Steak Nite x2! Too much of a good thing?
Well, I think I did it. This last weekend there may have been a serious lapse in judgment on my part when it comes to Steak Nite. I’ll get into exactly what happened in a minute, but this gist of it is… two Steak Nites in a row! It begs the question, can you have to much of a good thing?
So, here’s the situation:
Saturday evening began as a celebration of my grandparent’s 80th birthday. Little did they know it, the entire group was part of the largest Steak Nite that I had been a part of! The party was held at Daniels Broiler in Bellevue, Wa. Much thanks goes to my parents who were the sorry souls footing the bill. I know they had a good time though, so maybe that’s some small measure of comfort.
We had a private room for the group of 35, and let me tell you, it was a rowdy crowd. The drinks were flowing free, so there was fun to be had by all. We started with a cocktail hour with an excellent (though definitely not slimming) Crab, Artichoke and Parmesan dip. I stuck with wine for the night, so I can’t comment on the quality of the drinks, but maybe we’ll get some of the crowd in the comments and they can let us know. However, sticking with wine wasn’t a bummer. In his typical sommelier style, my father selected a 2005 Rombauer Cabernet Sauvignon. Now, I admit I had been chomping at the bit to try this wine for quite some time, so I was excited. I’ll be interested to here the opinions of the crowd on this one too, but I thought it was great. Big flavor and strong cherry notes complemented my humongous filet Mignon (I’ll talk that in a second). Needless to say I had a few glasses and, truth be told, probably did pretty good damage to a bottle. But hey, it’s Steak Nite!
There were 4 entree options for the group, 2 steaks, a fish and chicken. All were excellent as well, my Filet was thick, juicy and cooked to perfection with an excellent salty garlic crust. I tried the Salmon as well, and it was no less an epicurean delight. In fact, I had a hard time finding any bad reviews of the dishes from my tablemates, who represented the full menu…. So well done Daniel’s Broiler. I also want to comment on the service, because the servers handled our rowdy crowd with much composure and many a smile, so thanks for that. Lastly, a big Thank You again to my parents, who treated the group to an excellent time and gave me my first taste of Rombauer (hopefully more to come).
So, that would have been enough for me and I hope enough for any Steak Nite connoisseur….but that’s not it… this post wouldn’t be “Steak Night x2″ if it was, would it? The very next day, Mother’s Day (did you forget?), my wife and I traveled down to my in-law’s place for a late lunch/ early dinner shindig. Guess what, more steak! If that’s not enough, it was more tenderloin, the same cut as my beloved Filet from the previous evening! Oh how the powers that be do tempt thee.
In an exciting twist for a gadget loving engineer such as myself, my father-in-law had recently acquired a new grill. This was no charcoal kettle grill, it’s a new Charbroil Red Infrared Grill. It may not garner praise from the purists, but it was so very cool to see. I’m going to do a post in the future in these IR grills, because it now has my curiosity sufficiently piqued to warrent some research. So stay tuned for that. The grill seemed to work flawlessly, having no flam to cause flare ups. We even threw dry (i.e., unsoaked) woodchips into the “U” grill pan and they smoked away…. ok, actually, they smoked us right off the deck… we put few to many in. As mentioned though, it cooked a mean steak.
I did get a bit of and evil eye from my wife as I loaded up my plate, so I admit to having split my attention between Steak and grilled chicken, but don’t hate me. Considering myself a “simply salt, medium rare, filet” purist…. I was a little suspect of the steak in front of me, it was cooked through and glazed. But I was more than pleasantly surprised, it was excellent. Complements go to my brother-in-laws who were grillmasters for the day… way to go gents, everything was way above board!
So that’s it, two Steak Nite’s in one weekend! It was a fantastic, if over-indulgent, experience. So the question still stands, can you have too much of a good thing? This Steak Nite blogger thinks not…. but don’t tell my cholesterol.
Before I sign off, Happy Belated Mother’s Day to all those mothers out there, I hope your children treated you to a steak nite!
Cheers!
Steak Nite X2, WOW how wonderful but I have to admit it is the Rambauer that peaked my interest. I could almost taste the combination of the tenderloin and the wine. Thank you for the steak nite reminisce.