Sinning Is Usually More Fun

Good Friday just passed, and you know what that means...steak dinner. My favorite yearly tradition. Every year, on Good Friday, my friend Annie and I go out for a big meaty dinner. Unfortunately, we've struck out a couple of times in our search for new places to sin. This year's choice turned out to be pretty uneven...Sparks Steakhouse.

Now, if Sparks Steakhouse sounds familiar to you, and you live in NY, you may know it as the restaurant Paul Castellano was shot in front of. Which brought about the rise of John Gotti as the head of the Gambino family in 1985. Right off the bat I was disappointed. There was no chalk outline. No faded red blood stain. Not even an ancient shell casing. Quite honestly, the biggest reason I wanted to go to Sparks was for it's unique place in New York's history. As it turns out, that was also the best part of the restaurant.

Sparks has a pretty nondescript kind of front. It just didn't have any character. I'm not sure why, but I expected something more. The interior, however, has quite a bit of character. Not necessarily in a good way. When I first walked in, I kinda liked the place. Deep reds and browns are generally what I think of when I think of a steakhouse. That's exactly what they've got going on here. The maitre'd that greeted us was in a tux. He was extremely pleasant. Showed us to our table right away. Of course, the place is HUGE. So there's no shortage of tables. But then after being seated, Annie and I started looking around. Everything seemed kind of dated. There are dozens of paintings in faux gilded frames of trees hanging on the walls. The maroon carpet has golden curlicue type things in it. The waitstaff bring out the food and take away the dishes on rickety wooden carts. Keens is an old restaurant. Delmonico's is an old restaurant. Peter Luger's is an old restaurant. Those places are classic. This place is passe. It's a little sad actually. Our waiter, Luis III (I checked the bill specifically for his name) was borderline rude. Every time he brought something to the table, you got the impression that he wanted to be anywhere else. And by the time you said “thank you” he was gone. It took him forever to notice we wanted him on the few occasions that we did. In the outstanding restaurants, the staff are always there when needed and just sort of fade away otherwise. It's one of the great mysteries of the great places. They're like ninja. But at Sparks, the staff is very much conspicuous. I don't EVER tip less than 20%. Luis got double the tip and I really didn't want to give him that.

First thing's first, what kind of steakhouse doesn't offer a rib-eye or a porterhouse. You shouldn't be allowed to call yourself a steakhouse if those things aren't on the menu. It's my own fault for not checking out the menu ahead of time. OK, I'll climb off my soapbox now. The waiter brought us our giant menus and we were on our way. We ordered ourselves some drinks. Being that I don't really drink wine, Annie asked our waiter what wines came by the glass. Not much point in ordering a bottle for herself. He actually kind of looked down at her and rattled off a couple of wines with a bit of an attitude. He looked at me funny too when I told him to use Bulleit bourbon instead of Maker's Mark in my manhattan. We were off to a wonderful start. I will say, I've never had drink come so quickly in a steakhouse. We didn't wait 5 minutes for the booze to arrive.

Not the most appealing looking piece of meat, but it was tasty.

We ordered a crab-meat and scallop combination that was broiled in butter. The crab was nice and sweet but the scallops didn't taste like anything. Not even the butter they were broiled in. We had mediocre Caesar salads. Although I did find the croutons to be kind of oily, the salad was OK. Since there wasn't a porterhouse to order, we both got Prime Sirloin. I will say, these were the best part of the meal. They were excellent pieces of meat that were only a touch overcooked. I only even mention that they were overcooked because I'm being picky because I had a problem with pretty much everything else we were served. As sides we got creamed spinach, hash brown potatoes and sauteed mushrooms. All of which tasted like absolutely nothing. The potatoes and spinach had pretty much no flavor and the mushrooms, which did manage a tiny bit of earthiness, were incredibly rubbery.

After dinner, since we didn't really eat all the much. There was room for dessert. Honestly, I just wanted a cup of coffee. But I figured why the hell not get something. Maybe it'll be redeeming from such an underwhelming experience. Along with the coffee I got a chocolate mousse cake and Annie had some peach sorbet She said her sorbet was quite good. The cake was mealy and I wish I'd have just gotten some from Aunt Butchie's. At least the coffee was excellent. I like that they brought you out your own little carafe. I did think it odd that there was no regular sugar. There was Splenda, Sweet N Low, Equal and Raw Sugar. Not that it mattered, it was just odd.

All in all, it wasn't really a great experience. With a lesser companion, it would've seriously sucked. Especially since we probably ordered the least amount of food and drink we've ever ordered at one of these dinner and paid the 2^nd most we ever have. This really wasn't worth the price. No sign of the famous murder, bland food, high prices and a rude waiter. There won't be any Fat Kid outings here in the future.

Sparks Steakhouse

210 East 46^th Street

New York, NY, 10017

212-687-4806

The Whole is Greater Than the Sum of Its Parts

I walked out of American Whiskey full of glowing thoughts. Blake, Gina (Who happen to be 2 of the finest people to share food and booze with in the history of food and booze. If I could pimp them out as drinking and dining companions, I'd make serious bank.) and I stood outside the door on West 30^th Street with that warm feeling that you only get from being properly fed and just the right amount of inebriated. We had ourselves a fantastic time. We imbibed, consumed and laughed until our faces hurt.

American Whiskey has a nice long bar when you walk in and what look to be comfortable and roomy booths right opposite it. There are tables in the back, which is where we wound up. Exposed brick walls (which I'm a big fan of) and a big set of free standing bookshelves loaded with A LOT of whiskey bottles serving as a room divider round out the rest of the noticeable décor. Someone working there had an excellent iPod playlist going because we were dancing and singing along at the table for the entire 3+ hours we were there. Our waitress (who's name I don't remember...I've got to get better at that) was terrific. She answered any questions we had. Made suggestions whenever asked. She seemed to be having a good time bantering with us a bit whenever she stopped by to check on us. She even brought us a couple of drinks gratis when the bartender made extras for a different order. She knew that's what we'd been drinking and decided we were worthy. I'm sure it didn't hurt that she seemed to have taken a bit of a liking to Blake either.

The Strike Me Dead

Basically, we drank. We drank a pretty goodly amount at that. There was the Strike Me Dead, which was rye, vanilla, pink peppercorns and blackstrap bitters (Blake, who knows all, kindly informed us that blackstrap is a kind of molasses.) I liked this drink a lot. On a whim and put some hot sauce in it and I liked it a whole lot more. Took it to a whole new level. The Whiskey Smash was Evan Williams Black Label, lemon, mint and your choice of fruit syrup. Gina went with cherry which was good and I went with grapefruit, which I thought was better. The Brain Duster, rye, sweet vermouth, angostura bitters and absinthe. Basically this was a Manhattan for Hemingway. It was definitely too absinthe forward, it overwhelmed everything else. I've had much better versions of this drink at Dylan Prime (sadly closed) and at the Minetta Tavern (I was too lazy to write this up, but had a great time there.) Our favorite was the So Damn Fine, Jameson Black Barrel, Jameson Caskmates, Drambuie and reposado. This was the only drink I remember any of us ordering more than once. And lastly and unfortunately leastly was Please Press Play, rye, Single Cut Eric “More Cowbell Please” Milk Stout (which despite being a mouthful to order was the very tasty beer we were drinking alongside our whiskey adventures) syrup, coriander and Door County Hops Bitters. I really didn't like this. It was like drinking a slightly whiskeyfied IPA. Blake didn't seem to dislike it as much as I did. I wouldn't have been able to drink more than the sip I tasted.

Sliders

While we certainly imbibed a great deal of booze, we also ate. If we hadn't, there's no chance any of us would've been able to get up from that table. We had lots of lovely snackies. There was Tater Tot Poutine, which is exactly what you'd imagine. Crispy tater tots covered in gravy and cheese curds. I couldn't stop sticking these in my face. If any one person tried to eat this alone, they'd certainly die of a myocardial infarction before they made it out the door. (It also made me giggle to myself that the curds sort of made a tiny squeaky noise when you chewed them. Don't judge me, it's called Loving Your Inner Fat KID!) Oysters on the Half Shell which came with pop rocks and a mignonette. You wouldn't think pop rocks belong with raw oysters...but they were flavorless and kind of worked. It was pretty weird. And I think there were Fried Oysters but I don't really remember much about them. We also tried a few different sliders. There was the Homer L Ford IV (no idea who that is), Country Fried Sweetbreads, spicy honey and slaw. These were pretty good. The Duck Duck Goose had Duck Confit, Duck Breast and Foie Gras Butter. I expected to love these but didn't. There wasn't any real Foie taste and the duck was a little dry. And theAdobe Chicken, the most basic and the best of the sliders. Shredded chicken, preserved jalapeno and slaw. Great bright flavor. Definitely my favorite.

What's interesting is that I didn't realize until 3 or 4 days later, when I was starting to put my thoughts together to write this, that there were things about American Whiskey that I didn't love. We had such a great time there that it completely overshadowed the negatives. Some of that was because I was out with great company and we likely could have a good time sitting in a park drinking 40ozs of O.E and eating dirty water dogs. But it's also because American Whiskey is most certainly greater than the sum of its parts. I'll be back whenever I'm looking for a bite and a drink before or after doing something at The Garden.

American Whiskey

247 West 30^th Street

New York, NY, 10001

212-967-1070