The pre-drinks venue was well chosen by Brad. If there were ratings for walks to the pre-drinks venue then this would be right up there. I found a whole new side of Angel by walking along the canals to get to the Narrow Boat Pub.
True to form Gary arrived early to nab a good seating area for us. The discussion quickly turned to the worrying trend of lengthy gaps between steak club gatherings. Let’s hope this is just down to the August-holiday-come-wedding-honeymoon period and things will improve in the New Year. I can’t believe I’m already talking about the New Year and it’s only September, I think I’d be able to get a job at a Christmas marketing company.
After a couple of drinks and a quick pre-meal shooter (I don’t think the barman expected that either) to clear some strafdops we started walking (and walking) to the venue. In these times of austerity cabs are a luxury but steaks are not. It wasn’t that far to the venue in truth but no journey between pre-drinks and venue can be taken without some banter, no matter what form of transport is used.
Venue - 6
We arrived at the venue, which despite its close proximity to the Angel tube is quite unobtrusive. The interior was very straight to the point and left you in no doubt that you were in a steak restaurant with enough steak books to keep us testing steaks for years.
Menu – 6.5
There seemed to be some French influence with the inclusion of Onglet on the menu, something I can’t remember seeing on a menu this side of the English channel. The rest of the menu included Chateaubriand and rib eye (in a few variations). The Onglet was described to us as the bit at the end of the rib eye with less marbling. Sounds perfect! This venue was on my maybe list due to the limited menu but in hindsight this was not an issue.
Waitress - 5
I can’t remember even asking the waitron where the steaks were from, bit of an oversight on our part. We were served by a combination of a guy and a girl but my memory is hazy here so clearly neither being memorable apart from the quick Onglet description and recommendation of steaks in the beginning.
Steak – 8
 |
| Spiral cut rib eye |
Wassie and I shared the 800gr spiral cut rib eye prepared medium rare. This steak was excellent despite a tough sinewy strand running through the length of the cut. It included a topping (called criolla marinade) that contained something like red peppers, garlic, onion and oil that worked well with the properly cooked steak.
Stace opted for the 500gr Chateaubriand. It was unusual to see this served as a dish for one as opposed to a sharer (well, 500gr in our minds is not a sharer size at least). This was the best steak of the night in my opinion and probably a first for Stace to order the steak of the night. Gary tried the Onglet and Brad the normal rib eye. Both of those steaks were also very good and ran the spiral cut rib eye close for second place. It’s not often that we all end up with a good steak. I think the last time this happened was at STK back in April 2013. Probably also the last time Stace had a good steak.Wine - 7
We started with a 2011 Simonsig pinotage. I’m usually a partisan fan of the South African pinotage (although would probably take a merlot over the pinotage) wines but this didn’t live up to my high expectations. I’d have it again but it wasn’t right up there. Interestingly we don’t see too many South African reds at the steak restaurants. The second wine was a 2012 El Supremo Malbec. We’re of course also biased towards Malbecs (even over our homeland wines) and true to grape this was very good.
Value - 7
Stace did a Gary on us by ordering the £50 Chateaubriand but other than that the other steaks weren’t crazily priced. The spiral cut rib eye that Wassie and I shared was £55 so not bad between 2 people. It’s all relative obviously but we’d be happy to pay these prices again if we knew we would get the same steak again. With the wine included we paid just over £58 per head.
Other
We had a funny incident at the York pub afterwards when a fairly large seed pod dropped from an overhanging tree directly into Stace’s unfinished pint. This then kicked off a game of seed pod coinage that was harder than it should have been (and here I blame the shooters). We went French and laughed off the austerity measures and jumped in a cab to Waterloo where we obviously had to have one more drink (I blame this whiskey for my hangover). Oh, and I almost forgot to mention the tasty zebra starter...
“It’s not a drinking club.” I get this comment every time I get home after mixing 6 different alcohols and feeling very sorry the next morning. This review is on time. No more shooters Wassie.
Would I go again? Without a doubt, wouldn’t mind giving the Chateaubriand a crack (after saving up for a few months)
Would I recommend it to a friend? Yes, I already have
Would I take the Steak Club there knowing what I know now? Yes
Steak = 8 * 5 = 40
Venu = 6
Menu = 6.5
Waitress = 5
Wine = 7
Value = 7
Total = 71.5
