Friday, October 22. Whole Fam At Ruth's Chris. Mary Ann says that Jude needs to come home and chill for a few days now and then, but that after those few days he can't head back to Los Angeles soon enough. He's out of his skull with boredom around the ranch. Today he said he'd head over to the airport and leave right now if he could get away with it. He is obsessed with his work and life, and I can't blame him one bit. He sort of reverts to a child when he's around here too long. On the other hand, he fixed a couple of dead computers while sitting around on the sofa. The Marys are computer killers.
The dinner plan--no doubt floated by Mary Ann and eagerly seconded by Mary Leigh--was to go to Ruth's Chris. We had no reservation, but tables were available. Seems like just a year ago you needed a warrant to get into the Metairie Ruth's Chris on even a weekday.
Quality trends at the steakhouse do not explain this. Two weeks ago, MA and I had a terrific dinner here. Tonight's was even better. When the Marys started their usual chant about how they weren't really hungry, I latched onto that as a reason we should order only one steak for the whole table. The steak I had in mind was the forty-ounce, $83 porterhouse. Jude thought that a superior idea. Before the girls had time to think of an objection, I had the thing ordered.
A forty-ounce steak takes awhile to cook. Ruth's Chris has a certain number of filets and strips flowing through the broiler, keeping pace with the demand without necessarily corresponding to particular orders, to serve people faster and turn those tables. But they only sell a few porterhouses a night, and those don't go on the grill until ordered.
This gave the kitchen time to satisfy the chorus of demands from us allegedly unhungry people. Mary Ann came up with a pair of crab cakes. Jude wanted barbecue shrimp. Mary Leigh, who still insists that she doesn't like any kind of seafood, discovered the thrill of swabbing up barbecue shrimp sauce with bread. I had a blue cheese wedge; my lissome daughter needed some of that, too, as I knew she would. It was family eating all the way.
That continued when the porterhouse steak arrived. A beauty. I quashed all opposing demands and had it sent out medium-rare. If the others couldn't handle that, they could send their shares back to the kitchen. But Ruth's Chris deals out hot, butter-spattering plates per sharer, and those added whatever additional cooking was felt to be needed.
It would have been a shame to overcook this baby. It was crusty and juicy in all the right places, cut in the kitchen into chunks big enough that each was a steak in its own right, but small enough to make the dividing easy. As we went through it, a quiet fell over the table. We were all thinking the same thing. Was this the best steak of our lives? I thought about this a few times since then. The only steak that impressed me more was an enormous, blackened-rare filet mignon I had in 1978 at the original Palm in New York. I think I'll just say that this was a perfect ten-out-of-ten steak.
The same Asian waiter who took care of us so well last time was with us. He's entertaining and efficient, just what you want in a waiter. If we were looking for things to complain about, we'd say that the shoestring potatoes were not very good, and reminded us that we gave the same assessment last time we had them.
The Metairie location is the oldest Ruth's Chris in the world, out of 132 locations. It has not been immune from the corporate homogenization that makes all chain restaurants less than they could be. I have a strong suspicion, for example, that they have soups, sauces, and some whole appetizers made for them by an outside contractor.
And a certain number of people remain furious at the chain for moving its headquarters from Metairie to Florida just after Katrina. I wish they were here too. But I think blanket amnesty ought to be given to anyone or anything who moved away for good after the storm. Really, how can we blame them?
But all of the last to paragraphs was thoroughly gainsaid by the porterhouse. Damn, that was a great steak.
Ruth’s Chris Steak House. Metairie: 3633 Veterans Blvd. 504-888-3600.
