If only style had a taste

For the past year I've had an excess of American Express rewards points. Obviously, I'm going to find a way to use them to eat, and cashed some of them in for a $100 gift card to Morton's steakhouse.



Now this isn't my first time at Morton's, and I've been to a number of the other big time steakhouses in the city, of which I've always ranked Morton's towards the bottom. Saddly, our experience last night only reinforced this.

Now, in contrast to our meal the night before, the service was really solid. Jill at one point mentioned that she felt oddly comfortable sitting in a restaurant that certainly isn't McDonalds. It seemed like everyone stopped to check in on us, and our waiter, while a little awkward (he was an older man who had to take a deep breath before every sentence just to get it out), was incredibly nice and was working very hard to make sure we had everything we needed.

I don't think I can overstate this - I love the atmosphere at these restaurants (it's not just Morton's, but Ruth's Chris, Smith and Wollensky, etc.), you know you're going in for an expensive meal, but you're just well taken care of, and the experience seems to make up for the expense.

Unfortunately the food didn't. While the oysters were really solid (as long as oysters are fresh, you really can't screw them up - hence the beauty of oysters) and the bread was really nice - but there was something slightly off about the steaks.

Jill's was a bit overcooked (and was sat atop a piece of bread that even this morning she's confused about), and mine had a few too many pieces of stringy fat through it (I don't know the technical firm, but it left some parts hard to chew)

Don't get me wrong, they weren't bad steaks, they just weren't worth $37 a piece.

The meal was polished off with a warm upside-down apple pie that was actually very good and served with a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream.

I feel as if the experience I had almost makes it difficult to criticize the food, because we both had a great time, but the food really didn't live up to the price or the service.

I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again - style is great, but it can't cook a steak.