OT: Best steakhouse in Michigan

Sizzler

 I saw plenty of cows at Michigan Tech. 

The sticker shock would have incapacitated me.

I'm not a fan of A5. It is just too much. I can handle one little strip (1/3") but that is all.

However, the waygu crossbreds from the US are great.

A tip on St. Elmos is if you can't get in or don't want to get too fancy go to Harry and Izzy's. Same exact food (the downtown location shares a kitchen). And make sure you get the shrimp cocktail.

With apologies to Indy Pete who seems like a nice guy, and any other Indianapolis resident here... St. Elmos is (I'm trying to be nice here) old school.

In the past I've had stronger words to say about it. And my bigger "beef" is that the entire city's culinary identity is built around a shrimp cocktail, which is a very nice shrimp cocktail, but come on.

Here's the deal with St Elmos. It's an old school steakhouse. They exist all over, in every city. It looks exactly like somewhere you'd expect Frank and Dean and the boys to have run up a $1000 tab in 1961. They've been around for 100 years and they're proud of it. Awesome. The problem with that is, the food and the menu has been around for 100 years too. 

Now don't get me wrong, an old school steakhouse has its place in the culinary landscape. But honestly, most of it is for nostalgia. The fact that people talk about St Elmos so much in Indy has more to do with the fact that the true food "revolution" has been a bit slow to land in the city (some new good places), combined with so many big sporting events there, that require sports journalists to do stories about "local fare."  But in the end, that's what St Elmos is. It's the same old school steakhouse you can have in most every major city in America, you can order the "tomahawk" cut, and eat like they did "when things were good in this place."  Or whatever.

But our culinary sensibilities have changed in the past 70 years. Shit, they've changed in the past 10 years leaps and bounds.

Here's the deal about steakhouses in general. It's not about the steaks. Chefs that work here are masters of cooking and preparing meat. If you can't do that, then GTFO. So, every good steakhouse that is actually good can cook. The meat... well that comes from the same handful of purveyors. Yeah you can shop a little more local "from a small farm in the Hudson Valley" or whatever. But that's just narrative. A high end cut of beef from Jeff Ruby's, tastes like a high end cut of beef from Cote, tastes like the same high end cut of beef from Maple & Ash. 

It's the sides...

That's where they separate themselves. What are you doing with your compound butter or demi-glace? How are you serving the potatoes? Creamed spinach to die for? And so on... and so on...

So, find yourself the steakhouse that does the sides well. The 20oz porterhouse rare+ or whatever you treat yourself to, meat-wise, is basically going to be the same great cut of meat. But everything else.... that's what separates men from the boys. 

That's also why a place like St. Elmos isn't really anything more than eating a Nathans on Coney Island. Do it if you're there. It's cool to say you did. But there's nothing special about it.