Baseline: the five big shiny stars from me reflect excellent quality, execution, and service. Also shades of guilt.
When I first arrived to live in Franklin in the Fall of 2011, my lip curled at Stoney River. Why? I frankly don't remember but my recollection of my impression was big loud brash steak place. Yeah, yeah, whatever. More steak and potatoes. We went one cold night and it wasn't memorable and I'm now wracked with guilt and wondering where my head was. Or worse, where was my palate? My senses? Did something happen at SR that makes my experiences lately completely different? I'd love to know if something has changed at SR in the last 3 years.
On a lark, we decided to go to SR recently. My boyz are right snobs when it comes to their meat b/c the biggest of them learned from J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of the blog Food Lab (Serious Eats) how to make the best steak you've ever tasted and it involves the oven. Yep. The lowly, oft-disdained oven (if you're grilling, that's the cool side of your grill). Here is the link. You'll thank me. http://www.seriouseats.com/2012/05/how-to-grill-a-steak-guide-food-lab.html
Back to SR. If you read the link above, you can see what SR was up against. Not one snob but all 4 of us, bristling with snobbishly low expectations but too lazy too cook and ready to heap disdain on this steak house.
We ordered bacon-wrapped filet, the Gruyere steak burger, the coffee rubbed steak. All steaks rare, mid-rare, and burger mid-rare.
Blown away.
The steaks were extremely high quality. The filet was exceptionally flavorful. My number one would ordinarily never order filet b/c it's the least well-marbled cut and as a result not so delicious. This one was exceptional.
The steaks were very tender, perfectly cooked and delicious. Just delicious. I could be wrong but we were convinced these steaks had never been frozen. There is obviously a high level of attention here to picking the best quality meats.
I had the avocado salad. Spectacularly fresh ingredients. Freshly cooked and crumbled bacon. Maybe a smidge too much. Wait, I am a southern girl, so I think I must've picked up the thought of "too much bacon" from some foreign place.
Given that experience, we HAD to go back and test it. SR in Franklin just started serving brunch less than a couple of months ago. So, our next trip was on a Sunday. We tried the brunch. Ripping spectacular.
We ordered a monte cristo b/c we had to have it. Better than any I have had in France. It came with a mound of finely sliced ham and I braced myself for saltiness, which I don't like at all. Nowhere to be found. The ham was flavorful. The bread had been soaked in egg and crisply fried. If you get one thing at brunch, get the monte cristo. We also had steak and eggs--perfectly done soft poached eggs on rare steak and delicious chunky potato spears. Crisp and seasoned on the outside and creamy inside.
My last mention is the biscuits at brunch. I feel like I know a good biscuit when I meet him. This boy was small, buttery, flaky, and oh so light. Served with whipped butter, peach bourbon and blackberry jams.
I almost fought my number two son for the last biscuit and caught myself. *Gawd Woman. That's your issue and you tried to snatch food out of his mouth!* He's bigger than me, so, I tried to use love to get that last biscuit. My boy is no fool. He looked me in the eye. Love beamed at me. Then he popped that last biscuit in his mouth.
So, now, I only take one son when I go to SR. The little one that I can over power. read more