Yup. Birthdays comes in bunches. Last Friday, I went to another steakhouse called Gallagher's for my friend Jimmy's birthday. His sister, Eileen, planned it a couple of weeks before, so I kinda knew I would be hitting up a couple of steakhouses last week.
Situated in the theater district on 52nd between 7th and 8th, I saw a long line when we were approaching the restaurant. My first initial thought was, "The steak can't be this good that people line up in droves for it." Fortunately and unfortunately, I was right. The line was for the off Broadway show, Hairspray.
Anyway, once we got in, we have to wait til everyone to come in before they seat us. That's a very common thing in NYC, btw, just want to bring that up for ppl that are not from NYC. But the waiting area is somewhat interesting. They have their aging room to the right side of the waiting area. That's where they aged the beef for 20-30 days so that they can be even more tender/flavorful. With the huge glass window, you can clearly see each slab of beef hanging or arranged neatly in rows. But it's not anything spectaular. It just looks like any butcher shop, except for more beef. To the left side of the waiting area is the coat check, and on wall of the coat check they have some pictures of various celebs that probably (I say probably as some pics doesn't seem to be taken in the restaurant) been to the restaurant in the past. They also have couple of old Yankees stadium seats and a couple of old theater seats. They really looked their age, as one of the theater seats was broken. I wasn't even sure if they are real seats are just exhibits. But as my friends sat on them and didn't break, I realized that they were for use, and not just for show.
Once we sat down, it felt like any other restaurants, except you notice quite a few taxidermied horse heads. My friend Danny thought that's where they got the name of the restaurant from (Gallagher, horse race track, etc). I thought so at the time too. But after looking up online, I found that's not true. The name was from the original owner of the restaurant, Helen Gallagher. As for the many horse heads, I have no idea. If horse meat was a popular food in the states (which it is not), one might think they were actually serving horses instead of cows.
Finally, the food. We started w/ the chilled medley of seafood, which had everything from lobster, crab, shrimps, raw clams, raw oysters, and smoked salmon. The oysters are slightly smaller than the ones I had from Wolfgang's the other day, but still fresh. The crabs and lobster taste excellent, chilled but not like they were sitting in a fridge for too long. For $100, you definitely get what you paid for.
As for the entree, that's a different story. I was hoping to get a porterhouse steak, so to get an equal comparison to Wolfgang's. He told me he looked at the menu online earlier and didn't see it there. I was quite shocked. A steakhouse not serving porterhouse steak??? So I double-checked the menu and confirmed that he was right. I ended up ordering the sirloin steak. Most of my other friends ordered the rib-eye. Danny and Allison got the Filet Mignon. Actually, Allison got the Surf and Turf, which has a lobster tail and claws in addition to the Filet Mignon. We were all caught a bit off guard by that. It was only almost 2x as expensive as the rest of our orders. It's not like we can't afford it, but if we actually heard what she order (she's the very soft spoken type), we all probably would have order the same thing, lol.
So, how was it? As I mentioned earlier, the appetizer was excellent, the entree was not 1/2 as good. My sirloin was charred on the outside, and a little too gray on the inside for medium rare. It tasted ok, but the charred out layer combined w/ the slightly over-cooked insides made it kinda rough. Writing this up, I did some more research on sirloin. There's actually 3 different types of sirloin: sirloin, top sirloin, and bottom sirloin. The top sirloin is a cut of beef just below the tenderloin. Since its so close to the part where the filet mignon comes from, it is also the most expensive. But given that it was specifically mentioned on Gallagher's menu, I probably just got a regular sirloin or a bottom sirloin, which are rougher and less expensive of the premium steak cuts.
Then I tried the filet mignon. That was a perfect cooked steak (medium rare). It was absolutely tender and juicy, and more flavorful than expected for a boneless cut. The only reason why I didn't order that was because of my recent experience at Wolfgang's. Had I done the research on the sirloin cut before I went to the restaurant, I probably would have ordered the filet mignon instead (or maybe the angus steak, but too late now). Anyway, if I was asked which was better, the filet mignon at Gallagher's or the porterhouse at Wolfgang's, it would be a tough call, since they are not the same. But I would probably go w/ Wolfgang's only because their porterhouse is well known (many say its a perfect simile of Peter Luger's, if not a step above) and they can probably reproduce that perfect taste more consisently.
As for the rib eye, it varied from person to person. But first off, it was 2x the size of my sirloin steak. That's not quite fair. They should at least tell you how big the portions are on their menu. Most of the orders were on the over-cooked side. But then there's Eileen's. Her's was completely undercooked. It was slightly charred on the outside and completely red on the inside. It was almost as if they were trying to compensate for the rest of the orders by barely having her order on the grill. She took a couple of bites but had to send it back to be re-cooked.
But even after they re-cooked it, she decided she can't eat it cuz its too much fat in it. So she gave it to her brother Jimmy. Since he already had a rib eye, he pretty much had a 2 for 1 special. I had a piece of the re-cooked version. This time, they done it just right. It was actually more tender than the filet mignon. But I will explain why a little later. But overall, the quality of the rib eye vary too much that I can't say I would recommend that for Gallagher's.
Overall, it was a ok place. The price per person came out to about the same as Wolfgang's ($100 per). The chilled medley of seafood appetizer was their best. Everything else was kinda downhill from there. Their sides were better than Wolfgang's, w/ their sauteed crimini mushrooms tasting the best, but that was pared down by their mediocre hash brown potatos. The service is quite attentive, despite the fact that many people told me its hard to find a waiter. But then again, we were sitting very close to the register, so its hard not to find a waiter.
Writing the last 2 posts has made me research on beef like I have never did before (actually I really never research beef before). Let me get back to the rib eye for a second, remember I mentioned that the Eileen's re-cooked rib eye was even more tender than the filet. It's because of the fat. The rib eye is a cut from the small end of the rib roast. It's one part of the cow where there is a good mixture of fat and muscles in it. They used the term "marbled" to describe the visual distinctiveness of seeing bits of fat mix in between parts of the muscles. The fat is also the reason why it is more tender than the filet mignon. It melts in your mouth as you bite into it and combines w/ the meat for a very juicy and tender texture.
Wow, before going to all these steakhouses, my knowledge of beef is filet mignon and then there's everything else. I just knew the filet mignon is expensive (or the most expensive, which its not) and I thought the rest of the cow is cheap. I couldn't tell you what part of the cow I was eating. At least now I know what I'm ordering and what to expect. Here's some more odd (and probably useless) facts of beef:
The rib eye is also known as the Delmonico.
The word sirloin could possible originate from an english king liken the steak so much he knighted it "Sir Loin".
The tenderloin is also known as the Chateaubriand.
The NY strip steak is the closest resemblance to the porterhouse steak, since it is basically the same as a porterhouse minus the T-Bone.
The T-Bone (and also the Porterhouse) are from meat that are so close to the spinal column that some people worry can contain disease nerve cells that causes Mad Cow Disease (if you're that unlucky to get a sick cow).
