Not Plate
The Dish: 10-ounce sirloin steak
The Location: The Capital Grille, 601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, (202) 737-6200
The Price: $24
The Skinny: If there’s a type of man who frequents downtown steakhouses, I’m not it. I don’t wear dark suits. I don’t own a single painting featuring Native Americans, hunting dogs, or large boats. I actually enjoy the company of women. So when I walk into Capital Grille one afternoon, wearing a black ribbed thermal shirt and pants, my longish locks unkempt, I half expect the hostess to find some guy with hairy arms to throw me out. Instead she offers me the option of sitting in the bar or the formal dining room, where I imagine Important Events are being planned by Important Men (drinking Manhattans). I take a corner seat in the bar area, where a tallish waiter towers over me in his camel-colored jacket and black tie, the Lurch of Capital Grille. I ask the server how long they dry-age their steaks, and he says “between 14 and 21 days.” I’d prefer something closer to the three-week mark, but I seem to have no choice. I request the 10-ounce portion of sirloin, medium-rare, and watch as the waiter acknowledges my order and walks away. I must look too poor for sides. My thick, lonely strip of sirloin arrives with excellent charring and grill marks. I cut into the meat and notice that the center is warm and red, just as the waiter told me it would be. But once I transfer the bite from plate to mouth, the meat loses all its charm. It’s mushy and underseasoned. It just makes me pine for Ray’s the Classics‘ 12-ounce portion of New York strip, which costs only a dollar more—on the dinner menu. (As a nominal point of comparison, Capital Grille’s 14-ounce strip at dinner runs $38.) And Ray’s steak comes with two sides, which you don’t even have to ask for.
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12:06 pm
I think they gave you the Dirty Fucking Hippie cut of meat, which was actually dry-aged camel hump.
(BTW, many of those Important Men in Suits enjoy the company of women, too. They just prefer the women in question to be greased, bound, and gagged while they’re enjoying it.)
1:20 pm
It sounds like you were ready to dislike this place the moment you walked in, apparently because the patrons largely keep their locks kempt and drink Manhattans. I couldn’t say whether the steak is better than you make it out to be, having never been. But I can’t help but wonder: If your ken is for a New York strip, then why on earth did you order a sirloin?
2:16 pm
Jamie;
This is a terminology issue: Cap Grille calls its NY strip a sirloin, which is not that unusual. The cut was definitely not rump meat, which would rarely, if ever, be mushy.
As to your first point, I would have been happy to rave about my steak at Cap Grille, had it been better, regardless of how comfortable I was eating among people who could hire people to squash me like a bug.
Thanks for the challenge. Seriously.
-Tim
3:51 pm
Anthony Bourdain says steaks are an easy way for restaurants to increase their profit margin. I try hard not to order steaks at restaurants because the butcher’s meat is great on the grill. But goddamn I love getting served some steak.