Striphouse

The Striphouse is a downtown business-oriented restaurant that is completely inappropriate for today's business world.  The walls are draped in pornographic images of the past, probably the 1950s.  Were there breasts in 1950's porn?  Because there are exposed breasts on the walls of this restaurant.  There is an aura aureola. 

[I'm sorry, but let's all stop and take a moment with that last sentence.  How great is it to read this blog?]

So even though it's kinda creepy to go there in mixed company, my co-workers and I ventured over when the newly-opened House of Blues was running a 45 minute wait for lunch.  I would have been happy to wait because it was Friday, but then I would have had to work all weekend.  Oh wait, I worked all weekend anyways.

Wow, this post has  a lot of personal asides.  Probably because reviewing steakhouses is boring.  I guess I just don't like steak.  I like the sides associated with steak though.  For instance, this place has great creamed spinach.  Maybe I will start getting veggie plates at steakhouses, although that's a pretty big professional risk at this point in my career.

Spencer's

Steakhouses and lawyers are like peas and carrots, perhaps because steak brings status without demanding too much skill.  

So, as a young attorney, I've been recruited at a lot of steakhouses in Texas.  My cardinal rule of eating at steakhouses is don't get fish.  It's not lighter and healthier than meat because it is swimming in butter.   It's generally just a bad version of whatever fish you were hoping to get (usually salmon). If you have to go to a steakhouse but you aren't that hungry, just order steak and eat a little bit of it.  

I switched sides of the table this week and became a recruit-er and then broke my own damn rule.  We started with some crab cakes and coconut shrimp that were really good, so I thought, shit, I'm gonna order some ahi tuna.  What a mistake.  It was disgusting.  And not just because I had just had really really good ahi tuna at Ibiza.  This ahi tasted briney.  And the texture was...raw.  The steak was really thick, so the  outside was chewy and overcooked and the inside was chunky and undercooked.  Very inconsistent.  I would take central market day-old tuna rolls over what I got at this place.  

So, Spencer's.  It has interesting architecture inside, the desserts looked good, apps were great, and lunch menu is reasonably priced.  Don't order fish at a steakhouse.