Approximately a 2 million minutes ago, I wound up at Jak's Grill. At the time, the bar was located in the back, and this space was a bit cramped. It was weird to ease past dining patrons in order to wait in the bar for service. They've remodeled since, and the layout is much better now. It's still a bit small for a steakhouse of this quality, especially one that does not take reservations, but the only way to solve that would be to knock out whatever's next door. Or take reservations. Or add a third floor. Three floors of steak. Mmmm.
The steak was good, but back then, I was still ordering steak medium because I was, well, stupid. WAIT GET YOUR FINGER OFF THAT COMPLIMENT BUTTON! I know what you're about to do. You're about to hit that "just a note" compliment and let me know that yes, I am still stupid, you've read my reviews, you've seen the evidence.
So let me clarify: I was ordering my steak medium because I was *stupidER*. Force of habit. I had never bothered trying it any other way; I had grown up with meat to order being cooked 'medium' because... well, that's what my parents did. Call me impressionable. Just don't hit me with a hammer to make your own impression on me.
[Wow. That was a really bad pun. Moving on...]
It wasn't until I joined one of my first friends in Seattle for his birthday at a Ruth's Chris that I discovered that I had been ruining a lot of good stead for a long time. He ordered his steak 'blue' and gasped in horror, disgust, surprise, and a bunch of other nouns when I ordered mine medium (and stopped the waiter and changed my order to rare). That day I discovered the difference between a good steak vs a mediocre steak. It's mostly in the quality of the beef, and somewhat the flavor of the sauce.
Because honestly, mediocrity begins at medium. When they say 'well done,' they don't mean it as a compliment in any way. Oh no, that's a joke. "Well done, sir, you just destroyed a perfectly good piece of beef!"
If I were a steakhouse chef, I'd have a whole bunch of sub-par cuts of beef for the medium-to-well-done crowd, because they're really not going to know the difference anyway. "Here ya go, I just dug this piece of charcoal up from my grill. Isn't that what you asked for?"
Yeah, remind me not to list this review on my resume when I go for that job.
Fast forward from approximately 4 years ago (2 million minutes or so) to now. I hadn't been back to this Jak's since, as I generally meet friends at the Laurelhurst location. In the meantime I've (re)experienced the Metropolitan, Ruth's Chris, El Gaucho, Daniel's. My experience is that Jak's competes with all the top steakhouses in the city by serving a top notch steak at almost half the price. Sure, the servers might not be wearing tuxedos, you might not have a wine specialist help you choose your vino, and they don't wheel a cart to your table to cut and prepare the meat in front of you. But all of that is icing, really.
I brought my business partners here, and several things happened:
1) I had their special skewers and prawns, which I never do, as I prefer a huge slab of beef that I can take 3/4 home and munch on for the next three days. This gave me enough protein to be able to finish in one sitting without feeling like a gluttonous pig. It came with a jalapeno sauce to dip both the beef and the prawns in, and holy crap that shit was good!!
2) I drank wine, which is normal, but then we drank scotch from their impressive scotch menu for dessert. I don't remember which I had now, but it was very very smoky. Nice, but as my appreciation for scotch grows, I'm finding I am liking scotch from one of the other regions.
3) I didn't order the "Flying Saucer" which is basically a combination of garlic mashed potatoes and the potato pancake. It's not on the menu, you have to know about it to ask for it. Now you know. And knowing is half the battle! GI JOE! (shameless plug for my band, Stay Tuned). I had a baked potato instead, and loved it. My partners had garlic mash and fries (another not-on-the-menu combo possibility), and loved their mash. And their fries.
4) We ordered two desserts, instead of just one. And finished them both. One was the chocolate cake option, the other was a fruit crisp. Both were yummy. By the time we finished those, I did feel like a gluttonous pig.
5) We were seated almost immediately, and the staff was very friendly and continued to wait on us and make sure we were totally satisfied even though we sat there discussing the future of our business past closing.
The only reason I knock a star off is for not being able to make a reservation. read more