11. BLT Steak
It took me a long time to get myself over to BLT Steak. The combo of less-than-awesome reviews from friends along with the astronomical prices never exactly got me in the mood. But then someone told me about the popovers. Then EVERYONE told me about the popovers. So I had to go, for the love of popovers.
I didn’t have a reservation, so I pulled my regular move of showing up at exactly 11:30am for lunch. I find that even if restaurants are full with reservations at noon, they have a pretty hard time turning you away from a completely empty restaurant. So the hostess begrudgingly seated me by my lonesome in the back corner of the restaurant. What do they think? That I’m some kind of loser? Well let me just get out my Kindle and my tip calculator and…oh…I am a loser? Interesting development.
Anywhoo, once ensconced in my nerd-dom I surveyed the menu. My earlier assumptions were correct—BLT Steak is seriously expensive. The lunch menu gives those of us with lighter wallets at least a fighting chance with their sandwich offerings. I chose the Kobe beef and foie gras sandwich because let’s be honest, am I really going to be able to get through the rest of the menu after seeing that? It came out in literally three minutes, but I guess since I was still the only person in the restaurant there wasn’t exactly a backup in the kitchen. You know the saying, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”? Well, this sandwich is the opposite. Individually, everything was great, but the sandwich was almost impossible to eat. Everything was sort of the same slippery texture so when I bit down, everything slid right out of the bread. And call me crazy but I don’t think Kobe is meant to be ripped apart by human chompers (at least not by my human chompers). By the end of my meal I wasn’t only a Kindle-reading loser, but a messy loser too.
Well, were the popovers worth it? Most definitely. They were delicious and the size of my head. And I can get behind any restaurant that serves me my bread not only with butter but a giant shaker of salt. Slather some foie gras on one of those bad boys and BLT Steak could really be on to something…
