One of my good friends, Seth, takes an annual trip to Chicago for Bluesfest and has been doing so for (on estimate) 15 years. In that time, the social circle that he goes with has made it a point to make the rounds (slowly but surely at a rate of one per year) of Chicago steak houses. So, in the course of planning this trip, knowing that I wanted to go to one of the top steak houses in Chicago, I turned to my good friend Seth and all of his years of experience. His answer: Smith and Wollensky.

I made reservations a week before in the usual manner without difficulty. Actually, the difficulty was that we had all options open, but we chose 7:30pm. This is an unnecessary piece of data for you. If you’ve seen Inside Out, this time has bumped out an important memory from your childhood. Perhaps it was the color of your teddy bear’s bowtie.

It wasn’t long into the meal before it was pointed out that I had a lot of food and didn’t need to eat all of it. I felt like this kind of remark in a Chicago steakhouse is an exercise in both redundancy and futility.

Even still, the sheer magnitude of my steak was remarked upon which I think was wholly and completely unfair. I ordered a 21 day dry aged bone-in rib eye (which is as close to my ideal cut as is possible without hitting a bullseye) which came in at 24oz. Mr. Hyde, who was sitting next to me, ordered and consumed completely the 48oz porterhouse which the menu specifically states is to be shared for two. In the words of Ron Burgundy, I’m not even angry; I’m just impressed. Mr. Hyde was short and stout ogre of a man, and the waitress was quick to reference The Great Outdoors,  a reference which was lost on all but myself. For the love of all that’s holy, he ate the whole thing.

I started with a romaine salad with a dijon dressing, a few cubed fried potato chunks, and beef bacon. The beef bacon was interesting: it was very fatty but it was robust in flavor and had a wonderful texture and made all the feels in the mouth. Adrienne had split pea soup which she said was good however looked like melted crayons.

Dry aging is the process by which a cut of meat, in this case a steak, is set out and literally dried over a period of days to weeks. The drying process decreases the amount of juices in the meat, however that concentrates the flavor. For this process, a cut like a rib eye is ideal because, lacking juices, the rib eye has a marbled texture of fat running through it that, when cooked, provides a moist texture.

I was a little put off because the restaurant was hot and our water glasses were short, our waitress was named Jennifer but wearing a slightly  dirty white coat with the name Colleen embroidered upon it, because the table wasn’t level, and finally because the blade on the knife was loose.

But all of that went away when the steak arrived. It was a work of art. Adrienne said I don’t even look at her like that. My steak is always medium, and I quit ordering steak (with only notable exceptions) in my hometown of Fort Wayne, because so often “medium” became either “carrion-rare” or “Indiana Jones’ satchel”. This was medium as it should be. I rationed that if it wasn’t how I wanted it, then I should change my standard of medium. Thankfully I didn’t have to do that. It was seasoned with the only things meat requires: salt and pepper.

We had sides and they brought steak sauce, but that was really just unnecessary, if you ask me.  Oh.  I almost forgot.  Adrienne got a steak too, but I was too busy paying attention to my awesome steak to ask her how it was.

Dinner was consumed, so we made our way back to the hotel for the night. If there is one thing that I should not have eaten this weekend it’s steak. Not because of calories, or cholesterol (my HDL is in the 60s), but because of the gout. Oh well, it was worth it. Every last bite. Good night Chicago. Good night full belly. Good night Adrienne. Good night gout.