::: Dead Burrito :::

www.deadburrito.steak
Some restaurants and steak houses get it, some dont. Some insist on designing a steak and bury it under portobello mushrooms, others simply take a decent piece of beef and grill it to perfection. We have tasted many, enjoyed some, rejected few, and simply plain eaten a lot. Mediocricy abounds. So if you're up for a treat, we encourage you to seek out some of the better rated places below. Our rating scheme is easy to grasp. The scale ranges from three DungHeaps on the negative to five HolyCow!s on the positive. Five HolyCow!s also equals to "one Dieter", a rating unit we've created in honor of Dieter Gerzymisch, owner of Cattleman's in El Paso. We rate a steak place along the four dimensions beef, sides, service and atmosphere.

Texas Roadhouse Yuma, AZ		Jun 15, 06
Beef	Top quality NY strip and ribs at a very decent price. Especially the slab of ribs was outstanding, so tender that the meat literally falls off the bone. While I suspect that this might be the result of some add-on tenderizer, it was delicious nonetheless.
Sides	Perfectly OK salad and baked potato, Shiner on tap :)
Service	Friendly, attentive, if a bit confused (walking to the wrong table with the wrong dish), but no wonder, the place was packed full.
Atmosphere	Noisy down-westerly kinda tie-up-your-horse-right-there-pardner-and-grab-a-beer type of place.

Plaza III Kansas City, MO		Nov 4, 06
Beef	A very tasty and perfectly grilled filet. Consistently well prepared (been there twice) and in fact almost worthy of the top rating.
Sides	The sides are good, but cost extra, and chances are you might get a different side than you ordered.
Service	Depends, once quite lousy when the place was really packed, second time very good and attentive when we were pretty much the only patrons (at 5:30pm)
Atmosphere	Classy, lots of suits but nevertheless not stuffy

Angelo and Maxie's Washington, DC		Oct 25, 2002
Beef	13oz filet, generously cut, medium rare and cooked to perfection. Quite tender and very tasty. What kept it from getting closer to the top rating is the sauce or whatever they seem to baste the filet with before grilling it... A steak should taste like steak (meaning a bit like diesel, a bit like saddle leather, a bit like desert after thunderstorm). This steak tastes like its marinade.
Sides	Freshly baked choice of breads, good (if expensive) wine. Delicious soup du jour, sides garlic mashed potatos and spinach. OK, but not outstanding considering that they make you pay extra for the sides.
Service	Attentive and friendly, but confusing. Seems as if they don't have the concept of a table waiter -- I got waited on by four! different servers, not mentioning the guy who seems to only be allowed to pour water. This culminated in me being asked three times (by different servers) whether I'd like desert. Attentive, yes, but annoying, too.
Atmosphere	Art deco kinda interior, very nice and rather un-steakhousish. Upscale clientele, many dressed in suits (black suits, on top of that, might be because of the immediate neighborhood to the MIB headquarters next door at J Edgar Hoover's). Rather noisy.

Branding Iron Steak House Show Low, AZ		Jun 24, 05
Beef	Filet, ordered medium and pristine, but it came medium rare and bacon wrapped. Still very tender and extraordinarily tasty, so I didn't complain. Quite nice.
Sides	Soup tasty, fresh and well kept salad bar, baked potato and crisp warm house bread. Good.
Service	Very friendly and attentive, if at times a bit clumsy
Atmosphere	Quiet, laid back and at ease. Lots of locals.

Buck's Steakhouse Moab, UT		2x,2001,03
Beef	On first visit, tender ribeye with blue cheese butter special, very nice. Two years later, ribeyes medium rare, sinewy and chewy.
Sides	Very nice soup du jour, decent fresh salad, nicely decorated sides of green beans and pinto beans
Service	Service correct, but cold and a bit snubby. Moab is just getting too touristy. They even arrogantly added the tip to the check by themselves.
Atmosphere	Tryin hard to look down-western-ranchy style. Not very appealing atmosphere, we didn't really feel welcome and at home. Obnoxious jazz background music.

California Grill Monterey, CA		October 2000
Beef	Very good filet, if on the medium side of medium-rare. Tasty.
Sides	Dinner includes a nice salad bar with fresh greens and innovative combinations. Steak plate comes heaped sky-high with french fries, which makes it look cheap and unsavory. Don't like it when they bury the meat under the sides - if I order a filet, I want it to be the main feature.
Service	Quite ok, but somehow geared to "speed the customer up", which is surprising considering that the place was half empty.
Atmosphere	Classy, but with that typical "hotel lobby restaurant" kinda look.

Cattleman's Steakhouse Indian Cliffs Ranch, Fabens, TX		7x,2001-05
Beef	Defining the rating scale. Exceptionally tasty, perfectly cooked lean filet, savoury, just outstanding in every respect. And if you grow tired of their steaks, you can always go for some BBQ beef, tender and tasty like nothing you've tried before.
Sides	Piping hot pinto beans, nice baked potato, very tasty coleslaw with apple chunks in it, blending perfectly with the meat taste. Exceptional appetizer of BBQ meat cubes with top of the line BBQ sauce.
Service	Friendly, very professional, attentive without being obtrusive. Good.
Atmosphere	A bit noisy, but they succeed nevertheless quite well in making you feel at home. Thanks to their enourmous seating capacity, they are in no rush to get you going to sell the same table again.

Central City Broiler Sta Maria, CA		10 Jun 2000
Beef	Mass production style, but acceptably prepared
Sides	Industrialized mass production, but not as bad as it looks :)
Service	Obviously understaffed. Service sluggish, but still friendly.
Atmosphere	Football stadium atmosphere, loud and crowded.

Dan Ryan's Chicago Steakhouse Hong Kong (Wanchai Pacific Centre)		26 Nov 04
Beef	10oz filet med rare, acceptable, but slightly dry and somewhat overcooked piece of beef. The very center was juicy, but with a 10oz, the center ain't all that big. And hey, they even have a 6oz - don't take it, even prepared rare it looks like the liver of a chain-smoking rabbit.
Sides	Very average french fries (called "american fries"). Decent potato skins with chese (kinda nacho style) as appetizer.
Service	OK, but slow. A colleague had a rack of ribs and spent half the evening with the discarded bones on a plate in front of him until the rubble was finally taken away.
Atmosphere	Very american, including omnipresent TV sets featuring baseball and co. MGD bottled, Kilkenny(!) on tap. Somewhat noisy, but akin to the region - I suspect for quite some time that chinese mobile phones must contain very poor microphones.
Comments	Eating in Hong Kong ain't cheap, the 10oz filet goes at 250 HKD, roughly 30 USD. I've had better steaks for 30 bucks elsewhere.

District Chop House and Brewery Washington, DC		22 Oct 2002
Beef	(Filet Med Rare). Perfect chunk of meat, but for some reason they're afraid to let it speak for itself... Bacon wrapped and garnished with whiskey-grilled Portobello mushrooms, the steak taste almost vanishes. Maybe some Texans should emigrate to DC to teach them how to GRILL a steak (as opposed to DESIGN one)
Sides	Pan-baked bread, sweet, rather like a dessert cake then a bread. Brewery on premises with decent beer. Nice salad with mixed greens. Cheap baked potato as a side.
Service	Yet-another-guest attitude. You could go to McDonalds and feel more welcome.
Atmosphere	Noisy sports bar style, with obnoxious background music of which only the bass beats manage to penetrate the chatty noise. Beautiful! old building with high (20ft or so) ceiling, old pillars and beams.

El Paso Bar-B-Que Company Tucson, AZ		Oct 3, 2004
Beef	Decent chunk of prime rib, but with all the trimmings still on. Tender and tasty once cut through to the real thing.
Sides	Yucky sweet cowboy beans, ordinary baked potato. Cheap artificial "Branding Iron" sauce. On the up side, decent wheat beer on tap, and a quite tasty "Texas BBQ" sauce.
Service	Attentive and friendly. Good.
Atmosphere	Obnoxious music, but spacy interior, fast seating.

Glen Canyon Steakhouse Page, AZ		5x, 2001-05
Beef	Filet medium-rare, bacon wrapped. A decent cut, but size ain't everything, as they don't trim it well and leave a lot of sinewy mess on the edges. In every respect, the quality has been going downhill steadily since our first visit in 2001.
Sides	Cheap, really cheap salad bar. The baked potato wasn't half bad, though.
Service	Friendly and attentive, if a bit in a hurry to sell the same table again
Atmosphere	Family dining atmosphere, noisy and crowded. Western-farm decor in Hollywood movie style.

Gordo's Hawthorne, NY 10532		May 28, 2003
Beef	Decent chunk of black angus strip, well prepared, if somewhat charred on the edges. Thus not really haute cuisine like, but the meat itself is perfect, and I prefer charred over industrially prepared any time
Sides	Somewhat mellow salad, but tasty mixture of field greens. Small baked potato and home made cream spinach as sides for the steak.
Service	Attentive and friendly.
Atmosphere	Odd mixture between out west and oyster tavern, both in style and on the menu. I'm usually suspicious of steak places featuring seafood, but Gordo's wears 'em both with easy. Lots of local patronage.

Hog's Breath Cafe Darwin, NT, Australia		24 June 2004
Beef	Juicy prime rib, upper middle class by Australian standards. Nicely trimmed and cooked.
Sides	Choice of the 'usual suspects' you encounter Down Under. Tasty, fresh salads. Veggies are actually cooked and not just nuked in the microwave the way many American places do it.
Service	Very friendly, fast and knowledgeable. Also not at all in a hurry to sell the same table countless times on the same day. Well, the place was not too crowded anyway.
Atmosphere	Mix between Aussie Roadhouse and Wild West Saloon ("Check all guns and knives at the bar"). Music a bit loud, but at least with some style.
Comments	A note on the difference in taste between Australian and American beef: Both have the distinct 'prairie' taste European beef never has - and the taste of industrial cow food is at least skillfully disguised. On top of that the Aussie beef offers a component mostly resembling fresh herbs while the saddle leather and diesel parts are much more dominant in the American kind. If these characterizations are too farfetched for you - tough.

KC's Steakhouse Bakersfiled, CA		8 Jun 2000
Beef	Well prepared filet and ribeye, but not overly tender
Sides	Extraordinary salad dressing, perfectly prepared tasty sides and vegetables.
Service	Friendly and attentive, "what would you like, honey" style
Atmosphere	Rather dimly lit dining hall with true fifties interior and live music

Ranch Kitchen Gallup, NM		23 APR 2002
Beef	Filet medium rare, cooked to the point. Meat itself good but not outstanding. Served on a sizzling hot plate, which has the advantage that the meat stays hot, but the disadvantage that your last bites tend to be "medium well" rather than medium rare.
Sides	Varying quality of sides, chile poppers and pinto beans very good, salad bar and corn salad below standard.
Service	Very friendly, attentive and fast. Owner personally looks after the patronage.
Atmosphere	Friendly, family style. Notorious "which state ah-yall-from" greeting, complete with a tiny flag for the table.
Comments	Go to Ranch Kitchen for breakfast, too. Paradise for egg-n-chile lovers.

Ruby River Steakhouse SLC, UT		9 MAY 2002
Beef	Tender filet, bacon-wrapped for some obscure reason - the tender tasty meat would not need this porky addition. Cooked to the point and served on a piping hot plate.
Sides	Delicious red chile poppers as appetizer, really decent homemade garden salad, fancy fully jacketed baked potato.
Service	Somewhat frantic and very attentive after observing us taking notes, but overall friendly and perfectly all right.
Atmosphere	Crossover between way out west, sports bar and country music shack, somewhat noisy. Nicely coping with the Utah drinking laws (brewery on premisies :-)

Ruth's Chris Steakhouse Las Vegas, NV		7 Jun 2000
Beef	Perfectly prepared, generously cut, tender filet.
Sides	Tasty sides in great variety, but everything costs extra.
Service	Very attentive and knowledgeable, if somewhat very business-oriented
Atmosphere	Pompously upscale place for highrollers and wannabe's.

Shula's Steak House Swan-Dolphin Resort, Orlando, FL		07 April 2004
Beef	Touted "one of the top five steak houses of America", it was a sure thing that I had to try it. Yes, they're doing a good job, but nothing that really takes my breath away. The 12oz filet was tender and cooked to perfection, but basted with some sort of marinade which was a bit too much on the salty and steaksauceish side for my taste. Flashy show of presenting the available meat cuts on a wagon brought to the table instead of having to order from a menu.
Sides	Sides are very nice, like fresh asparagus, but considering that they make you pay extra for the sides, they better be. The four holy cows here are mostly for the Shula steak soup that I had for starters, which was very good indeed.
Service	Friendly, polite and attentive, if a bit on the greasy side (I wouldn't buy an used car from that waiter :-). Also, once he brought me my filet, the waiter asked that I cut it in his presence "so that we can verify that it is cooked exactly right". He let me cut it, and then said right away "Looks all right to me". Don't know why they do this -- are they trying to stifle complaints ?
Atmosphere	Perfectly ok, but too dark for my taste. I hate it if I can only barely see the faces of the waiters, and can only distinguish the water guy from the waiter by the fact that the former wears a white jacket.

Stuart Anderson's Las Vegas, NV		Aug 2001
Beef	Two filet mignon, medium rare. Quite OK, sort of what we came to expect from Black Angus. They must get their meat from genetically cloned cows to be able to keep size and quality so constant.
Sides	Salad ok, but the industrial-style heavy-duty broccoli leaves much to ask for
Service	Considering that we came in 30min before closing time and that we ended up being the last guests of the day makes it doubly noteworthy that the service was very friendly and attentive.
Atmosphere	Nicely compartementalized interior, makes you feel at home if the place is crowded - and less out of place if you're the only guests

Stuart Anderson's Palm Springs, CA		3x in 2005
Beef	Filet, medium. Constant quality and taste, always grilled exactly the same.
Sides	Decent salad, very nice steak soup, and delicious garlic mashed potatos
Service	Friendly, if slow.
Atmosphere	Quiet, agreeable, but a bit too dark for my taste.

Texas Cattle Company St. Petersburg, FL		Apr 9, 04
Beef	Getting close to the top rating. The meat itself is good, if not overly lean, and left pretty much pristine. But the best of it: They grill the slab of cow over a wood fire, and the difference this makes in taste is simply amazing.
Sides	The average - tasty salad and ordinary baked potato.
Service	Friendly and neighbourly, but with a couple of longer waits in between.
Atmosphere	Depending on whether you like fake 70's texas ranch interior (seats covered in cowhide), your rating might be a bit higher... I did like the combination of a bar (complete with cops drinking coffee) and dining room, which made for a friendly atmosphere. If you can't stand beer drinkers watching a game while you are eating your slab of meat, they got another dining room in the back for the posher crowd.