Porter House

To some girls, Valentine’s day means flowers and chocolates – to the Hungry Korean, nothing says “I love you” like a nice piece of steak :).  For Valentine’s day, I got Cookie Monster a set of artisanal mini cheesecakes and he got us reservations at Porter House.

It’s located in the Time Warner Center so we didn’t have to stray very far from home. We were very surprised to see how busy it was inside… and it wasn’t all corporate accounts. The room we were seated in is typically reserved for small private parties but they had set it up with all tables of two for the Valentine’s day occasion. That was a little weird but whatever.

I passed on the bread entirely – got to save room.

I started with the appetizer of six raw oysters:

And Cookie Monster got the scallop appetizer:

They were luscious and perfectly cooked – served with capers, creamy celery root and brown butter. Pretty darn decadent.

For main course, I got the Cowboy rib steak which is essentially rib eye (my favorite cut of meat next to a porterhouse) on the bone.

The reason I love ribeye is, a good ribeye cut, will have a beautiful marbling of fat throughout the steak.  That fat renders an incredibly flavorful and tender piece of meat.  Loved the nice char and it was cooked a medium rare, just the way I like it. I tasted that full on dry aged goodness.

Cookie Monster got the butter poached lobster:

Two pounds of lobster are served in a rich butter sauce with melted leeks and a ragout of carrots and turnips. Really sweet lobster only accented by that butter. Haha we always joke because Cookie Monster tends to order the dishes stereotypically ordered by females and I always tend to order the meat heavy dishes. Servers usually put the wrong plates in front of us.  This dinner was not unusual for us. Me = meat, Cookie Monster = fish. 🙂

We got two sides.  Spinach sauteed in olive oil and garlic:

And the appetizer portion of the mushroom and truffle risotto:

Warning: appetizer portion is the size of a main course! We were surprised by the portion size.  The risotto was a little too al dente and could have maybe used another 10 minutes but the flavors were great. It was creamy and slightly cheesy and of course you had the lovely aroma of truffles.  I liked the roasted pine nuts very much.

For dessert, Cookie Monster got the devil’s food cake with chocolate icing:

I think he was hoping for a chocolate moist multi level cake like the one from Strip House (best chocolate cake in NYC in our opinion) but it was not. This was dry on the top two layers and moist only on the bottom third. It was ok.

I was stuffed but not stuffed silly.  Who doesn’t love a good steak cooked well?  If you are looking for a steak house that doesn’t have that bare bones, boys club feel to it (meaning more upscale and nice), head to Porter House.

Porter House, 10 Columbus Circle, 4th Floor, New York, NY