That was the question I pondered after a City Paper editorial meeting last week in which editor Michael Schaffer, showing off again his ridiculous ability for recall, pointed out that Frank Bruni came out of the closet with his review of the Penthouse Executive Club for the Times.

For the record, Bruni didn't exactly claim to have worn a rainbow-colored mohawk to the club. No, his language was more coy, more teasing, like the strippers who surrounded him at the Manhattan establishment:

We were strangers to such pulchritudinous territory, less susceptible to the scenery than other men might be, more aroused by the side dishes than the sideshow: underdressed, overexposed young women in the vestibule, by the coat check, at the top of the red-carpeted stairs up to the restaurant, on the stage that many of the restaurant’s tables overlook.

Then Schaffer dropped a bomb: He expected a similar, jaw-dropping revelation from my review of the Stadium Club. I knew he was joking — or at least partly joking — but there's actually an important question buried within Schaffer's semi-serious dictate: How much should a food writer reveal in a review of a strip club that serves steaks?

I mean, the subtext of such a place is to bare it all, right? For the dancers, it's their body. For the patrons, it's their desires, repressed or otherwise. For writers, it's our ability to speak honestly about our experiences.

For example: Did I get a lap dance? (No.) Did I flirt with any dancer? (No.) Did I repeatedly try to get a good look at the dancers through the windows of the Stadium Club's restaurant? (Yes.)  Have I been to strip clubs before? (Yes.) Do I enjoy strip clubs? (Can you answer "no" and really be honest? The honest answer is they make me uncomfortable for lots of reasons, which makes me dislike them, but you'd have to be a block of wood not to have some neurons firing away when you enter a strip club.)

The biggest revelation I had at the Stadium Club was this: During the drive back from the club, I turned to my wife and said, in all honesty, that I find clothed women more sexy than naked ones. Don't get me wrong, the human body is gorgeous, but for me, there's something about the drape and cut of clothing that emphasizes the sexiness of the female form.

Now, I have to say, as far as strip club experiences go, you're at something of a disadvantage at the Stadium Club. When eating at the restaurant, you don't have the kind of interaction with dancers that Bruni had at the Penthouse. You won't have an experience like Bruni's:

“Are you hungry?” one of these women said, making hungry sound like an X-rated word. “Ravenous?”

Speechless was more like it. We sat down in a cocktail lounge at the front of the restaurant. A beautiful woman claimed the plush armchair opposite mine. She introduced herself. I wasn’t sure I’d heard her name correctly.

“Mahogany?” I said.

“Yes,” she purred.

I was getting my bearings. “Mahogany,” I asked, “do you know where you’re going to?”

She didn’t miss a beat, noting the reference, summoning the singer, and moving on to another of the dreamgirl’s hits. “I’m ... coming ... out!” she sang, waving her arms, wiggling her hips. Mahogany and I would get along just fine.

She said she was running low on cabernet. I took the cue and asked if I could buy her a fresh glass. “Yes,” she said. “And you can pour it on my toes.”

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Young & Hungry has become Spiked TV or something like that. For the second week in a row, Spike Mendelsohn has dominated the blog, both with the news of his New York-style pizzeria, due to open today, and with the old, never-say-die story about his apartment eviction on Capitol Hill.

Take a look at the Top 5 from last week:

1. Spike Mendelsohn's We, The Pizza to Open on July 19
2. The Stadium Club Combines Steaks and Strippers (*)
3. 'D.C. Cupcakes' Debuts on July 16 on TLC
4. Spike Mendelsohn Evicted from His Capitol Hill Rental House
5. Don't Put Your Money on Kenny Winning 'Top Chef'

* A certain light-drinking Budweiser beer was, once again, a popular item among readers, but we’ve stopped counting it.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The Stadium Club isn't the first strip joint — oh, I can feel the owner cringing now about the use of that cheap term — to inject  steakhouse sophistication into a business of peddling another kind of flesh. I used to live in Houston, otherwise known as the Strip Joint Capital of the Free World, where gentlemen's clubs tripped all over themselves trying to make their patrons feel more cosmopolitan than pervy.

The recently opened Stadium Club has similar ambitions. Owner James T. "Tru" Redding, who also has a hand in Sushi Rock and Public Bar, hired Andre Miller, a former regional chef with Ruth's Chris, to run his cozy 42-seat restaurant buried within the massive 14,000-square-foot club. Miller's menu and wine lists aren't posted on the club's website yet, but you can browse through them at the bottom of this post.

In short, the menu reads like a classic steakhouse document asking for classic downtown steakhouse prices. The prime steaks run from a $40 filet mignon (9 ounces, center cut) to a $76 New York strip (32 ounces, enough to feed you and three strippers, assuming they aren't starving themselves). There are also clams casino ($15), a wedge salad ($11), a jumbo lump crab cocktail ($20), and fresh lobster (market price). Similarly, the wine list is just one big swinging dick, full of marquee names and prices, which seems about right.

What do I feel like I've just stepped back to a time when women were called "tomatoes"?

Here's what I wonder about Stadium Club's food upgrade: Is it an attempt to attract the kind of "gentleman" who wouldn't normally mix his culinary with his carnal desires?  Or is it more an attempt to make those fellas who do frequent such a place feel like they've got a legit excuse now for darkening the doorway? (You know, so he could say, "Honey, the guys and I are just going to step out for a couple of good steaks. Be back around 11.")

It's like the guys, back in a day, who claimed they bought Playboy for the articles.

Y&H has been down this road before — you know, trying to decide whether the plated flesh at a strip club is worth a trip alone, regardless of the flesh on the stage. You can relive my embarrassing moments from last year's Sex and the City Paper day right here. I suspect more is in store.

I predict it will remain a popular post for awhile, too. Because Shtuhl's constantly updating it as new information arises. Keep it bookmarked.

Here's what Y&H readers liked this week:

1. Another D.C. Beer Week? Yes, Please.
2. Strip Club Food: Not as Nasty as You'd Think
3. Spike Mendelsohn Evicted from His Capitol Hill Rental House (A surprise returnee to the list, likely due to the First Lady's recent visit to Good Stuff Eatery.)
4. Birch & Barley Should Tap Its First Keg in September
5. Is the 'Times' Saying Anonymity Doesn't Matter Anymore in a Dining Critic?
   

Most folks saw the Beer Summit as a chance to talk race relations in America. The readers of Y&H saw it as a chance to bash the participants for their lousy taste in brew.

Orr Shtuhl's post on the suds summit was the runaway hit of the week, but his follow-up on Obama's disastrous taste in light quaffs just barely missed the cut, which makes me think Y&H readers have some deep-seated desire to push the president around.

The rest of the week's hits:

1. Obama's Beer Meeting: Let the Lobbying Begin!
2. Strip Club Food: Not as Nasty as You'd Think
3. Chinatown Coffee Co. Opened for Business Today
4. Follow That Cheese: Whole Foods Burrata Not Made in House After All
5. Michelle Obama and Company Dined at The Majestic on Thursday

Photo by √oxéfx via Flickr Creative Commons Attribution License

My stomach is fine this morning. My conscience is still a little bruised.

You can read about my adventures in strip-club cuisine in four easy installments below. But one final note before you do.

To the guy who smirked at me on the sidewalk as I oozed out of Camelot yesterday, trying to quickly melt back into decent society: I swear to God it was a working lunch!

Hmm, wonder how many dudes have uttered that to a disapproving spouse/girlfriend?

1. My Lunch at Camelot Show Bar: The Tape Worm Incident
2. My Lunch at Camelot Show Bar: The Jerk Chicken
3. My Dinner at Crystal City Restaurant: A Bit of Vegas in Arlington
4. My Dinner at Crystal City Restaurant: The World's Thinnest Strip Steak