Morton’s Steakhouse
Last weekend was our anniversary, and a friend had given me a Morton’s coupon earlier, so I made reservations at Morton’s.
Getting to Morton’s, like everything else in downtown Dallas, is a real pain, unless you already live there. After driving by the grassy knoll a couple of times, we figured out which side of the road to be on to land in front of the valet before missing the building all together. Morton’s is on the right side of Elm when traveling west, about 20 feet from Houston. It is easy to spot after you have passed the sixth floor museum the third time.
Morton’s is in an old brick building you would expect your lawyer to have his office in. You walk into the building, and see a subdued sign telling you Morton’s is downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs is a solid wooden door with a simple brass plaque reading “Morton’s of Chicago”. As you walk in, there is no maitre d’ desk, but someone hovering around comes out to meet you. The setting is an upscale speakeasy, and having not lived during prohibition, I will guess that it is fairly accurate. My wife said that she liked the atmosphere, and it reminded her of dining in Hawaii. In Oahu, heading out to dinner usually started out with, “Are you sure this is the right address?” And then the restaurant itself would be lovely on the inside. We didn’t spend any time at the bar, having been shown directly to our seats, but it was quite large.
Once you are seated, drinks are offered and a thick wine list is provided, but the choices of wines by the glass are quite limited. Maybe a dozen wines are offered by the glass, and they all are common California vintners. Everything on the list was good, just nothing new and exciting. It was fun to drink out of a $50 crystal wine glass. I need to add that to my Christmas list.
After the wine was served, it was time for show and tell. Vegetables, cuts of beef and a live lobster are rolled table side and described. Brook was ready to order lobster until the cute friendly lobster stopped to visit. This is the first clue to how large the cuts of beef are. Huge is a good word to describe them. The lobster was really neat, but the cuts of meat aren’t really all that impressive. More than likely, only one member of your party is going to be able to tell the difference between a good cut and a not so good cut. Everyone else knows red is good and not red is bad. For most people, this step could be skipped, but it is also part of what makes Morton’s different.
The pace at Morton’s is slow, which is what I prefer when I am paying over $50/person. Typically 20 minutes between courses, and your course should never come close to over lapping. Bread was promptly served after your order is taken to keep you entertained until your appetizer arrives. Since Brook is gluten intolerant, aka allergic to wheat, I sent the bread back untouched when our appetizer arrived. You really don’t need bread, an appetizer, a salad, 30 oz of beef and chocolate cake at one meal. That’s almost enough for two meals.
The appetizer was lobster cocktail, large chunks of lobster served chilled with cocktail and tartar sauces. The chucks of lobster were good, but the sauces weren’t all that impressive. I wanted something new to try that I could share with Brook, which limited my options. It was good, but either shrimp cocktail or hot lobster tail served with lobster butter would be better. We each ordered our own salad, Brook had the Morton’s salad and I had the Caesar. We both agree the Caesar was better than the Morton’s and Brook actually said that her iceberg wasn’t crisp. Quite disappointing considering that iceberg made up 50% of the greens in her salad. And it’s iceberg…
For the main course, Brook ordered the single cut filet, I ordered the Chicago cut rib eye and for side we split wild mushrooms and mashed potatoes. We both agreed that the potatoes were good and that the mushrooms were great. Brook’s new favorite steak is the Morton’s single cut filet. She apologized that the frozen bacon wrapped filets from Costco that I made just weren’t as good. No arguments from we, we only bought them once for a reason. My rib eye was good, but not great and far from the best one I have ever had. Morton’s is a big fan of huge cuts of beef, which makes them very difficult to cook well and turn out well. If I have an opportunity to go back, I will order strictly from Morton’s “slightly smaller” steaks.
The most impressive part of the meal was the dessert. Brook had the crème brulee, which she was suitably impressed with, being limited to that and seasonal berries. I had Morton’s Legendary Hot Chocolate Cake is really lived up to the fanfare. It was great, and they managed to serve dessert and coffee at the same time, something that most restaurants cannot seem to figure out. The Chocolate Cake, which is a dense chocolate cake filled with thick dark chocolate hot fudge, went great with an expertly made espresso.
So we ended up not using the coupon. One of the courses was limited to just items Brook could not eat and after drinks, it would have only saved about $10 from what we ended up spending. The bill for the two of us, for the meal above, two glasses of wine, a sprite, a coffee, and an espresso was just under $140 with tip. The tables on either side of us did end up using the coupon. One, a son taking his mother out for mother’s day and the other a young couple was enjoying one of their first expensive meals out.