SC - Peter Luger's

[Philip & Susan Troy]

"Michael F. Gunter" wrote:
> 
> > And just a block away from Peter Luger's, The One True Steak House,
> > which unfortunately only accepts cash and their very own Peter Luger's
> > credit card...
> 
> Didn't I see them featured on "The Best Of" a while back?
> 
> > Adamantius
> 
> Gunthar

Very possibly. They're a rather old place (1880's or so?) with a sort of
Bowery biergarten atmosphere, with waiters who are all veterans of at
least the Peninsular War, and more or less surly. On the other hand,
they serve Porterhouse steaks cut from short loins aged at least a
month, broiled under a slathering of sweet butter, which broiler-browned
butter serves as part of the sauce for the steak -- the
hundred-and-six-year-old waiter bastes it one last time at the table --
the meat can, literally, be cut with a fork. Standard accompaniments are
a stack of alternating slices of ripe beefsteak tomato and bermuda
onion, somewhat lackluster home fries that are actually much better with
a little of their house steak sauce drizzled on (same for the tomato and
onion), and a totally mediocre, but still addictive, creamed spinach.
Desserts would be more or less forgettable, except as a vehicle for the
whipped cream which the waiter carries out of the kitchen and to your
table in a large, maybe three-quart, souffle pan, and begins mounding it
up on your plate until you tell him to stop. Good shrimp cocktail, good
beer, good coffee. Waiters outright rude but also amusing, probably
because they remember you from when you were there last time in 1965.
Phenomenally expensive.

They also serve double lamb chops of a quality comparable to the steaks;
it is rumored that you can get a broiled half-chicken; I've never seen
anyone rash enough to order it. 

In spite of a recent influx of out-of-town chains like Morton's, and an
increasing prominence of places like Smith and Wollensky's (pfeh!),
Peter Luger's remains The Steakhouse.  

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com