Friday, October 26, 2007
Shlag is Automatic!
I took my parents and my boyfriend to Peter Luger for my parents' thirtieth wedding anniversary, and it was one of the greatest meals I've ever had in my life. I was fully prepared going in that it would be astronomically expensive and the service would be gruff and Teutonic, but on both counts I was pleasantly surprised--even if my father can rack up a sixty dollar bar tab in about an hour. If you order Porterhouse for Three for four people, it's about $130 and you walk out with a third of the meat uneaten. I had one drink, because I was offering to drive my parents back to Long Island (which they declined, but I'm still glad I didn't get drunk, since it would have been an extra forty bucks and I might not remember the event as perfectly).
Essentially, we didn't deviate from the script. For appetizers, we had the tomato-and-onion and a side of bacon. I've never in my life eaten tomato in pieces, with nothing on it. I'm a finicky priss. This time, I was slicing it up like a filet. With the house sauce on it it was incredibly meaty and rich. Same for the Vidalia onion. However, it was the bacon that really blew me away. It was the thickest, fattiest, most perfectly salted and crispy slice of bacon I've ever had. It looked like a hot dog autopsy. As good as the meat was--and I'm a bit chagrined to admit it--it was the bacon that was truly a mind fuck.
But the meat--they give you two enormous medium-cooked t-bone cuts with the pieces of meat half cut off into a sort of niblet, with the plate elevated at one end so that all the bloodied butter pools together. I ate until my breathing became labored with the pressure of meat on my lungs, and even then, as the waiter was about to bag our remnants begged someone to eat the final piece he extricated from the anonymous chunks left over. His plea was so earnest that I couldn't say no, and he was right. And the spinach and German potatoes were fantastic. The portions were tiny compared to the porterhouse; it seems they restrict the mandate for gluttony to meat.
As far as service goes, I was expecting something along the lines of the Muppet Movie when the dude with a hairnet throws plates of frog-legs as Telly Savalas and his myth. Instead, it was courteous with the ideal amount of pleasant chit-chat, i.e. "Is this your first time here, or are you regulars?" It was somewhat collective, with a panoply of middle-aged Germans working together around the dining room. They can carry twice the number of plates that I can. When they bring you your meat, they serve it in a hybrid-French service manner. Everything was prompt and no-nonsense. My father kept marveling at the decor, which is basically a zero. The tables are ancient oak, without any finish or tablecloths; there are rows of dusty steins lining the ledges and the bar, which lacks a footrest of any kind (believe me, it's quite distracting) might have been assembled in 1887. The lighting is overpowering and entirely overhead.
But after 120 years, it's done gone and branded itself. Marketing their own sauce might have been the watershed moment, but at least you can't buy a t-shirt. The self-commemoration is muted, limited basically to an insider's appreciation. If there were anything the least bit flamboyant, the entire operation would fall into the kitsch column. In spite of a casual dress code, it manages to avoid a kind of old-school tackiness by maintaining its singularly fantastic food (or at least, that's my guess, having only been there this one time). It's only replicated itself once, although who knows if they'll dismantle the building to make way for more Williamsburg condos and re-assemble it in Vegas.
Frank Bruni of the Times wrote a bullshit review a month ago. He does touch on the lighting issue, and I agree that the shrimp cocktail was lackluster, but most of his complaints are frivolous. Wah! The waiter threw gold coins at me! He sighed impatiently when my idiot friend inquired about the goddamn fish! I don't want to leave Manhattan to eat dinner!
Whatever, dude. My only real complaint is that there wasn't a wide range of choices of wine by the glass. (And they're not cheap--if they do that lunch burger deal for like ten bucks they can track down a suitable red wine to pair with their beef). For dessert, we ordered cheesecake and chocolate mousse cake. (They were out of German-American Bund-t cake). As the server left, I called after him about shlag. "Oh, yes. Shlag is automatic!" he said, walking away. I thought that was hilarious. The standardization of the meals really betrayed the underlying efficiency. Shlag is ubiquitous! Shlag is omniscient! And it was really good.
Bottom line: it's probably the best steak in the universe. No matter what the NY Times may shrewishly bitch, with its signature anti-style, Peter Luger is probably the best novelty restaurant there is.
Essentially, we didn't deviate from the script. For appetizers, we had the tomato-and-onion and a side of bacon. I've never in my life eaten tomato in pieces, with nothing on it. I'm a finicky priss. This time, I was slicing it up like a filet. With the house sauce on it it was incredibly meaty and rich. Same for the Vidalia onion. However, it was the bacon that really blew me away. It was the thickest, fattiest, most perfectly salted and crispy slice of bacon I've ever had. It looked like a hot dog autopsy. As good as the meat was--and I'm a bit chagrined to admit it--it was the bacon that was truly a mind fuck.
But the meat--they give you two enormous medium-cooked t-bone cuts with the pieces of meat half cut off into a sort of niblet, with the plate elevated at one end so that all the bloodied butter pools together. I ate until my breathing became labored with the pressure of meat on my lungs, and even then, as the waiter was about to bag our remnants begged someone to eat the final piece he extricated from the anonymous chunks left over. His plea was so earnest that I couldn't say no, and he was right. And the spinach and German potatoes were fantastic. The portions were tiny compared to the porterhouse; it seems they restrict the mandate for gluttony to meat.
As far as service goes, I was expecting something along the lines of the Muppet Movie when the dude with a hairnet throws plates of frog-legs as Telly Savalas and his myth. Instead, it was courteous with the ideal amount of pleasant chit-chat, i.e. "Is this your first time here, or are you regulars?" It was somewhat collective, with a panoply of middle-aged Germans working together around the dining room. They can carry twice the number of plates that I can. When they bring you your meat, they serve it in a hybrid-French service manner. Everything was prompt and no-nonsense. My father kept marveling at the decor, which is basically a zero. The tables are ancient oak, without any finish or tablecloths; there are rows of dusty steins lining the ledges and the bar, which lacks a footrest of any kind (believe me, it's quite distracting) might have been assembled in 1887. The lighting is overpowering and entirely overhead.
But after 120 years, it's done gone and branded itself. Marketing their own sauce might have been the watershed moment, but at least you can't buy a t-shirt. The self-commemoration is muted, limited basically to an insider's appreciation. If there were anything the least bit flamboyant, the entire operation would fall into the kitsch column. In spite of a casual dress code, it manages to avoid a kind of old-school tackiness by maintaining its singularly fantastic food (or at least, that's my guess, having only been there this one time). It's only replicated itself once, although who knows if they'll dismantle the building to make way for more Williamsburg condos and re-assemble it in Vegas.
Frank Bruni of the Times wrote a bullshit review a month ago. He does touch on the lighting issue, and I agree that the shrimp cocktail was lackluster, but most of his complaints are frivolous. Wah! The waiter threw gold coins at me! He sighed impatiently when my idiot friend inquired about the goddamn fish! I don't want to leave Manhattan to eat dinner!
Whatever, dude. My only real complaint is that there wasn't a wide range of choices of wine by the glass. (And they're not cheap--if they do that lunch burger deal for like ten bucks they can track down a suitable red wine to pair with their beef). For dessert, we ordered cheesecake and chocolate mousse cake. (They were out of German-American Bund-t cake). As the server left, I called after him about shlag. "Oh, yes. Shlag is automatic!" he said, walking away. I thought that was hilarious. The standardization of the meals really betrayed the underlying efficiency. Shlag is ubiquitous! Shlag is omniscient! And it was really good.
Bottom line: it's probably the best steak in the universe. No matter what the NY Times may shrewishly bitch, with its signature anti-style, Peter Luger is probably the best novelty restaurant there is.
