Prime Spot - Oakland

I went out for steak tonight to a little hole in the wall place on Grand Avenue, up from Lake Merritt. It is next to a nail salon that was incredibly busy at 6:30 on a Saturday night.

It is not much to look at and you would never have pegged it for a steakhouse, in fact you'd think it was actually a Chinese restaurant. I hesitated at the door because the place was empty of customers and all the staff were sitting at the bar. However, the East Bay Express had good things to say about it, so I took a chance.

The menu is all about the meat. My dining companion had had a half slab of ribs at an earlier visit but both of us were in the mood for beef.

I ordered the Rib Eye and it came out beautifully rare. There was a lot of fat around the meat but that just made it tender and delicious. The garlic mashed potatoes were excellent and I did eat one of the broccoli florets.

My business partner's husband had the NY Strip. His meat was cooked to his specification - just pink all the way through - and just what he had been dreaming about. He also had a salad with his but, you know my saying about salads: "Salad isn't food, it is what food eats!"

The waiter warned us at the outset about them losing their liquor license but the meal was still excellent without wine. The prices are also very reasonable, making this a terrific alternative to those high end steak houses where you pay for the rarefied atmosphere.

After dinner, we walked down to Walden Books and spent a lovely time just browsing the new and used books. All and all, it was a great evening.

Perfect Prime Rib

Nothing says Christmas to me more than a standing prime rib roast with mashed potatoes and gravy. Over the past few years, my Mom and I have been tweaking the recipe slightly to make the quintessential cooked hunk of meat. For two year's now, we've achieved perfection, so I'm going to share it with you.

We started this year with about 7.5 lbs of bone-in prime rib roast. We watch the sales for this prime piece of meat and wrap it well in plastic wrap and butcher's paper before freezing it for our Christmas Eve meal. We slowly defrosted it in the fridge and then brought it to room temperature before cooking. 

As we want the taste of the meat to come through, we do not marinate the meat or coat it in herbs. We simply give it a light coating of olive oil and then a sprinkle of salt while the oven was preheated to 500° F. As soon as the roast was in the oven, the temperature was dropped to 325° F.

My Mom likes her meat to be very rare (almost blue), while Dad prefers medium rare and I'm a little in between. Therefore, we cooked it 15 minutes per pound for 2 hours and 15 minutes or until the thermometer rose to 115° F degrees. We did this because we knew we would have about 10 degrees of carry over cooking to bring it around 125° F (medium rare) - in fact, our carryover went to 123° F. By doing it this way, both ends were just right for Dad, the next layer in was wonderful for me and the bloody interior was Shangri-lah for Mom.

As you can see from the above picture, there isn't a ring of gray, overcooked meat along the outside that you get if you pan sear prior to cooking and both the crust and interior are cooked to perfection.

The pan drippings and meat juices from while it was resting were used to make a wonderful gravy. The camellia centerpiece came from the shrubs along my Dad's driveway.

Happy holidays from my family to yours! May you never leave the table hungry for anything but conversation!

The Ranch - Hayward

Hayward is not on anyone's list as the place for haute cuisine but they can rustle up some darn good grub.

The Ranch is on Mission Street and serves absolutely excellent steaks. I had the Rib Eye and my dining companions had the NY Steak. Mine came out perfectly medium rare and melted like butter in the mouth. Unfortunately, the corn they served with it came straight out of the can and the center of the baked potato wasn't cooked. We also ordered the fried zuchini appetizer and the spears were large and pretty darn tasty. As I was mainly focused on the meat, I'm willing to overlook the veggie issues.

When we were there, the parking lot was full as it was the Oakland Raiders first preseason game. The bar was packed with rednecks and Raider's fans who got a little noisy. The dining room wasn't too full, though, and we got our food very quickly from the attentive servers.

Second Birthday at Mr. John's

I so enjoyed my first visit to Mr. John's Steak House that when a friend asked me where she and her husband could take me to dinner, I told them I wanted to go back for another meal. Being used to spoiling me on my birthday, they agreed.

This visit was just as good. The cocktails we started with (sidecar and sazerac) were perfectly blended. My friends enjoyed some French Onion Soup which was rich and hearty and no-one choked on the cheese (my paternal grandmother was forever warning anyone who ordered such a soup as to the dire consequences awaiting you). I had the ribeye again and they went for the filet mignon and the petite filet. The filet was just a little dry for my taste but that could have been because the marbling on my piece of meat made mine extra juicey! The sides of potato au gratin were super hot but filled with creamy, cheesey goodness. I only had a bite of the spinach au gratin to reaffirm how much I hate cooked spinach.

As they had told them when making the reservation that it was my birthday, we enjoyed another complimentary bread pudding with our tawny cinnamon port. Not a bad ending to any meal.

I've also got to give kudos for the service--the waitstaff is attentive without being obtrusive, water and iced tea is filled before the level drops below the half way line, all the plates are delivered to the table at the same time. We got there at 7:30 and were the second to last table to clear at 10pm and they never made us feel rushed or that we should take our conversation elsewhere.

Mr. John's Steakhouse

OMG! Seriously, oh my God! The steaks at Mr. John's Steakhouse are absolutely incredible. We all got ribeyes and they were cooked to perfections--I got mine medium rare, Dad rare and Mom blue and you could totally see the difference. Flavored with just a touch of salt and pepper, the meat stood on its own in a sizzling, lightly buttered plate. Exquisite! The potato sides (twice baked and au gratin) were delicious. Very creamy, with a broiled bit of cheese on top. The Cabernet that I got with the meal matched perfectly the fine cut of meat.

As it was my birthday (ratted out by my Dad), they gave a complimentary bread pudding. I'm not a fan of raisins in mine but the pudding was very good and the rum sauce nice and hard.

Very much a place to take my next celebratory meal.