Even Cold Hostess Can't Defrost My Love For Pappas Bros. Steakhouse

We celebrated a birthday last weekend, and since we were already way outside the bubble of our urban comfort zone at a previous engagement, decided to venture to another, even more foreign section of the Dallas hinterlands for dinner in the highly praised Pappas Bros. Steakhouse.  There didn't seem to be much risk involved despite the distance from our regular haunts:  I've always thoroughly enjoyed the Pappas family's various incarnations of ethnic cuisine, from sublime Tex-Mex at Pappasito's to Cajun Seafood at Pappadeaux.  (I always thought they should have an Italian concept called Pappapasta and a Chinese place called Pappa-san, but they have ignored my suggestions for years despite their insane brilliance.  Ah well, their loss.)

Pappas Steakhouse is certainly impressive enough on arrival, with swarms of valet parkers maneuvering comers and goers with speed and efficient friendliness.  The building looks like a swanky men's club in Vegas where the dancers climb shiny poles in search of elusive twenty dollar bills.

I approached the reception desk which was being womanned by at least 4 people (this place is big and crazy busy!) and a ten foot tall, strikingly thin woman with platinum blonde hair dressed head to toe in black eyed me rather frostily.  It was 8:29.  I said my name and that we had a reservation at 8:30.  She checked the command center and without looking up suggested we go into the lounge until our table was ready.  This sort of impersonal brush off in a place where I am about to drop a boatload of simoleons does not sit well with me and I tend to correct misbehavior by those in the service industry by kindly pointing out the error of their ways so I said "I have partial hearing loss from going to too many rock concerts as a teenager so I am sure I misunderstood you...did you say 'I am so very sorry but we don't have your table ready yet even though you are incredibly punctual and impeccably dressed.  Please, allow me to rectify our failure to accommodate by comping you a glass of champagne in the lounge while you wait approximately 20 minutes?' "  She looked up in a steely fashion and said something like "shut up and go sit in the bar" but I am sure she used different words that were a tad less harsh.  So much for my prodigious skills for customer service and rudeness intervention training.

That incident, by the way, was the last and only hiccup in an otherwise perfect dining experience.

Our waitron unit, whose name was Erica, was all you ever wanted in a server.  Informative, efficient, unobtrusive, comical and pretty.  She noted that we already had cocktails from our earlier banishment to the lounge and said cheerfully "okay, we are off to a good start!  Are we celebrating anything special tonight other than it's Saturday?"  I told her it was D's birthday.  She went through the off-menu specials which included a clam chowder and a macaroni and cheese dish with blue point crab mixed in.  D said he was allergic to crab and she said they mixed it in last so she could separate it out and just put crab in mine.  We ordered the rest of our meal and (beneath our napkins) unbuttoned the top buttons of our jeans in preparation for the coming attractions.

Tomato Tomahto

Suddenly, an attractive woman holding a clipboard or something appeared at our table and introduced herself as the manager and stated "we take food allergies very seriously here."  She then looked at D and asked if he was allergic to just crab or any other shellfish.  He said just crab.  She told us the clam chowder was made with a fish stock that had crab in it, so he switched his appetizer to the tomato onion salad.  She said the onion rings were fried in the same oil as crab but he said he thought that would be fine.  She then asked me if I had a tree allergy because I looked like a nut. (Not really, I just put that in there to see if you were paying attention.)

Good call on that Tomato Onion Salad. Probably the reddest, plumpest, juiciest, most perfect beefsteak tomato I've ever had and it was crisscrossed with sliced raw onion and a generous dab of roquefort cheese on top.  It was like a wedge salad minus the iceberg.  If salads were in a beauty pageant that baby would have won swimsuit and congeniality.

Entrees came out soon after and D was mighty pleased with his steak and lobster special.  It took just one slice of my rather expensive bone-in, dry-aged, USDA Prime New York Strip to understand why this place is so darned packed.  That steak was umami on steroids.  My tongue kind of quivered under the first succulent sliver of exquisitely marbled, dark pink beef.  I literally salivated as I chewed it slowly, savoring the richness, texture, and aroma of the best steak money can buy, Reluctantly I swallowed it, only to be happily excited again as I sliced off another morsel.  I fell in love with that piece of meat instantly and so deeply that I started crooning John Legend songs to it until the people at the table next to us asked me to stop.  I wrote USDA Prime New York Strip in cursive with a Sharpie on the tablecloth  and dotted the i with a festive heart. When I had swallowed the final forkful o'goodness, I took off my wedding ring and placed it alongside the bone and took a picture of it, which I then uploaded to my Facebook page and made it my cover photo.

On a side note, the macaroni and cheese with blue point crab was rich and decadent.  I couldn't finish it all so I asked them to doggy bag it.  Erica-the-best-server-ever noted that and brought the dessert menu over our way but before we could protest that we were too full she said "I want you to pick out a dessert for me to box up for your birthday--you can have it tomorrow for breakfast!"

I wanted to drag her up to the hostess stand and tell the blonde wench behind it "this is why you make $10 an hour and she's walking out with several hundred bucks" but I didn't because I'm too kind hearted.

Surf and Turf

Pappas Bros. Steakhouse