Everyone's favorite steakhouse is at the Penthouse Executive Club?

Frank Bruni gives the steakhouse at the Penthouse Executive Club a pretty entertaining one star review [1]. “Hmm, where have I heard of this place before” I thought, and rummaged through my stacks of recorded food shows. Ah, celebrated don’t-call-it-molecular-gastronomy chef Heston Blumenthal [2] paid it a special visit on his TV show last year, to show his drooling mostly British viewers er, great looking meat. I mean the aged sides of beef, of course.

Anthony Bourdain [3], guesting again on Michael Ruhlman’s blog, think it was a purposeful slam at Jeffrey Chodorow of Kobe Club, another Manhattan steak house, which was given a really bad no-star review [4], to which Mr. Chodorow protested via a full page ad in the Times . (Tempest, teapot.) I have this yet to be expressed publicly (or at least not on this blog) disdain of Americans and others who like to show off by serving up huge hunks of wagyuu/Matsuzakagyuu/Kobe beef (usually all meaning the same thing), which was meant to be served in delicate thin slices. But anyway, I must say I’m much intrigued by the Penthouse steak. If only they could screen off the fleshpots. I may be 75% vegetarian [5], but great, aged steak, something I have on the average about once every 2 years, is one of those things that make me not want to go all-veg.