Birthday dinner at Ruth's Chris

If I'm dropping $200 in a restaurant, I'm going to get something I can't get at home. I can grill a mean fucking steak with little effort.

 

I'll also vouch for Charley's. A very good cut of meat.

And put me down for the Ruth's Chris is overrated camp as well.

 

There's every possibility you know some secrets I don't, but I've never found myself to be able to match the tenderness of a great restaurant steak.

 

Yes, it's called having relatively cheap access to the best steak in the country.

 

interesting how diverse the opinions are. as i've said, i'm a big supporter of "ruth's chris." never been let down in 30-plus trips. yet i know it has several dissenters here.

by the same token, "bern's" in tampa was mentioned and often is as an ultimate steakhouse dining experience. i've dined there a half-dozen times and found it to be hit-or-miss. go figure.

 

The best steaks I have gotten are from a hole-in-the-wall in Carsonville, Pa. I'm sure you've heard of it; it's only 10 miles outside Halifax, Pa.

The Carsonville Hotel is on the corner of a dusty little village, and you truly have to be going there to get there. It's about 10 miles back a half-blacktop, half-gravel country road. It actually has an old Fanta soda sign on front of the 1930s-style hotel.

If you want a steak, they bring out your options on a big piece of brown paper -- by cut, by ounces. And then they make it perfectly. An order of fries? You get about an hour's worth of them. Unbelievable food.

 

The best restaurants in any given city or town are almost always holes in the wall. The only key finding them, just like trying to find an honest mechanic.