The Craftsteak Bloodbath (Part 1)

My friend Marty and I recently discovered the three-day weekend–the mid-week three day weekend, Wednesday to Friday, perfect for a $39 Burbank to McCarron special on JetBlue. Some craps, a lot of poker, a complete disregard for my “no drinking before six unless it’s a weekend, holiday or baseball game” rule. This was just the restful getaway I needed from my absurdly under-stressed daily routine. It would also be a chance to sample from the most recent round of restaurants freshly poached from other cities by the great Sin City vortex. Keenly aware that Marty can eat Mexican food four days in a row by accident, I decided to put myself in charge of dinner reservations. Leaving it to Marty would entail the two of us hopping into a cab, stopping at the first orange and black sign we come to–no doubt at some strip mall near the corner of Koval and Trop–and telling myself that my dismal taquitos are really the rabbit symphony ravioli from Le Cirque, barely a mile away.

I had heard only raves about Craftsteak, MGM Grand’s latest entry in the city’s never-ending competition for the best $30 piece of meat. It’s a contest that will never have a winner. The only thing that’s been decided so far is that $30 became $40, and $40 is now $50. Not content with half a Franklin for a 16 oz ribeye, Craftsteak, among others, has found a way to double that, but I get ahead of myself. The restaurant certainly satisfied Marty’s only directive to me, “Steaks at a big, fancy, dress-up place.” Having been friends for enough years, he didn’t have to remind me of his other, personalized requirements–Nothing weird, raw or remotely Asian. Steaks, it would be.

The pedigree of Craftsteak had me instantly hooked. Owner and super-chef Tom Colicchio’s highly-rated Gramercy Tavern in New York was the site of the best meal of my life. Twice. My meals there weren’t simple (Craftsteak’s mantra), or cheap (Craftsteak’s anathema) but embodied such care, confidence and attention to detail–paired with sublime wine recommendations and flawless service–that the experiences have become, in my mind, the benchmarks to which all other restaurants are held.

The Craftsteak reservation–party of 3, 8:30 P.M., Thursday, was easy enough to get, even on two days notice. Cause for alarm? Probably not, just a slow week in Vegas between cage fights and conventions. No matter, Marty and I were going to have fun. This wasn’t gearing up to be one of those “I want to be snorting a line off the small of a hooker’s back by ten-thirty” kind of trips, but whatever is just below that is what we were up for. The flight out of Burbank was a good primer for the coming days. We were free-wheelin’ men of means, dammit. I decided to check my bag (an amateur’s move, I know. But no way in hell was I flying to Vegas for a mid-week three-day weekend without cologne, hair gel and fuck-lube. (Curiously, the TSA recently announced that up to 4oz of “personal lubricant” was permissible in carry-on luggage. For the volume-challenged, that’s roughly the amount of lubrication required to squeeze a German Shepard, or a German, through a basketball hoop.) Marty informed me as we neared security that he was a) financing at least part of his getaway with months’ worth of collected spare change, and that b) said coins were currently stuffed in a sock in the bottom of his backpack. A sock full of coins? Through security? Okay, maybe it’s a bit ghetto, even a tad Damon Runyon, but a sock o’ coins is a weapon, no matter how you swing it. I had panicked visions of Marty’s imminent arrest, strip search and banishment to the draconian no-fly list. Of course the federalized, no-nonsense bag peekers would confiscate this item. The effects would ripple through the whole world of transportation–coins would be banned on all flights! Wait, that’s ridiculous. The government can’t ban coins. They’d just put a limit on the number of coins, say, ten total, that you could carry, regardless of denomination. I was proud of the security compromise I had just drafted, passed and ratified in my head when I saw the TSA man asked Marty, “Is this your bag?”

I slipped my shoes back on and tried to recall my lawyer’s cell phone number from memory. The agent rescanned Marty’s bag, promptly removed the offending sock–and proceeded to press, squeeze and jiggle it to make sure there was nothing naughty hidden inside the mound of change! Satisfied that there was not a Derringer or a tarantula lurking among the dimes and nickels–yeah, like Marty has quarters–he handed Marty his sock back and sent him on his way with a smile. “Boy, you can take the boy out of the trailer,” Marty said of himself as he strolled up to where I was sweating, “But you can’t….” He didn’t need to finish. He reached his hand into his pocket and absent-mindedly pulled out his I Luv NY cigarette lighter. Good to know our airways are in capable hands. It wasn’t until we tried boarding the flight home from Las Vegas that the agents there discovered Marty’s corkscrew (complete with two-inch foil knife) that had been in the bag the whole time.

Thursday arrived in a hung-over haze and dinner was in jeopardy. At 4 P.M. Marty was up several hundred dollars at the Bellagio’s $10-20 limit Hold ‘em table and I was holding my own at the $6-12 game. He drifted over every now and then to eye my stack and finally asked if I was still serious about “this dinner thing.” I told him that it was important to me, and there was a sudden, awkward silence between us at the utterance of the single gayest thing ever said in a poker room. Our meeting instantly dissolved as though we didn’t know each other. I had to pound an afternoon Michelob just to rediscover my balls.

But an hour later we had reconvened at the sports bar for a quick conference that set me back $60, thanks to the tightest video poker bank this side of that egregious shit-hole known as Mandalay Bay. Marty and I had jackhammered our livers rather hard the night before. Now we were both hungry and Marty needed a nap. We decided to see if we could move our dinner reservation up an hour to 7:30. I figured it was a long shot at a dazzling new star like Craftsteak. But I had the dutiful assistant make the call anyhow, reminding him to be contrite and humble, and to be sure to mention that we would only be two people instead of three, as a sort of bargaining chip. I even found myself giving him the sample dialogue to see if “there was any possible way, on such terribly short notice….” He called back two minutes later to say it was no problem. The restaurant would be happy to have us early.

Seriously? Since when does that happen among the uber-hip joints? Bad sign. Storm clouds rising.

We split up–Marty to nap and I to find a liquor store that sold rolling papers–a corkscrew wasn’t the only contraband to have crossed into the Silver State. My mission, however, was sidetracked by a dwarf with a booming, amplified voice outside, of all places, O’Sheas Hotel and Casino. His commanding voice was irresistible–a tiny black hole within a city that itself is an all-powerful vortex from which not light nor innocence nor a stray hundred dollar bill can escape. I happily threw down three crisp Benjamins at the $5 blackjack table–which at O’Sheas makes you a very big spender, worthy of a “How you doing, sir?” from the floor man. In twelve straight hands I was expertly fleeced of my chips and never lost the smile on my face. I was too enthralled by the little person, now standing atop the bar, blowing his coach’s whistle and pouring shots of what appeared to be Simple Green All Purpose Cleaner down the throats of anyone willing to cough up a few singles for the privilege. Ladies got the added bonus of a kiss dead on the mouth. Even the guys playing the worst-odds-in-the-casino big wheel game by the front door seemed to be enjoying themselves.  It was 5 P.M. on a Thursday. The mercury was well into three digits and everyone at O’Sheas, I mean everyone, was having a party. Who knew?

Ninety minutes later I had showered, used one of the rolling papers, called the boyfriend, found my way into a collared shirt and negotiated the Mirage cabstand. From the Strip, The MGM Grand gleamed like an enormous teal Winnebago in the waning autumn light. Somehow I navigated, unaided, the sprawling floor space of the City of Entertainment and strolled into Craftsteak at 7:31. The hostess said our table was ready when we were, but I told her we’d have a drink first. Marty was there at the bar. We took a moment to approve one another’s sartorial selections–spiffy on both counts–and ordered a sharpener. This nickname for a Red Bull and Vodka comes with two rules: 1) you must have this drink as the very first cocktail of what you expect to be a long evening and 2) you can drink only one–unless you have bail money.

Sufficiently sharpened, I buzzed over to the hostess stand and asked to be seated. The hostess plucked two menus from the rack and led us cheerfully…right back into the bar. She pulled back the chair at a bar table no more than three feet from where we had just been standing. A bar table. Now the ease with which we were able to change our reservation made perfect sense. There’s nothing like being seated at a bar table to wipe away the patina of a good restaurant and the exhilaration that goes with it. You’re a second-class citizen at best, marginally better than the poor folks eating at the bar itself, which Hemingway said no man could do with dignity, but still on the outside looking in. I scanned Marty’s face for a reaction; I was only going to ask for a better table if sitting bar-side was going to kill our enjoyment of the meal. A ripple of disappointment flittered across his face, but quickly subsided. This was a Tom Colicchio establishment, held to the highest standards by a master of the trade. Certainly such a restaurateur would not allow bar patrons to feel neglected. I bit my tongue and sat down. Fortunately for me, I had the chair, which carried with it the feel of being in the main dining room, but Marty fell back into a cushy sofa that enveloped his 6-2 frame. The disappointment, now heartier, returned. Dinner on the couch. Turn on the Lakers’ game and it’s like we never left home. The woman next to Marty on the sofa was a full half hour smarter than we were and quickly saved the day by showing him how to use the mountain of throw pillows that divided their respective ends of the couch as lumbar support. He tucked a few pillows under his lower back and was a new man.

While Marty started on the wine list, I perused the menu. The meats are divided into two sections, roasted and grilled.  Roasted meats aren’t common on steakhouse menus; I found it a daring choice…and a bit suspect. It took Marty less than two minutes close the wine list, deeming it prohibitively expensive. I didn’t have to look at it myself to know that he was right. If the menu prices were any indication, and they were, then one would be hard-pressed to find anything on the wine list under three digits. A big believer in wines by the glass–especially when I’m getting a fish starter and a meat main course, or vice versa–I tossed the idea out to Marty and he jumped on board. It’s been said many times that a good way to judge a restaurant is by the soup. Bathrooms are also a great indicator. Does the restaurant’s design, ambience, and customer care stop at the washroom door or does it carry on into the stalls? A dirty, neglected or uninviting privy demonstrates a certain fuck you to the customer that says hurry up and piss so you can get back out to the table and spend some more money! Many great sushi spots in the San Fernando Valley have a habit of negating the effects of their excellent food by then subjecting diners to a third-world shitter. The by-the-glass selection also says a great deal about the restaurant. The prices on Craftsteak’s by-the-glass menu read like the full bottle prices of a moderately priced restaurant, ranging from $15 to $27.

Enter Miranda to sort it all out for us. Our waitress was a lovely, mocha-skinned woman who knew her way around the menu, but whose professionalism had been diminished by Las Vegas’s endless supply of uninformed customers and a management eager to exploit them. There were no specials, she announced. The menu was the special. That’s a line I’d be perfectly happy to never hear again. She asked if we’d been here before and when I said that we were first-timers, I felt our bill rise by an additional twenty percent. Miranda was strikingly beautiful in the low, forgiving light of the bar. Marty cast one into the wind. “What brings you to Las Vegas? he asked her.

“Just taking care of my kid,” she said, borrowing a line normally used by hookers. Miranda deflected our attention back to the meal. “Well, what we are really known for is our Kobe beef,” she said, directing us to the outlined box in the center of the menu. It was a box I had noticed, smiled at, and promptly ignored a few minutes earlier. For anywhere from $80 to $100, you got a 6oz. portion–roughly the size of a Snickers bar–of Americanized, thoroughly un-Japanese beef that would melt in your mouth only slightly more that the regular filet at half the price. Knowing all too well what Kobe beef is, and in America, what it isn’t, I decided to hear her pitch anyway. “It’s the yummiest, most tender beef on Earth,” she said.  ”It’s from Japan.”

“And where is yours from?” I asked.

“Idaho.”

“I see.”

Undeterred, she went for the knock-out punch. “But if you really want the complete experience, we offer the ’silver selection’ of Kobe beef. It’s the best, most authentic Kobe beef you can get and it’s $120 for a 4oz. serving.”

“Where’s it from?”

“Australia.”

So let me get this straight: Craftsteak offers really expensive Kobe beef from the land of famous potatoes or really, really Kobe expensive beef from the home of the Scotch filet. And not one bite of Kobe beef from, well, Kobe. Keep in mind, the menu didn’t feature quotes around the word Kobe, or even refer to the selections as Kobe-style. They were just flat out calling it Kobe beef.

More important, here we see the perfect demonstration of what I consider one of the great fuck-yous in all of restaurantdom: forcibly steering a customer to the most expensive thing on the menu.  This isn’t just my post-Great Depression, WASPy, Southern roots talking. Even if the item being suggested really is what the joint is known for (and please, no place in America is known for Kobe beef), don’t treat me like an asshole by making it twice as expensive as everything else on the menu, you stupid cow….Okay, kid, calm down. She’s just doing was she’s been told to do. No need to pull out the daggers just yet. Take a breath. Give her a chance.

End of Part I. Next time: We order.