M is for Morton's

Vegetarians be warned - the following post contains graphic descriptions of consumption of copious quantities of meat. Red Meat - like from a cow. Sensitive readers are encouraged to skip this post.



Well it's been a few weeks since this meal went down and I vowed not to write about it until I felt the meal had been completely digested. As of yesterday afternoon, I think it has finally wound its way out of my system. So now I can write, and I write without worry that the recollection of this meal has faded even one bit. The memory of this meal has been, appropriately so, forever seared into my brain.



In the middle of June I once again found myself having to spend a week in the good ol' US of A for a large conference that my company puts on every year for our customers. Phoenix. June. Hot. If anything works up a guy's appetite more than golfing on the absolutely most beautiful golf course on the planet 3 times in the same week, it's doing it in 48 degree heat.

So here's the situation. A big part of this conference involves us having to entertain our clients that make the trip to the conference. One night we planned a big outing for all the Canadian customers to a local restaurant. I thought I had mentioned the plans to MY customers that were there. Apparently I did not and they missed out on the evening. Big oops. So after some grovelling and some ass kissing I promised to make it up to them the next night. I needed to make it good so I made some plans to take them out to a steak house. The concierge at the hotel recommended a steakhouse by some name that I now forget and we all hopped a cab in that direction. When the cabbie pulled up to where we planned on going it hit me. I was in Phoenix. There had to be a Morton's in Phoenix. I had the pleasure of eating at Mortons in LA a few years back and it was one of the best steaks I had ever had. I asked the cabbie if Phoenix had a Morton's and he said "why yes, it's right around the corner." Without blinking I said - "we're going there instead." My clients had a somewhat confused look on their face as we had discussed our original destination for a while and now I was aborting for another spot. I told them to trust me - Morton's would not let us down. And ohhhhhh boy. It didn't.



We walked in right off the street - table for five please. No worries and they sat us down in a cozy little corner of the restaurant and the festivities began. That's the nice thing about Phoenix in the summer. It's dead. We could not have pulled this off in the winter. We ordered drinks - I asked if they did Ceasars and without hesitation the waiter said yes. Most restaurants in the States do not serve Ceasars as Clamato juice has yet to catch on down here - so I was happy. Perhaps an ode to another steakhouse in Calgary?



On to appetizers - we all decided to split an appetizer platter for 4. Came complete with Oysters Rockafeller, Bacon Wrapped Scallops, Crab Cakes and the biggest jumbo prawns I had ever seen. These prawns were bigger than what Red Lobster often passes off as lobster tail. Crab cakes came with a nice mustard mayo, the scallops with an Apricot Chutney and the prawns with a fresh, homemade cocktail sauce. As big as everything was, it didn't last long.



On to mains. I won't talk about what everyone else got - since 3 of the others ordered the same thing I did - except for the sides. The other guy ordered a huge double cut Filet Mignon - which looked good, but I'm not a fan of Filet. Sure, it's tender. But I find it too bland. No fat = no flavor. I went with a Chicago Style, bone-in Rib-Eye. It is a sin to cook beef any further than medium rare. It says so in the Bible - I read it. So who am I to cause some poor unexpected chef in the kitchen to be damned to hell for an eternity of eating his mother in-law's overcooked steak? Out of concern for chef's everywhere, my steaks are always requested medium-rare. If they overcook it after that, their eternal damnation is their own fault.



The sides - the nice thing about Mortons is you order everything a-la-carte. This is only nice if someone else (such as your company) is picking up the tab since it stings a bit to pay $10 for sauteed mushrooms on top of your $59 steak. Price gouging aside, having an a-la-carte allows you to try a bit of everything. We all ordered different sides to share family style. We had mac and cheese, jumbo grilled asparagus with hollandaise, garlic mashed potatoes, sauteed mushrooms. I wanted to try a different potato so I asked what their Lyonnaise Potato was. The waiter began replying "it's a sliced potato sauteed in bacon fat and...." I cut him off. That was all I needed to hear. So we ordered that too.



What happened next involves pleasure centres in my brain that I had never used yet. These memories are etched into my consciousness as vividly as a child's recollection of their first Christmas. My steak arrived. It was much bigger than what the waiter had shown us (they do a visual presentation of all the cuts of steak before they let you order). This thing was massive. Almost intimidating. I'd say it was pushing 30 ounces. I cut into it and put a healthy chunk of the offering into my mouth. Almost instantly all the sights and sounds of the entire restaurant faded away to black in my mind. All that remained was me and a pristine, white tablecloth with an intense white spotlight shining directly above me onto the table. Perfectly centered in the spotlight was the beauty that was my steak sitting on top of the whitest of white plates. If I listened hard enough, I could hear "My Endless Love" by Lionel Richie and Diana Ross being sung in the background by my waiter (ode to Happy Gilmore). The caramelized exterior of the steak was infinite in it's blackness, and the perfect red centre seemed more red than the most luxurious velvet. Quite simply, I thought I had died and went to heaven. This steak was as close to holiness as a steak could possibly get and I had it in my mouth. This went on for a solid 30 minutes as I slowly devoured the steak and nibbled on some of the sides.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any better - dessert arrived. The kicker with this tempting little treat was that they make you order it when you order your meal because they claim it takes 45 minutes to prepare. Well, that's a load of crap because I've made this before and it doesn't take that long to make. But like any good entrepreneur, they know that by the time you finish your meal, you would never have any room for dessert and no one would ever order it unless you had to order it before you were full. No matter how I felt about being forced to order it with my meal, all those bad thoughts went away when I cut into the most beautiful chocolate lava cake that had ever been prepared. The rich, warm Godiva chocolate oozing from the inside onto my plate. Slowly coating my mouth in a layer of ecstasy.

All in all, Morton's has been the place where I have had two of the best steak dinners of my life. It won't be a cheap meal, but if you look at an expensive meal as a chance to put some life long memories into your head, then this place is as good as any I have found to do that. For 5 guys, our meal ended up being just shy of $700. But the memories are priceless.

M is for Morton's

M is for Mmmmmmmmm.