Best chain restaurant

Given what you can get in town for the same money, Shula's at 43rd/8th in NYC is a laughingstock.

 

Ruth's Chris is fine -- I don't think that the quality of the steak comes close to the level of a place like Morton's, The Palm or Del Frisco's. I don't need the butter -- hides the taste of the meat.

However, the price of steak has gone so through the roof that it really is insane. I took my assistant out to lunch at a well known downtown NYC steak place. Two lunch sized steaks, 2 salads, a couple of sides, iced tea and coffee was $140 with tip.

I love going to good places to eat, but if it is on my dime, I'd rather buy quality steak, grill it at home (maybe prepare it Florentine style) and spend the extra cash on a nice bottle of Cab.

As for (somewhat) more reasonably priced chains, I'd go with Houston's.

 

I would say Carabaas (misspelled on purpose, because the mere mention of it in my family brings bad luck), but we can't go there any more. Every time we do, we encounter some financial disaster within two days. It doesn't matter if we're with family and not picking up the tab. Something bad will happen.

So, for the restaurants we can frequent, we're partial to Topeka's Steakhouse. I do agree with those on here who like the home-cooked steak. Best one I've had was a filet I got from the butchers at Costco. Ate it on my deck one night in September. Eighty degrees, low humidity, no files, a bottle of Shiraz and nowhere to go the next morning.

 

For those of us who don't own a grill and don't know how to cook, sometimes you just want a steak. Jesus. Sorry to disappoint.

 

I have a book called "On Food And Cooking/The Science and Lore of the Kitchen." It's written by a chemist who says that marinades turn the outside to mush while leaving the inside unaffected unless you stab the meat full of holes, and if you do that, you'll have a lot of fluid loss during cooking. It's a great way to ruin a good steak. You won't see a great steakhouse marinade a steak. The Ruth's Chris Web site says the steaks are seasoned with salt, pepper and butter -- that's it. Peter Luger's Web site says if you want to marinade, it should be for one hour.

I agree about steak generally being an at-home thing, but sometimes you're on vacation and you just feel like a steak.

 

Get a slab of meat and a can of sterno, dammit!

 

Agreed. Now that they've opened one in Iowa City, it was always a pre-game stop during basketball season.

 

The first time I went to Shula's, the woman seating us was carrying the football/menu. I thought about punching the ball out from behind and forcing a fumble.

 

Don't know how or don't want to know how?

 

Was she carrying it like a loaf of bread?

 

It depends on the kind of steak.

I'd never marinade a prime cut (filet, etc) but if you're doing something like flank steak, you HAVE to marinade it or it'll taste like shoe leather.

It's the difference between cooking a prime rib of beef and a pot roast. You have to braise the latter and in the end (in my opinion, anyway), it's much more flavourful. People ignore the cheaper cuts of meat--I love them because I think they have more taste.

In the end, it all comes down to the quality of the meat.

Oh, and give me a good leg of lamb over beef anytime.

 

Ms. Slappy just started screaming and has no idea why