and when they DO offer it, it is only on Thursdays. Well, our anniversary fell on a Thursday this year – so it was perfect. With nervous anticipation my wife called several times inquiring about whether pig face would be on the menu. Yesterday morning they gave the definitive “yes.” We were psyched.

Look at this delicious face! The cheek meat was incredibly soft and juicy, and the skin all over was unbelievable; you know the kind… sticky and fatty on one side, crispy and savory on the other. Perfection.

For our meal we started with a nice octopus salad – really fantastic. Then we had the piggy face. Afterward we shared a massive 40oz french cut cowboy rib eye. Take a look at how amazing it looks (if only you could “see” how amazing it tasted too). I can’t rank Marc Forgione on this website because it’s not a steakhouse, but, if I were going to, this would get a 10 for flavor.

As you can see in this shot it came with side items (a composed dish, as they say): carrot juice glazed carrot, some roasted potatoes, and roasted bone marrow. The steak itself was topped with a chimichurri sauce and little blobs of cold rosemary butter, which was nice because it didn’t melt into the meat and drench the plate in butter. You could pluck them off and spread it to your liking.

It was a heavy meal, and would’ve been heavier if we started off with the fois gras instead of the octopus. The waiter, Jason, was helpful in making sure we didn’t have a richness blowout when he suggested we go with the octopus based on the other stuff we were ordering. He was great by the way. So were the cocktails. The service here in general is fantastic (definitely a 10). We even had a personalized “Welcome” / “Happy Anniversary” letter signed by Marc sitting at our table when we were seated, and at the end of the meal we had the pleasure of getting a glimpse of the culinary genius before we left.

We were also given a nice manager’s discount on the bill!

I hope Marc and his staff get a chance to see this post and this website. As a Carnivore Connoisseur, I think they would appreciate being mentioned as one of the best steaks in town, even when measured against establishments that ONLY deal in steak.

MARC FORGIONE
134 Reade St.
New York, NY 10013

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