Favorite Thing #6: CraftSteak

Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated the fact that we did not kill each other in the one year we have been married by having dinner at CraftSteak. I am a huge Tom Colicchio fan (both as the coolest judge on Top Chef and for his approach to food). I have always admired his approach to a steak restaurant by sourcing his beef from small family run farms and produce from local growers. His theory (and mine) is that the less hands the food passes through, and the more time the farmer spends making sure he has a quality product, the better the end result is. Smaller, family run farms are going to have higher quality beef and produce, because they individually oversee the farms and don't have thousands of heads of cattle locked up in a barn. I absolutely loved this restaurant, and since most of my three readers are foodies like me, I thought I would give my two cents.

wine: CraftSteak has an excellent and lengthy wine list. It took me a good ten minutes to pick something out. The only problem is that there wasn't alot of choices in the budget category. I would say the average bottle of wine was between 80 and 90 dollars. I originally wanted a bottle of 2003 Kevin Arnold Syrah from Stellenbosch (yes, I have been on a SA wine kick lately), but Kevin grimaced at the $86 price, so we wound up going with the 2005 Jardin Cabernet Savignon from Jordan Vineyard in Stellenbosch (South Africa). The entire wine making process is done at the vineyard, from growing, crushing and fermenting the grapes to barrel-aging, bottling and labeling the wine. For the price ($45 a bottle at the restaurant), you can't beat this wine. When first opened it had great blackberry notes to it that only got more smooth as it sat. You could also taste vanilla from its aging in French Oak Barrels. I told Kevin at the restaurant that I thought it could use another year, and when doing some research on the Vineyard's website, found the following statement from a review by Wine Enthusiast that backed up my claim "Alluring in its youth but will reward those who resist temptation and explore the wine’s maturation potential." I'd love to find a bottle of the '05 and let it sit for a year and see what it tastes like then.

90 Points - Wine Enthusiast

Starter: CraftSteak would be a great restaurant for the oyster enthusiast as they had a decent list of oysters to choose from. As I find oysters to taste like salty snot, I decided to order the chilled Hamachi marinated with lavender, pineapple and radish. I was intrigued by the combination of ingredients. Hamachi is a very delicate fish that can easily be overpowered and lavender, pineapple and radish are all very strong flavors. This dish was excellent. The sweetness of the pineapple sauce perfectly complimented the strong herbal tones of the lavender and the bite of the paper thin slices of radish sprinkled on top of the hamachi. The flavor of the hamachi was still evident over the sauce and my only regret was that I allowed Kevin to share my starter and didn't make him order his own.

Main Course: As expected, CraftSteak had an excellent choice of cuts of meat. They were divided by Corn-Fed vs. Grass Fed Beef and a section of Wagyu(Kobe). As Kevin has already told me I was not allowed to order the Wagyu, I decided to go with the 18oz. Grass-fed Ribeye. Ribeye is my favorite cut as it tends to be full of juicy flavor (unlike fillet mignon) but is just as tender. I'm really not sure why people insist on ordering Fillet Mignon over ribeye. Anyway, I have never tried grass-fed meat so I was interested to try it. Doing a little research I found that prior to WWII, all American beef was grass-fed for its entire life. However, nowadays cattle are fed a grain diet in the weeks leading up to their slaughter for several reasons:

-To fatten them up

-since they gain weight faster, they can be slaughtered at a faster rate and therefore their meat is cheaper for the consumer

-corn-fed meat is a taste Americans have grown to love and expect- marbled and fatty

Meat from grass fed cows should have about 1/3 less fat and be lower in calories. In addition, it is higher in vitamin E and omega-3 fatty acids, which are thought to help reduce the risk of cancer, lower the likelihood of high blood pressure, and make people less susceptible to depression. My steak, ordered medium-rare, was delicious, I ate all 18 oz of that steak. It was so tender and full of flavor. The outside was perfectly seared and just lightly seasoned with salt and pepper to enhance the natural flavor of the meat. They brought little dishes of homemade steak sauce, crème fraîche and Argentinian pesto along with the steak. I tried all of them and while they were all excellent, I felt that they were masking the flavor of a steak that didn't need any help. My favorite was probably the pesto since it was a little spicy and didn't completely overpower the meat.

Kevin went with the dry aged, corn fed New York Strip Steak. Since dry-aging can only be done with extremely high grade beef and is time consuming, most restaurants now a days wet-age their meat. However, moisture is evaporated from the muscle during dry aging which should enhance the meat flavor. In addition, as the enzymes in the beef break down the connective tissue in the muscle, the beef should become more tender. Kevin's steak was good and it did have a great meat flavor, but it tasted a little dry to me. It definitely didn't compare with my steak. It may have been because I'm not a huge fan of NY Strip ( give me Kansas City any day), but Kevin also agreed that he liked mine better.

Sides: Sides are served family style and are big enough to accommodate 2-3 people, so Kevin and I decided to order 1 vegetable and 1 starch for the two of us We went with sautéed swiss chard and fingerlings with smoked bacon. Probably the only thing bad I have to say about the whole dining experience is that the swiss chard was too salty for my taste, but was cooked well (still slightly crisp). The fingerlings were delicious and perfectly cooked. The smoked bacon added a great flavor to the tender potatoes without making them greasy or heavy.

Dessert: The best food of the night had to be dessert. I was on the fence about ordering something since my wonderful husband as a gift had gotten our original cake baker to bake a small little cake exactly like our wedding cake (Someone stole my cake off my table at the wedding so I never got any besides the bite I ate for the cake cutting and we forgot to put the topper in the freezer so it got moldy and hard as a rock). But then I saw my favorite word relating to food : chèvre. This means goat in French. I didn't really even need to read any further because goat cheese is probably my favorite food item in the entire universe. But, then I saw my second favorite word: cheesecake. Yes, that's right. They had a goat cheese cheesecake topped with diced strawberries and served with fresh, homemade strawberry sorbet on the side. This dessert was the most glorious thing I have ever tasted in my life. The smokey, earthy flavor of the goat cheese perfectly complimented the sweetness of the cheesecake. The cheesecake itself was smooth and creamy - just like a great cheesecake should be. And since strawberries and goat cheese go perfectly together, the diced strawberries and sorbet complimented the cheesecake perfectly. Right now, my mouth is watering just thinking of this wonderful dessert.

In all, the restaurant was just as good as I hoped it would be. I can't wait to go back, but at over $200 for the two of us, it will probably be July 7, 2009 before we make it back.