You Call This Steak?

Other than the marks on the side where the jockey was hitting hit I can't really qualify the dish that was put on my table yesterday at brunch, steak.

The thought was nice of course and we were there to celebrate the impending welcome into the world of a new little bee. And yes the people there were very nice and I did get to have several adult conversations that have been devoid in my life recently but that still doesn't excuse the quality of the slab of meat that shared space on my plate with the egg whites, grapefruit slices, and diced potatoes.

Chef Geoff's has become over the years as close as this town has come to a hallowed institution. They used to be known for takes on simple American classics. Now they will be known for dropping a piece of NY strip that looks to be a reject from both TGI Friday's, a high school cafeteria, and possibly the snack bar at the Baghdad International Airport. The eggs weren't much better but that's not the point.

How does food like this make the grade?  There was supposed to be farmers, slaughterhouse supervisors, food inspectors, purchasing agents, chefs, food expediters, and waiters who all were supposed to stand in the way of that cow of making it's way to my plate. Where were they and why weren't they doing their jobs.

And if it could happen here, in the United States, in our Nation's Capitol, just blocks from the White House and the McDonald's near the White House, then what about in other countries? Canada could start serving bad meat, or even Britain. Heck it could possibly spread to India...well maybe not that far.

In summary, the steak was rubbery, undercooked, and possibly microwaved. It lacked taste, color and many other meat like tendencies. It deserved no place in a restaurant, hospital, or morgue and it certainly deserves no space on my plate.

Thanksgiving. ACT II: To Chow or Not to Chao

I'll save you the drama and disappointment in both "Grandma Goes for a Walk" and "The Jets Lay a Thanksgiving Egg" by saying that both were disappointments but only one was avoidable. And besides, I'd rather get on with the food!

On Saturday we took the Wife and the Father-in-Law out for their traditional Birthday dinner. Instead of the usual Japanese Steakhouse (which has been spotty lately after years of great food), we ventured for something a bit fancier to mark the occasions of their 30th and 60th birthdays, respectively.

So off to Fogo de Chao we went. For those of you who haven't been to a "Brazilian steakhouse", I won't bore you with all the details on how things are done. Rather, read this post from the DC Foodies site for the full rundown of how it works and so on. This way we can get to the real "Meat" of the discussion.

We ate to our hearts content obviously but I found that as part of this new diet (by the way I'm down a total of 11 lbs in 5 weeks....yeah me!) I've adopted the "law of diminishing returns" and noticed that each cut of meat that was brought to my plate lost the bulk of it's flavor after a few bites. So at the end my plate looked like a scrap heap of assorted meat products. This way I got to taste everything (and somethings twice).

Overall the food was good but not great. I thought the salad/antipasto bar had a nice selection with quality products. I think it would have been better (as the Foodies describe) to have some of those items brought to the table mid meal as a palette cleanser.

Speaking of diets and Fat Americans, I took a mid meal break to get a few "changes of pace" from the salad bar and was in line behind a very large woman who appeared to be going for her pre meal plate. Even though it's an all you can eat MEAT restaurant, she proceeded to load her plate with 2 pieces of bread, 4-5 pats of butter, all sorts of cheese, in addition to the rest of the items on the bar. It shocks me that if you pay the kind of money per person to eat at this place that you'd save PLENTY of room for the actual MEAT. And if you can eat all that and a sizable portion of the meat, you may want to cut back on one or the other....or just go and get a little bit of exercise.