Where Do I Start?

 

I've compiled the below statistics from the internet as of October 31st, 2013 which I felt would be helpful for both myself and my reader/readers in their mission to find the steakhouse that suits them best. 

Chicago isn't short on steakhouses. This makes choosing where to start difficult. In the past I've had consistently great experiences at Mastro's. Joe's Stone Crab and Capital Grille have delivered mostly great but some poor experiences for me. I've had multiple sub-par experiences at Smith & Wollensky.

The intent of this blog is to find the best steakhouse in Chicago but I believe it's important going forward to grade each steak on a steak-by-steak basis. Unlike the referees at last night's Miami Heat vs. Chicago Bulls season opener, I will try my best to set my biases aside.

I will evaluate each steak on a four-star scale as follows:

4 STARS - Perfection, the kind of steak you want to order for dinner and then consider ordering again for dessert. The kind of steak that you can't stop eating yet each bite you get a little more sad knowing that it, like everything else in life, won't last forever. The Derrick Rose of steaks.

3 STARS - You spend the rest of the night thinking about how good it was. Cooked to perfection and bursting with flavor. A step below the best you've had but still leaves you wishing you had an infinity stomach with which you could forever dispense steak into.

2 STARS - Your average steakhouse steak with some strong points and some room for improvement. I don't leave the steakhouse thinking I couldn't have done it better myself but I do leave feeling happy and fulfilled. Maybe it was good but wasn't worth the price. The Carlos Boozer of steaks.

1 STAR - I don't need A-1 Sauce but I thought about it. It was good, I liked it (mostly because it was steak), but it wasn't worth the price. The kind of steak that is only marginally better than the steaks I ate as a kid at the truck-stop in the Middle of Nowhere, Wisconsin served by pregnant teenagers with missing teeth on the way to visiting my grandpa. I certainly enjoyed those steaks but I wasn't paying $40 for them either.

0 STARS - Not only would I rather to go to Steak and Shake, I would consider eating a vegetable instead. The Dalibor Bagaric of steaks.

I will also comment on each steak's size/thickness vs. advertised weight, beefyness, preparedness, juiciness, and seasoning. While it's difficult to compare different cuts, different methods of aging, and different styles of preparing, I will do my best to explain why I like and dislike each steak so my reader/readers can form their own opinion. For the record, I like a very thick cut medium-rare (occasionally Rare Plus) Strip but realize each steakhouse will have their own specialties.  

My Mission

Without children or mortgage payments, I'm free to spend my savings on lots of things that aren't practical. I have a closet full of shoes, another full of Bulls jerseys, and I love steak.

 
Joe's Stone Crab has always been my most frequented steak establishment since I moved to Chicago. The Lettuce Entertain You points and close proximity to my home have made Joe's a favorite of mine ever since I used to go there around Christmas time with my family. Sometimes when I get down, I pull out my Lettuce card and the sparkly gold reflection lets me know that everything is going to be okay. 

The service is usually great, I love their bread, and I always save room for a variety of desserts from the Gold Brick Sundae to the Chocolate Fudge Pie. I will even occasionally put down a couple of stone crabs despite a mild allergy that prevents me from breathing. The temporary lack of oxygen is always worth it the moment I realize that I'm going to live. Of course, this blog wasn't set up to discuss shellfish allergies or chocolaty desserts. Read the title. 

 

Due to a strenuous accounting busy season, I hadn't met up with my sister and brother-in-law in a while. I was delighted when a message from my sister popped up on my gmail offering the chance to not only meet and catch up but also to devour a delicious steak at Mastro's. (Paris Club was also presented as an option but was quickly dismissed based primarily on a lack of prime steak). 

That Thursday I was happy as a clam as I looked forward to the steak to come after work. I was sitting in my cubicle doing tax accountant stuff when I then received an exciting opportunity from one of my co-workers to go to Joe's for lunch. Two steaks in one day? I paused for roughly half a second debating whether it was practical to have two steaks on a day that I have a volleyball game before deciding this was an extremely rare opportunity that could not be passed up.

 

Off to Joe's we went for what was sure to be a spectacular meal. Then our waiter happened. Befuddled by our request for more bread, this guy was a bit slow and off to a rough start. I ordered the "Dinner Size" variety of the strip steak. It wasn't so much that I needed a huge steak but the thickness of the cut is vital to my steak enjoyment. Instead of my rare plus dinner sized strip steak, a bone-in medium-well strip steak was placed in front of me.

 

After a couple of bites of trying to convince myself it was still good, I gave up and asked them to make it again.  They accidentally brought me the bone-in version again for the 2nd time. Rather than acknowledge that my rare plus was cooked about 10 minutes too long, they must have determined that they needed to overcompensate the other way and brought out a nearly uncooked steak. I'll take that over medium-well so I ate it and it wasn't bad. I left very happy I had a good lunch but still somewhat surprised they hadn't got my steak right in two attempts. This was, after all, my favorite restaurant. I went back to the office and fueled by my meat, continued on to have a productive afternoon. (Or slept in a food coma, I don't remember).

 

Later on that night I met my sister and her husband "Big Al" at Mastro's. I figured walking from the office to the restaurant might make it easier to digest my lunch in time for dinner but I still felt a bit full and wasn't sure if I could pull it off. We were quickly seated and after sharing taxation stories, North Korea travel advice, and engaging in discussion over how weird my brother Patrick's blog pictures are, our steaks quickly arrived. What followed was 16 ounces of pleasure. Mouthwatering steak that only made me want more with every bite. Every bite was beefy bliss as my steak was cooked to perfection. The meal was spectacular.

 

I fought through the two steaks that night to partake in 3 glorious victories for the Fist People volleyball team. When I got home though, rather than focusing on the victory with my fellow Fist People, I couldn't stop thinking about how good my steak that night was. I love steak. Shouldn't every steak be that good? What if I was short changing myself by always picking Joe's?

 

It then occurred to me that not only do I not have a favorite steakhouse, there are a lot of steakhouses in this wonderful city of Chicago I've yet to try. What if there was something even better that I was missing out on? It was a deeply disturbing thought that there could be great steak out there that I'm not eating. As I lay awake, thinking about steak, I then realized that I need to try every steakhouse in Chicago. I need to never let a good steak go uneaten by me. I want to find the best steakhouse in Chicago. This is my mission. This is my blog. The time I've wasted of the couple people who will probably read this (my brother Patrick? my sister Kathleen? Big Al if I'm lucky?) is just collateral damage.