| rev:text
| - Wanted to give Strip another visit before finally writing a review. Just like my first visit, I came away thinking that while Strip serves up a pretty good steak in an environment with a cool vibe, the food lags behind the other top steakhouses in the area.
Had dinner at the bar in the seat closest to the open kitchen, which was a pretty cool experience in itself. I could easily hear the chef barking out orders (including my own) and at one point in the meal the grill cook leaned over and asked me how I liked my steak. I could even smell my dessert coming well before it was actually brought out to me.
Dinner started out with complimentary pretzel bread served with peanut-butter butter as well as regular butter. The peanut butter version was better than I thought it would be, with the peanut flavor controlled and offset by the creaminess of the butter. By way of comparison, though, I highly prefer the pretzel bread served at Hyde Park.
For an appetizer, I found the Pierogies of the Day to be a little bit of a misnomer--texturally more resembling large fried wontons than anything else (though with a thicker, slightly more doughier shell). For the holiday season, the pierogies came with a pumpkin filling, but not nearly enough filling was put in each piece given the large proportions of each pierogi. On top of that, it was hard to focus in on the taste of the filling given the traditional sour cream and onion toppings. I would likely pass on the pierogies in favor of another appetizer or soup on a future visit.
For the main course, I went with a medium rare Cowboy steak--a 22 oz. bone-in ribeye. It was a decent cut of meat and cooked to the desired temperature, but I think that the steak sat around a little too long in the kitchen. I'm all for letting a steak sit a little bit to let the juices redistribute, but I'd rather have the bulk of that sitting around done while the steak is on my plate; hitting the peak just after I've made my first couple initial cuts. Also, you won't find that nice char on the outside of the steak at Strip that you can at some other places. I am a little wary (disappointed, really) on how Strip does their butter toppings by serving up the steak with a 4 sq. in. heap of butter sitting on top rather than applying melted butter on both sides of the steak in the kitchen. Serving it up that way does less for the taste of the steak and isn't that aesthetically appetizing either. I went with the Apple Honey Bacon Butter, but the "Apple Honey Bacon" part of the topping really wasn't discernible (meaning, on the steak) until I cut off a little piece and applied it to some bread.
The Au Gratin Potatoes for a side dish were outright bad. The potatoes were cooked but far from hot, and the cheddar cheese on top was already melted and cooled by the time the dish got to me. Clearly the dish suffered some sort of timing problem in the kitchen, but I speculate that it really wouldn't have tasted all that great even without those difficulties. I ended up taking most of the potatoes home and finally dumping them after a day or two in the fridge and absolutely no desire to eat them.
The S'mores for dessert were probably my favorite thing I had that night. Simple enough, this is a chocolate brownie covered in marshmallow cream in between two graham crackers themselves covered in chocolate and whipped cream, all served up piping hot--I counted 18 seconds between smelling the dish from the kitchen and having it placed in front of me.
I thought that the service was friendly and attentive. For diners at the bar, I thought the placemat was a nice touch you don't often see, and I liked the specially-sized dish for holding utensils. The bartender checked in fairly often, and I appreciated the grill cook asking how the steak turned out. As I mention above, I thought that all the food could and should be brought out faster. The wine list is significantly more limited at Strip than its peer restaurants, but I did enjoy the higher end reds that they offered by the glass. As for ambiance, Strip has a cool vibe about it, in contrast to the more traditional steakhouses. The space being a converted barn is interesting, though I could have done with something other than the odd white tabletops. All things considered, I think Strip sits at the end of the higher end area steakhouses I've been to (Morton's, Red, Cabin Club, XO, and Hyde Park), but still merits three stars as, on balance, a more positive than negative experience.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)