Old Homestead – Old Favorite

There’s always pressure when it’s “your month”. Do you pick a new hip place, should we re-visit one of the many places we’ve had a mediocre meal at, or do you pick an Old favorite to be guaranteed a great meal. Since last month’s outing to Strip House was less than stellar, I had to go Old’ reliable for my pick. Thus, I went with the familiar friend, The Old Homestead.

This wasn’t a “Solo Mission” and wasn’t a full Steak Club 7 gathering. To borrow a golf-term, we dined as a foursome (No Rerun, No Rev, No PA). We had an 8pm tee-time and sat promptly. After much deliberation over the wine list, we settled on an Italian wine and we were ready to eat! (NOTE: The wine list at Old Homestead is VERY pricey. Maybe it’s just been a while, but you should be able to get a $45 bottle of wine at a NYC steakhouse. The average price was much closer to $75/bottle).

We started with the famed Jenna style garlic bread – Always a thumbs up!

Next up was the Kobe Bacon Appetizer. We ordered 2 pieces each to which our waiter thought we were crazy. He eventually let us order it and the bacon was amazing. Probably the best steak house bacon in quite some time. BACON!

We also ordered Shrimp for the table. They were huge. Reminded us of a former NY Yankees First Baseman (Hint: Jason Giambi). Definitely performance enhanced just like we like them. Tasted really good!

As for the steaks, a couple of us strayed from our usual menu favorites. I ordered the Filet (usually orders Strip), Rich ordered the Strip (usually gets Porterhouse), Joe ordered Rib Eye (usually orders Strip) and Matt went with his signature Filet Au Poivre . I believe we went 2 for 4 on our steaks. Mine was perfect and I was completely satisfied. Matt’s was well under-cooked, ordered Medium-Rare plus, but arrived very rare. Joe’s was ok, but he took most of it home and Rich never leaves anything on his plate.

I realize that most great steaks don’t need steak sauce, but Old Homesteads sweet sauce is just too good to avoid. I can’t recommend it enough (even on a steak).

The sides were good, not great. We went simple with Broccoli, Hash Brown and Truffle Mac & Cheese. The Hash Brown is amazing, Broccoli is healthy and Mac & Cheese may have been too much.

Even though it was a familiar steakhouse for us, the renovation that made the restaurant smaller gave it more cozy atmosphere, but not sure if that’s a good thing. Often felt cramped in the main dining space and our waiter was standing over our table most of the evening (mostly b/c he had no one else to stand).

We got the bill and realized we did some major damage. We didn’t go too crazy with drinks or desert and it was quite an expensive evening! Overall, we had a great night. The food was good, not amazing. We’re always going to enjoy going to Old Homestead, but the mighty could be falling some.

3.5 Knives
-Jon