Morton's Grille

Maybe others are like me in thinking that Niagara Falls is a kitschy 20th-century honeymoon destination, but I still wanted to see this natural wonder for myself. The traveling sisters did just that at the end of September. Thinking we could see some fall colors before everything shut down there for the winter. We convened at the DC sister’s house and drove to the falls. (Not recommended.) But it seemed like a good idea. The drive took forever on back roads through towns of little merit.

We arrived in Niagara Falls at dusk to see that the hotel had an STK Steakhouse inside. I have heard much about STK, and I was eager to try it, knowing that the traveling sisters don’t really like to spend money on food. When we checked in, the front desk folks gave us drink vouchers for STK, so I hoped that I could lure the sisters there with the drink vouchers. I suggested we catch Happy Hour there.

It turned out there is no food at Happy Hour, and there's no Happy Hour at STK. Since we hadn't found anywhere to stop all day, we hadn’t eaten anything but what we picked up at Sheetz gas stations. There was a Marriott next door that had a Morton’s Grille. This is the more casual brand of Morton's Steakhouse. (Steakhouses occupy a disproportionate amount of the dining space in Niagara Falls.) We went next door to the bar at Morton’s and had a wonderful meal of shareable apps. A few of us had some red wine, and we shared an Italian flatbread, a board of two sliders, a gigantic platter of iceberg wedges, a shrimp dish, and some fries, which I remembered were good in previous visits at other Morton’s locations, and two orders of steak sandwiches, little sliders on toasted baguette. These came in fours.

The shrimp dish was generous. Brazenly called Bang Bang Shrimp, these were acceptably large fried shrimp tossed in a spicy glaze with Asian notes. A few fried jalapeños were part of this mix. These went quickly. They were very nice, but all copies of Bang Bang shrimp are no match for the original. These were no exception to that rule.

My favorite item in this spread was a classic pizza. This flatbread was indeed flat, with a thin and limp crust, but the pepperoni and crumbled Italian sausage topping with sliced banana peppers was exactly what I would order in a pizza. This was tasty. Not too much sauce, just the right amount of regular, grateable American mozzarella, and the ideal amount of meat. 

The iceberg wedges were a big hit, and sort of a surprise. After debating whether to get another flatbread to make sure there was enough food, we settled on this enormous platter of individual wedge salads. An entire globe of Iceberg lettuce was cut into individual wedges, with enough tomato, bacon crumbles, and Blue Cheese to make nice small portions of the popular salad. This was a big hit.

The sliders came two on a board and were small sliders, though the burger patty inside was about a half inch thick of nice Angus beef. They were dressed just like their regular counterpart. We cut these into bite-sized pieces and passed them around. And the fries that used to be housecut were still crispy and very good. This combo made for a good burger snack.

There were several glasses of mostly Cabernet wine on the table, and the five of us enjoyed our little picnic in the corner of the dark bar at Morton’s Grille in the Marriott Hotel next door to ours.

Our waitress powerfully impressed us with her willingness to do anything for us. Including separate checks. Tom is rolling over at the thought.

I remembered the Happy Hour from many years of Morton's in New Orleans, but the last time I was actually in Morton’s was around Katrina time. Even though I saw the globe of the house's signature onion bread, this was not Morton’s Steakhouse. Morton's Grille is the more casual version of the brand. And that explained the look of the room. We still loved everything we had here. One of us campaigned to return the next night, but with only three days, there were more experiences to be had.