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“Primehouse”

Occasion:	Cuisine:	Area:	Cost:	Rating:
Night Out	New American	Flatiron	Break the Bank	Good

Atkins’ diet—no carbs, lots of protein. This is a challenge at Primehouse because dinner begins with a collection of locally baked bagel-shaped rolls threaded over the top of a silver stand with an upright spindle. It’s the kind of bread set-up that had me imagining the guys in the kitchen playing horseshoes. And if you should finish your sleeve of rolls, it will be refilled quickly and without question. As you’ll find at all of Hanson’s restaurants, the service is quick, efficient and very well-trained.

But we were roll-free that night and we watched and wept as tables around us began tearing into the soft rolls and slathering them with butter, as we snacked on our Matzo. Oh the sacrifices we make for our religion. But soon we were tossing that same religion under the bus for the first course of our dinner—an icy silver tray lined with a dozen oysters—six East Coast and six West. We understand that eating oysters (and steak for that matter) while observing the rules of Passover makes little sense. But there we were anyway, slurping them down. They were plump and briny served with juicy lemon wedges and a bracing mignonette, and went well with the Chenin Blanc (kosher, of course) that Craig had brought in from a local store since at the moment the BR Guest is free of kosher selections. (The kosher stuff is getting better actually. We found some very good wine to pour at our wedding from Galil).

Other than our oysters, we passed on appetizers that night to save room for our steak, which was a big boy sized slab—a Porterhouse for Two ($48pp). Dry aged so it’s tender and wildly flavorful, it weighed in at almost 40 ounces and was presented tableside for a score of Ooohs and Aaaahs, before being sliced by a skilled waiter/surgeon who plated tender ruby red slices of beautifully charred beef on our white plates like steak dominoes. The steak was terrific, with a satisfying chew and a salty meatiness that you crave from a good steak dinner. While there were a slew of steak sauces (horseradish, peppercorn, béarnaise, classic, and blue cheese, etc.) from which to choose to adorn our steak, they were unneeded and therefore went untouched. Instead, we augmented our steak with a few sides ($9 each and sized generously enough to feed ten to twelve friends)—creamed spinach and the truffle-Parmesan fries. The fries were actually steak-cut fries: skin-on wedges that were crunchy on the outs ... [more, click below]

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Posted: May 25, 2008

Other restaurants in Flatiron :
+ Suenos   + Amuse-- Closed   + Dos Caminos   + Lucy-- Closed   + Gramercy Taver   + Veritas   + Fleur De Sel   + Bolo -- CLosed   + City Bakery   + Shake Shack   + Kalustyan's Cafe   + Devi   + BLT Fish   + Sugarcane   + BLT Prime   + Barca 18-- CLOSED   + Beppe   + Barbounia   + Boqueria   + Eleven Madison   + Lonesome Dove-- CLOSED   + Hill Country   + Olana   + Wildwood   + Primehouse   + Allegretti   + Bar Breton   + Aldea   + SD26 by Bao Ong   + ABC Kitchen   + Ciano   + The NoMad   

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