Years and years ago, I frequented Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse quite often. I’m a steakhouse habitué so to speak.
I got irritated because waitresses there would scream that “the plate is hot, don’t touch it, don’t touch it!” and treated me as if I had never eaten steaks on hotplates before. So I stayed away.
Then I had the impression that the steakhouse has gone fart. Closed.
So when I recently heard from a friend that they are still around, I decided to pay a visit.
If you’re intrigued by the name of the restaurant, here’s a little backstory:
It all began in 1965 in New Orleans, when Ruth Fertel, a 38-year-old single mother, mortgaged her home to purchase a small, 60-seat restaurant called Chris Steak House.
And the rest, they say, is history.
Ruth’s Chris serves their steaks sizzling on plates heated to 500 degrees Fahrenheit. This is equivalent to approximately 260 degrees Celsius. (Hence, the screaming waitresses.)
No bullshit here, just the best grade of beef (USDA Prime) on a super-hot plate: a piece of meat, nothing else.
I paid S$115 (before tax, service charge and all the other extra charges) for a 12-ounce (340gms) ribeye, served sizzling:
I paid extra for sides like creamed spinach and pan-roasted wild mushrooms.
I found the steak tender and delicious – a wee bit marbled (steakhouse parlance: fat), after all, it’s a ribeye – but, and this is a big but, they must have emptied a salt mine’s worth of salt on it. Way too salty.
I paid a second visit a week later, same thing – enough salt in and on it to preserve a thousand Egyptian pharoahs for a few thousand years:
Long story short: both visits turned out to be rather disappointing experiences. Especially with starters, sides and drinks and desserts, the total cost of each visit could probably feed hundreds of orphans in a third world country for a couple of weeks.
Could it be the butter? On my first visit, I asked for butter to be put aside. On my second visit, I didn’t say anything and they did their usual thing, ie butter was on the steak itself. But their butter is unsalted, so it couldn’t have been the butter.
I have no qualms splurging on food – good food, that is – but both visits didn’t provide what you might call “happy” meals though the company was great because both visits were made with good friends. Both times, I didn’t finish my steaks or the sides. I packed them home to be exiled into the furthest recesses of the freezer, to be dug out one fine day in the distant future when Malaysia decides to invade and conquer and we live in perilous times.
I’m reminded of Morton’s. Morton’s now slathers its steaks with “steak broth.” That was what their manager told me when I complained that my steak was salty and seemed to be soaking in some liquid. He told me “this is the way steaks are done.” I retorted that I know steaks. That was my final visit. As far as I’m concerned, Morton’s standards here have dropped to rock bottom. Pity, since every birthday of my family members, back then, would be celebrated at Morton’s. But we have stopped going. Ruth’s Chris will also be another eatery that will no longer receive another visit ftom me.
So for the past several years now, our go-to steakhouse has been and is still Wolfgang’s by Wolfgang Zwiener, that fella who used to work for Peter Luger in New York and knows how to do steaks. (Not to be confused with the other Wolfgang – Wolfgang Puck. For a small place like Singapore, we have one wolf too many and talking about the Puck fella, I had a steak there once but it was so unappetizing, I just couldn’t force myself to finish it; didn’t even bother to pack it home.)
This is at Wolfgang Zwiener’s Steakhouse, steak done the way I like it:
But when it comes to prime rib on the wagon, only Lawry’s will do.