One star. Do not recommend. Unless you like cereal salad. And Ranch.
All jokes aside I'm not normally someone who goes out of their way to drop a bad review (I much prefer posting about places that are legitimately great), but tonights meal was so bonkers that I couldn't resist sharing the experience.
We just moved to the area and while family was in town we were eager to try out some local restaurants and the Black Steer caught our attention, what with their "award winning steaks" claim to fame. (turns out they were voted "best" by the very local newspaper, but I digress) When we arrived things looked promising, the decor was just on the right side of kitschy, and we were seated quickly and the waitress took our orders right off the bat.
However, it went downhill from there. The food and drinks came out it fits and starts, some of us had drinks a solid 8 minutes before the rest of the group and then the appetizers came out a few at a time and unfortunately it wasn't worth the wait. Everything (cheesesticks, fried pickle spears, potatoe skins) was overcooked, bordering on burnt. As a personal preference I was a bit put off that there was only ranch available for dipping, but I was willing to be slightly salty all on my own instead of holding it against the restaurant... turns out the lack of marinara was a hint at what was to come. As an aside, when I asked about marinara, the waitress cut me off before I was even done talking- I was clearly not the first person to ask about sauces for the cheese sticks.
When our salads arrived I actually had to hold back from laughing. Instead of crutons, our salads were covered in chex cereal. Just, like, a handful of chex tossed on top. I was tempted to ask for a bowl and some milk, but settled for taking them off the salad, beacuse if you know chex, then you know that when they get wet, they get soggy and nothing says "delicious salad" like soggy chex covered in french dressing.
Our steaks and chicken finally came and before we even started eating the issue was apparent. The steaks are served on metal plates with a plastic rim. Metal. For steaks. Which you need sharp knives to cut. I could say it was like nails on a chalk board, but really knives on a metal plate really captures the essence of what trying to eat was like, so why mess with that as a description? Anyways, I had to transfer my steak to a very small (glass) side plate because I couldn't cut my steak without physically recoiling with each saw of the knife. And it was a "saw" because the second issue reared it's head immediately. The steaks, like everything else, were overcooked and chewy. The NY Strip was so marbled that it couldn't even be finished. All the steaks were incredibly unevenly cooked and the seasoning was almost non existant. The signature peppercorn steak was bordering on edible, but the chicken strips were so bad that they were left untouched and we didn't even pretend we wanted to take them home.
Out last issue came with the sweet potato fries. They looked delicious, but unfortunately there was no dipping sauce available. Or rather there was, but our waitress couldn't figure it out, so we were left without. To explain a touch more- one great dipping sauce for sweet potato fries is a garlic aioli. So when I asked I was pretty confident I'd be able to snag some easily, given the fact that creole aioli is listed as a sauce on a few dishes on the menu. Unfortunately our waitress had no idea what I was talking about and was not really interested in going to find out- so my choices were ranch, and, uh... ranch.
Plus everything cost a small fortune. If you're going to claim to be the best, you have to deliver, and the only thing The Black Steer delivered on was a bunch of laughs and this tragically long review. read more