Beef 'n Babes (StripHouse)

My friend H has an annual dinner she calls Beef 'n Babes. She gets a group of women together once a year for an all out steak dinner at a different steakhouse in town. It's one of my favorite meals all year. This year's was last Saturday. And so we braved the wintery weather and headed to East 13th between University and 5th.

I got really excited when I walked in because it's just such a cool place. The walls are lit with red and lined with photos. The room itself is long and thin with banquettes along all the walls. We ended up in a table at the center, but I would definitely want a banquette next time. And there will be a next time. Not only is the atmosphere great, the service was also fantastic.

When we finally got around to menus, we started with the wine. I went with a Bordeaux because I like them with my steaks. After some serious consideration, we chose the Chateau Bahans Haut Brion 2001. It was amazing. The rest of the ordering wasn't that tough - I knew going in that I'd be getting a steak.

After we dealt with the menus, they brought us a little soup as an amuse bouche. L was skeptical because when we went to Ureno we got a soup amuse there that smelled better than anything, but the flavor didn't measure up. But that didn't happen here - this one tasted as good as it smelled. It was a Celery Potato Puree with Parsley Oil. It was awesome!

I then had the Bibb Lettuce Salad, with onions, bacon, blue cheese. It was a very nice, light salad.

For my steak, I chose the Rib Eye. And got the Truffled Creamed Spinach to go with it, even though no one else wanted any (I just don't believe that you can skip creamed spinach if it's available - it seems like it should be impossible to do). We also got the fries, the mushrooms and the green beans to share, but while the others were great, I concentrated on the steak and spinach. And the steak was perfect. It was perfectly medium-rare. And the outside was full of flavor. It was awesome.

Despite being very full (very, very full), we got dessert. We shared and went with the Apple Strudel. The flavors were good, but there was a bit too much apple for me - the balance between the apple and the pastry (which was awesome) wasn't quite right. It was okay, but it didn't measure up to the rest of the meal.

I'm not planning to wait til next year to go back (besides, H tries to keep us adventurous, trying different places every year).