In the on-going quest to find the “best of the best” in steak houses, we decided to try Pietro’s Prime Steakhouse located in West Chester, PA.
Our reservation was for 7:30 and we waited 20 minutes at the bar to be seated. This is an immediate “no-no” to this “Fat Foodie” who is not a drinker and truly doesn’t like to wait for a table any place when we have procured a reservation.
Once seated, we were approached by someone who I thought was the bus person because he moved the place settings ever so slightly and lit the candle at the table. He then asked if we were okay with drinks (since we had drinks from the bar) and then started to recite the specials for the evening (this list was rather extensive). The only reason I make this point is that he never said his name and never indicated when he first came to the table that he would be our server. A little odd for a steak house seeking to compete with the upper tier places!
I did not choose an appetizer for the evening because I thought I might splurge on dessert. I chose one of the specials—the one I ordered was a 14 oz Fillet ($48)served on the bone. I am always a bit hesitant to order specials in a place that doesn’t tell you the price of the item because I feel it can be overpriced, but I went with the steak any way. The fillet was good and had nice flavor, but could have been served a bit hotter. The menu indicates that the restaurant serves 4 different steak sauces, but the waiter neglected to ask me if I wanted one when I ordered, so I assumed that they would provide a proper one with the serving, but I was mistaken. When I asked for the Bearnaise sauce, it came out cold and really did nothing to enhance the steak. This further bothered me since the menu indicates that steaks are served with a complimentary sauce, but on the bill, I was charged ($1.50). I ordered the fillet medium-rare as I order all meat and the waiter indicated that as you got very close to the bone it would be more to the rare side—I expected this to be the case, but was not pleased overall with the steak’s temperature because it was more rare than medium rare, but our server did not come back to check to see if the meal was to our liking. I ordered as a side dish my standard creamed spinach order ($6) to compare against the others and I will say that the spinach passed the test with flying colors!
One of my companions started with French Onion soup ($6). The cheese on the outside of the small bowl and on top of the soup was very good, but the broth was rather lacking. This was a poor start for my companion’s meal. She then ordered one of the specials which were described as blackened scallops with mussels over crab risotto in a lobster cream sauce ($36). The presentation of this entrée was nice, but the scallops were extremely over-seasoned and the crab risotto was dry without using the lobster cream sauce over it. My dining companion is one who enjoys blackened food, but remarked that it was spiced much too much for even her liking.
My other dining partner ordered the Lobster Bisque ($5) first. This soup had one piece of lobster in the entire cup and truly tasted more like a tomato bisque that had some seafood stock added to it. This was very disappointing for a soup lover like the “Fat Foodie”. His entrée was the Lamb Chop dinner ($32) which was presented nicely over mashed potatoes. Now I will comment also on the price of this dinner. On the menu, this entrée is listed as $32; however, on the check we received, the price of the dinner was $35? This meal was not one of the specials so I was confused with the pricing, but again did not say anything because I was reviewing the restaurant. This meal was complemented with a side of steamed asparagus which was very tough in nature and over done since the bottoms of the asparagus were very discolored vs. the rest of the asparagus spear(s).
Upon finishing the meal, the server cleared the table and did not ask whether he could bring us coffee, tea or dessert, but asked, “What else can I do for you this evening?”
I then had to ask what was on the dessert menu and he had to go check. He came back to tell us there were four regular desserts on the menu and four specials-- we split the Brownie sundae ($8). This was a dark chocolate brownie with a chocolate chip cookie bar also served over vanilla ice cream with hot fudge sauce drizzled on the side of the dish and maraschino cherries. This dessert was reasonably good, but awkward to eat with the brownies being on the top and the ice cream on the bottom.
This is a restaurant in which we had a server who was aloof at times who was very interested in getting his “side work” done. I watched him a lot during the meal wiping water glasses (just below where our table was positioned) rather than being attentive to our table. While he was friendly in nature, he lacked skills for a steak house pricing themselves with the others. On the home page of this restaurant’s website it states, “Pietro’s is what West Chester has been missing! No need to go to King of Prussia for the “other” steak houses. Very good steaks cooked to perfection.”
The “other steak houses” in King of Prussia include Sullivan’s, Morton’s, Ruth Chris and Capital Grille. I have eaten at all four numerous times although not the King of Prussia location for Capital Grille as of yet. This place, Pietro’s, is not close! Dinner for three before tax and tip was $153 and truly not worth it.
This location is the old Murray’s Delicatessen in West Chester and it might have been better to have left it as the deli. The various rooms are small and the noise level is extremely loud in a place you are spending this kind of money.
1.5 Brownies
No comments:
Post a Comment