We took advantage of Restaurant Week again this week and enjoyed lunch at David Burke's. I think the 3-course lunch is a great value. Although the dry aged steaks are not part of the Restaurant Week menu, you can pay a supplemental to upgrade your steak. For $22 bucks, we got a popover to start and our choice of the following:

Appetizers
Lobster Bisque - green apple essence, lobster spring roll
Wedge - iceberg, tomatoes, red onion, blue cheese, watercress, tomato vinaigrette
Surf & Turf Dumplings - angry lobster, braised short rib

Entrees
Pan Roasted Alaskan King Salmon
40 Day Dry Aged Steak Burker - garlic spinach, crispy shallots, bacon mayonnaise, toasted potato bun
Pan Roasted Chicken Breast
Classic Filet Mignon

Stir Fried Mushrooms & Basil Whipped Potatoes – served family style with entrees

Desserts
Pineapple Upside Down Cake - rum caramel, sour cherry sorbet
Tanzanie Brownie - kahlua ice cream, banana mousse
Chai Crème Brulee - candied ginger biscotti

The filets looked to be about 6 oz, were cooked perfectly med-rare, and seasoned well. Although this has not been a problem in other visits, we noticed that the apps and sides that we tried were all underseasoned. A twist of the salt mill (filled with pink Himalayan salt) was sufficient to make them all better. The lobster bisque was good - lots of lobster meat in the bisque. It's unclear to me why the lobster in the angry lobster dumplings was angry. The dumplings were sitting in some kind of broth - my cold has not been good to my sense of smell or taste and I couldn't readily identify what was in it. The braised short rib dumplings were better and had a peppery kick at the end. The brownie dessert was our favorite - rich and chocolaty, contrasting nicely with the ice cream and banana mousse.

Compared to some of the Restaurant Week menus that are, in my view, just phoning it in, I am impressed that DB's finds a way to provide a nice introduction to their lunch menu for only $22.

shyne

On the opposite side of the restaurant week value is DB's newest offering....

312DD wrote:Beginning Friday, guests can order the $225 (YES, you read that correctly!) sandwich that comes loaded with its famed 40-day dry aged burger. It's topped with caramelized ramps pickled in-house, Vidalia onion, Hostettler Bergblumenkaese cheese, seared foie gras and shaved black truffles.

All that goodness is encased in foie gras brioche made in house (in which fresh, foie gras butter is incorporated into freshly baked brioche). You'll also get lobster tater tots (pictured; photo: David Burke's Primehouse) accompanied by a rich, creamy caviar Hollandaise for dipping.

SSDD

I guess Primehouse has been hurting for publicity.

jesteinf wrote:I guess Primehouse has been hurting for publicity.

That was actually my thought as well, it doesn't really cost anymore to put something like this on the menu (just basically the menu printing costs), because everything needed for it is already in house.

SSDD

Well publicity or not Chef Gresh says he sold 2 in one night! More from the twittersphere!!

312DD wrote:Beginning Friday, guests can order the $225 (YES, you read that correctly!) sandwich that comes loaded with its famed 40-day dry aged burger. It's topped with caramelized ramps pickled in-house, Vidalia onion, Hostettler Bergblumenkaese cheese, seared foie gras and shaved black truffles.

All that goodness is encased in foie gras brioche made in house (in which fresh, foie gras butter is incorporated into freshly baked brioche). You'll also get lobster tater tots (pictured; photo: David Burke's Primehouse) accompanied by a rich, creamy caviar Hollandaise for dipping.

Can the revolution be far off?

jhawk1 wrote:Well publicity or not Chef Gresh says he sold 2 in one night! More from the twittersphere!!

This marks the official end of the recession.

Have to agree with you on that about the recession. I said the same thing 2 months ago when my wife and I popped in to Mastro's Steakhouse at 6 pm on a Wednesday to grab a quick cocktail and see what all the fuss was about. We had to claw and fight our way just to make it TO the bar, the place was mobbed and everywhere we looked folks were eating and everyone in the joint had an $18 martini in there hand! I looked at her and said well the recession must be over.Funny but true....

I was fortunate enough to have dinner @ DB's earlier this week with my family for my b-day. Loved the 21 day day dry aged NY Strip(wanted the KC Strip, but it was n/a). The 21 day I did have was excellent.

I asked and was allowed to check out the aging room , and was impressed.

cutting room:



back wall of aging room lined with slabs o' Himilayan salt:



aging beef:



some beef thats been aging since 04/06, about 1800 day dry aged:

jimswside wrote:some beef thats been aging since 04/06, about 1800 day dry aged:

I never knew beef could be aged this long. Has anyone ever tasted 5-year-aged beef? What's it like?

riddlemay wrote:

jimswside wrote:some beef thats been aging since 04/06, about 1800 day dry aged:

I never knew beef could be aged this long. Has anyone ever tasted 5-year-aged beef? What's it like?

I'm betting on jerky

riddlemay wrote:

jimswside wrote:some beef thats been aging since 04/06, about 1800 day dry aged:

I never knew beef could be aged this long. Has anyone ever tasted 5-year-aged beef? What's it like?

Im betting its more for show than for eating. Kind of like how some restaurants save their first dollar made, saving some of their original aged meat is seems appropriate(and pretty cool imho) for DB's.

jimswside wrote:Im betting its more for show than for eating. Kind of like how some restaurants save their first dollar made, saving some of their original aged meat is seems appropriate(and pretty cool imho) for DB's.

That's logical, reasonable and plausible.

For my general education: Can meat, then, essentially be kept in an aging locker forever? It never (for all intents and purposes) "goes bad"?

*dusting off my posting hat*

So, I had my birthday dinner at David Burke's over the weekend. I'll go through some of the smaller details before I get to the meat (rimshot) of my post. But some of the smaller details were very good.
We had the escargot sticks - which really were an inventive and cute way to serve escargot (if impaled mollusks can be cute). The pieces of brioche were soft and soaked up the ramp butter on the side nicely. A win for food on the stick.
The foie gras app had these amazing cherries with a maple sauce... very nice seared lobe of foie as the center piece. Very enjoyable version of foie. Things were setting up nicely at this point. We had a vibrant Pinot (Mi Sueno - and yes, the wine list is very expensive) and the table side ceasar was perfect - done right with anchovy paste and some white anchovies over the top.

At that point I was just incredibly jazzed to get the steak. I ordered the 55-day ribeye and my expectations were through the roof. I honestly didn't think it could go wrong, which is probably why I was so blindsided and actually a little emotionally hurt by the outcome. The steak came, and it looked beautiful. Nice char, lots of fat marbled throughout. But even before I cut into it, the smell disagreed with me.
Look, I'm a guy who loves funky flavors... I love livers, kidneys and limburger cheese. Yet, when I took my first bite of this steak, only one primary flavor came across: Wet Dog.
Not just a faint underlying flavor, but it was the predominant flavor and smell. It tasted exactly as I imagine it would taste if I made dog sushi immediately after my dogs swam in a polluted lake - with the hair still attached. And without salt - because I don't think the steak was salted.

Anyway, suffice it to say, the culinary evening came to a screeching halt.

I write not for validation (although there is little that feels worse than dropping $400 on a meal and feeling completely ripped off) , but because I am genuinely curious... I don't understand the science behind the 55 days of aging, but my guess is that the flavors can vary quite a bit from steak-to-steak/batch-to-batch. Could I have just gotten a bad steak? Can they turn like a bottle of wine with a bad cork?

I genuinely love aged steaks I've had elsewhere and have a hard time believing the nature of the steak could change that much, but who knows... I'm willing to admit I'm just not man enough to eat a 55-day aged steak if the flavor just missed me.

Thanks for allowing me to vent.

ab wrote:...I write not for validation (although there is little that feels worse than dropping $400 on a meal and feeling completely ripped off) , but because I am genuinely curious... I don't understand the science behind the 55 days of aging, but my guess is that the flavors can vary quite a bit from steak-to-steak/batch-to-batch. Could I have just gotten a bad steak? Can they turn like a bottle of wine with a bad cork?

I genuinely love aged steaks I've had elsewhere and have a hard time believing the nature of the steak could change that much, but who knows... I'm willing to admit I'm just not man enough to eat a 55-day aged steak if the flavor just missed me.

I dunno. I had a 75-day aged steak at DB's and it was funky and minerally but also delicious and entirely recognizable as a quality beef steak. I'm guessing something went wrong here.

=R=

ab wrote:*Look, I'm a guy who loves funky flavors... I love livers, kidneys and limburger cheese. Yet, when I took my first bite of this steak, only one primary flavor came across: Wet Dog.
Not just a faint underlying flavor, but it was the predominant flavor and smell. It tasted exactly as I imagine it would taste if I made dog sushi immediately after my dogs swam in a polluted lake - with the hair still attached. And without salt - because I don't think the steak was salted

At the risk of it being like asking Mrs. Lincoln if she still enjoyed the play, what about your partners steak? I generally tend to accept my fate when my food, if cooked correctly, is still not working out for me (you know there are more than a few restaurants in this land that charge upwards of $40 for about 2 ounces of lamb meat) but I think I might have said something here. At least you gave me a good laugh with your description if that's any consolation.

A prefect example of 'The Emperors New Clothes'!
As anything ages it changes for food and wine. For many things this leads to an acceptable outcome but if one continues, then one reaches the point of diminishing returns. I wish I had a dollar for each time a wine collector who served me a 'rare' bottle of old wine that was unpalatable and undrinkable to me, yet the collector and others drank it down and said it was great. I try to find a sink or potted plant to dispose of the wine without comment. Indeed as a wine collector myself, over the years. left over bottles that have managed to hide from me and were found, when sampled have been 'over the hill' including some Dom Perignon, Bollinger, Nierstiener Rebach TBA and others. When found upon opening, it simply goes down the drain, no regrets and no attempt to drink the stuff.
When I went to Burke's, I asked for a tour of the 'Aging Room' which is actually nothing more than a cellar room with a humidifier and pink salt blocks, no fancy anything but it works and that' all that's required. I specifically asked the guide which rib steak he recommended and he replied the 30 day or so which i ordered and found very palatable. Knowing in my mind that the hype of the extreme aging had to lead to flavors and ' funk' that i would not enjoy, I declined to be swayed by the current sentiment that 'more is better'.
I really understand how you felt after your expectations were not met and you spent a lot of money.-Dick
BTW, when going to a steak house, the only thing to order is the steak. Which is what I did at Burke's except for some Asiago fries that mostly sat uneaten.

ab wrote:
I write not for validation (although there is little that feels worse than dropping $400 on a meal and feeling completely ripped off) , but because I am genuinely curious... I don't understand the science behind the 55 days of aging, but my guess is that the flavors can vary quite a bit from steak-to-steak/batch-to-batch. Could I have just gotten a bad steak? Can they turn like a bottle of wine with a bad cork?

I genuinely love aged steaks I've had elsewhere and have a hard time believing the nature of the steak could change that much, but who knows... I'm willing to admit I'm just not man enough to eat a 55-day aged steak if the flavor just missed me.

I had the 55 day ribeye about a month ago and I think you got a bad steak. I noticed mineral flavors, and a little funk but no wet dog. FWIW my dining companion says next time they would get the steak done a little less (med rare instead of medium) because while cooked correctly it was a bit too chewy to enjoy fully which was attributed to the longer age.

Man I can't wait to go back to this place. My ladyfriend took me for my last birthday, that was the best aged ribeye I've ever had for sure. Not exactly cheap, but for the quality of the food it's not expensive either. The lunch menu looks like a bargain though. Thumbs up!

budrichard wrote: Indeed as a wine collector myself, over the years. left over bottles that have managed to hide from me and were found, when sampled have been 'over the hill' including some Dom Perignon, Bollinger, Nierstiener Rebach TBA

A question more for the drinking board but Holy, Cow how long did you store some of those wines, especially the TBA? I thought they lasted forever.

Rick T. wrote:

budrichard wrote: Indeed as a wine collector myself, over the years. left over bottles that have managed to hide from me and were found, when sampled have been 'over the hill' including some Dom Perignon, Bollinger, Nierstiener Rebach TBA

A question more for the drinking board but Holy, Cow how long did you store some of those wines, especially the TBA? I thought they lasted forever.

The TBA's were 1969 vintage and went bad at about 25 years. The Bollinger's 1964's(2) were found in a case of mixed Champagne's I had consolidated and were about 30 years old. They were very strange as the capsules were partially eaten away? The DP was two bottles out of a case of 1962 vintage, just plain maderized.
TBA's and TB's along with very old red's are now stored in a temperature controlled wine refrigeration unit rather than a cool celler.
Any wine can go 'bad' from any number of causes. One can sometimes track the changes in a particular wine and vintage over the years.
A wine can be improperly processed at the winery.
The cork can go bad which is usually shown by coloration along the side of the cork or a deposit on the capsule of TBA's and the like..
Improper temperature storage can cause a wine to turn faster and just plain old age will eventually result in a 'thin' red wine and a maderized white wine eventually.
It's hilarious to me when a really old bottle of wine is open and with reverence the drinkers declare its drinkable with mystical qualities. To me, its junk!-Dick

budrichard wrote:

Rick T. wrote:

budrichard wrote: Indeed as a wine collector myself, over the years. left over bottles that have managed to hide from me and were found, when sampled have been 'over the hill' including some Dom Perignon, Bollinger, Nierstiener Rebach TBA

A question more for the drinking board but Holy, Cow how long did you store some of those wines, especially the TBA? I thought they lasted forever.

The TBA's were 1969 vintage and went bad at about 25 years. The Bollinger's 1964's(2) were found in a case of mixed Champagne's I had consolidated and were about 30 years old. They were very strange as the capsules were partially eaten away? The DP was two bottles out of a case of 1962 vintage, just plain maderized.
TBA's and TB's along with very old red's are now stored in a temperature controlled wine refrigeration unit rather than a cool celler.
Any wine can go 'bad' from any number of causes. One can sometimes track the changes in a particular wine and vintage over the years.
A wine can be improperly processed at the winery.
The cork can go bad which is usually shown by coloration along the side of the cork or a deposit on the capsule of TBA's and the like..
Improper temperature storage can cause a wine to turn faster and just plain old age will eventually result in a 'thin' red wine and a maderized white wine eventually.
It's hilarious to me when a really old bottle of wine is open and with reverence the drinkers declare its drinkable with mystical qualities. To me, its junk!-Dick

budrichard wrote:

Rick T. wrote:

budrichard wrote: Indeed as a wine collector myself, over the years. left over bottles that have managed to hide from me and were found, when sampled have been 'over the hill' including some Dom Perignon, Bollinger, Nierstiener Rebach TBA

A question more for the drinking board but Holy, Cow how long did you store some of those wines, especially the TBA? I thought they lasted forever.

The TBA's were 1969 vintage and went bad at about 25 years. The Bollinger's 1964's(2) were found in a case of mixed Champagne's I had consolidated and were about 30 years old. They were very strange as the capsules were partially eaten away? The DP was two bottles out of a case of 1962 vintage, just plain maderized.
TBA's and TB's along with very old red's are now stored in a temperature controlled wine refrigeration unit rather than a cool celler.
Any wine can go 'bad' from any number of causes. One can sometimes track the changes in a particular wine and vintage over the years.
A wine can be improperly processed at the winery.
The cork can go bad which is usually shown by coloration along the side of the cork or a deposit on the capsule of TBA's and the like..
Improper temperature storage can cause a wine to turn faster and just plain old age will eventually result in a 'thin' red wine and a maderized white wine eventually.
It's hilarious to me when a really old bottle of wine is open and with reverence the drinkers declare its drinkable with mystical qualities. To me, its junk!-Dick

With the foil capsules eaten away, my only guess is that the corks were going bad and let a tiny amount of (acidic) Champagne eat the metal away like some foods do when they touch aluminum foil.

DB's has become my go to steak place. I have customers in from out of town a few times a month, so I take them for steak. I've probably paid for 50 or 60 of their 55 day rib eyes in the past 12 months, and people love them. I found the 75 day too gamey for me, but I love the 55 day. although, I shifted to only having a steak every 3rd or 4rth time, I can't handle all that red meat. the aps and sides are great, as are some of the deserts. the wine list if pretty good.

riddlemay wrote:For my general education: Can meat, then, essentially be kept in an aging locker forever? It never (for all intents and purposes) "goes bad"?

I know you posed this question nearly a year ago, but it doesn't seem to have been addressed. I ate at Primehouse last month, did the tour (and will be back in a few weeks). It seems that after 75 days, the meat does get "too funky" and thus that it their cut-off point. I had the 65 day (they said that they were running out of 55 day so they were taking ribeyes on the way to becoming 75-days and serving them in their place) which I am still dreaming about today. I never imagined a steak could be so transcendental.

"Im betting its more for show than for eating"
You are correct, that piece od desicated meat has benn there since Burkes started aging.
The aging room is just an old lower level storage room witj salt that the venitlation system b,ows thriugh and a standard cold air humdifier but it works!
Whats impresive is the amount of beef aging, I estimate over $50K in restaurant prices.
The system does add a good deal of salt to the meat so on my next visit, I am getting my steak unsalted.
Burke's is agreat steak place!-Dick

JermAngela wrote:

riddlemay wrote:For my general education: Can meat, then, essentially be kept in an aging locker forever? It never (for all intents and purposes) "goes bad"?

It seems that after 75 days, the meat does get "too funky" and thus that it their cut-off point.

I've had an 11 month dry aged steak at Carnevino in Las Vegas. I believe they coat the entire primal in tallow before aging to protect against the comically long aging process, but I couldn't get this 100% verified. The steak was transformed into something truely different: very funky and waxy, almost like a more tender prosciutto texture. For my taste, a bit too intense for one person, and I was glad to share with another person to compare and contrast with a "regular" 40-day dry aged steak. It does seem that the cutoff is generally 75 days or so for most places, and Carnevino seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

JermAngela wrote:

riddlemay wrote:For my general education: Can meat, then, essentially be kept in an aging locker forever? It never (for all intents and purposes) "goes bad"?

I know you posed this question nearly a year ago, but it doesn't seem to have been addressed. I ate at Primehouse last month, did the tour (and will be back in a few weeks). It seems that after 75 days, the meat does get "too funky" and thus that it their cut-off point.

I think the bigger problem than excessive funk is moisture loss; only the ribeyes get the 75 day treatment because they have enough fat to survive the process. A tenderloin would basically turn into jerky by the end.

Independent George wrote:

JermAngela wrote:

riddlemay wrote:For my general education: Can meat, then, essentially be kept in an aging locker forever? It never (for all intents and purposes) "goes bad"?

I know you posed this question nearly a year ago, but it doesn't seem to have been addressed. I ate at Primehouse last month, did the tour (and will be back in a few weeks). It seems that after 75 days, the meat does get "too funky" and thus that it their cut-off point.

I think the bigger problem than excessive funk is moisture loss; only the ribeyes get the 75 day treatment because they have enough fat to survive the process. A tenderloin would basically turn into jerky by the end.

Only bone in cuts can be dry aged. Tenderloins can not be dry aged.

I mean, you can cut a bone-in tenderloin. Primehouse does, and then dry ages it.

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know what it is about the process that requires the cut to be bone-in?

gleam wrote:I mean, you can cut a bone-in tenderloin. Primehouse does, and then dry ages it.

Out of curiosity, do you happen to know what it is about the process that requires the cut to be bone-in?

The menu ar Burke's does show a bone in tenderloin but not under the dry aged steaks and I don't recall seeing any bone in tenderloin aging at Burke's?-Dick
The only way I know of too get a dry aged tenderloin would be to dry age a whole primal cut and then remove the tenderloin. Since the tenderloin is such a small in diameter piece of meat, the loss would be substantial which is probably why one doesn't encounter dry aged tenderloin.