When I was a kid, my mom always made me get my meat well done. Fast food burgers, steak, you name it... we had to request them well done, and she would send it back if it wasn't. I'm sure we fully offended more than a couple of chefs in nicer restaurants by sending it back, but she didn't care. Between that and not letting me eat the skin on fried chicken, I feel like I was severely scarred as a child.
It took me a long time to get away from the well done meat. By the time I was old enough to go to fast food places on my own I stopped requesting it. And it took until probably my very early 20's to go to medium well on steaks. Eventually I moved to medium, and that's as under-cooked as I'll go. I can't imagine eating rare or medium rare meat. My mom still looks at me kinda funny when I order a medium steak, but I've assured her that I won't do anything less than that so I think she's okay.
The past couple of years I've been lucky enough to be a guest of the men's basketball team at dinner the first night we arrived at the tournament. Last year we all slipped into a food coma after dinner at Fogo de Chao. This year, 801 Chop House was the destination. I had never been before, but had heard great things, so I was excited to check it out.
For starters, we got 3 appetizers: fried calamari, jumbo shrimp cocktail, and Maryland jumbo lump crab cakes. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures. But all 3 were absolutely fantastic.
This is one of those upscale restaurants where everything is a la carte...nothing "comes with" your steak. Speaking of steak, that's almost the only protein on the menu. They do offer a veal chop, a pork chop, and a lamb chop, as well as chicken. But seriously...I'm not going to a great steak house to have any of that. They don't even have salmon on the menu, but they do offer it.
I started with the Caesar salad
Our waitress asked if I wanted the anchovies. I didn't really know what she meant so I said "yes". The LAST thing I was expecting was 2 anchovies on top of my salad. I'm not quite that adventurous, so I put those off to the side and enjoyed the rest of my salad. It was delicious, not over-dressed, and I really liked the big parmesan chip on the side.
I went with the 16-ounce ribeye. I momentarily thought about the 24-oz bone-in, but decided that would just be gluttonous. I don't usually do any fancy preparations on my steak, but I used the excuse of not having eaten in days to try the bone marrow butter bath. I've never had bone marrow butter, but our waitress said it was really good and decadent
Decadent is an understatement with that bath! It truly enhanced the flavor of my steak. Howver, I think it was too much. I should have asked for it on the side, but oh well. I was only able to finish about half my steak...something I don't think I've ever done in my entire life. And it made me very sad.
We decided to get a couple of sides for the table to share, and went with the lobster mac & cheese and the green beans
Ummm....yes, those are big old pieces of lobster right in the midst of the mac & cheese. Wow, that was absolutely fantastic!! And they used the cavatappi pasta, my favorite shape. I'm convinced that made it taste even better.
I thought we should get at least one thing remotely healthy, so that's why we picked green beans. So what if they're sauteed with caramelized onions and chunks of bacon?? Fabulous.
When the waitress came around asking about dessert, I should have run. But I decided to take a look anyways, just in case. My first choice was the grand marnier souffle, but it takes about 30 minutes to prepare. So then my next choice was the chocolate lava cake...but that takes about 10 minutes to prepare. So I decided to be good and skip it altogther. A few minutes later the team was leaving, but I had to wait to pay for my wine. While I waited, the server brought out the Trio of Sorbets that one of the managers had ordered to go. Since they were already gone, I figured I couldn't let it go to waste...
Will I go back? Definitely! But I'll make sure to be a little smarter and not try to eat out the entire restaurant.
