One of my favorite restaurants of all time is Norman and Paul's Steakhouse. This is a place you could dine in year round if your wallet and intestines were to accommodate you.
As you walk in, you decide whether to sit outside on the cheerful veranda or inside the busy bistro. This is a steakhouse and you may get dirty looks ordering a salad. Truthfully, their aged prime beef is fantastic. It has the fat marbling that you see in only the best cuts of meat. Try the rib-eye or the sirloin, both will fill you up and are grilled to perfection. N & P's also makes the best burgers I have ever eaten. You know what the secret to a great hamburger is? Grind up a choice cut of steak and use it as your base. They even have a sirloin and hamburger combination which will give you the recommended daily allowance of beef for a year.
Still hungry? You need to try the Sumo Burger. Named after the giant Japanese wrestlers, this is over two pounds of the finest ground chuck. Eat the whole thing (with bun) and you get your picture taken! It may be expensive and more beef than any one person should be allowed to eat, but that's what fine dining is all about.
They have a marvelous selection of deserts but quite frankly, if you have ordered right you should have trouble getting up from the table much less ordering desert. Norman and Paul's is a great place to visit but please get some exercise in between your trips. I wouldn't want to be responsible for your weight gain.
And what I love is that everyone gets their own bottle of bright red Heinz ketchup. What could be better!
What makes an Italian restaurant truly great. There are so many places, and so many of them serve great food. Many people can make fine pasta and maybe grill a fish, but what truly sets the best Italian restaurants apart is the sauce.
An Italian restaurant should be able to make fantastic sauces, both cream based and tomato based. Cream based sauces should be rich without being overpowering. You can have a great white cream sauce, but if it is too heavy, you will put your customer to sleep before he or she finishes the meal! That is they key, balancing the richness without going heavy. If a restaurant can make a great base cream sauce, it needs to develop several varieties, both with wine and without. Only fresh vegetables should be used (no canned mushroom please!).
Of course Italian food is really known for dramatic tomato based sauces and no matter how good a cream based sauce is, if a restaurant does not have a front line of red sauces, it is not worth going. The true mark of a fine establishment is how good a simple tomato and basil sauce stands out on a bed of light pasta (something like fettuccini or calamaretti). If the sauce brings out and enhances the taste of the pasta, it is a winner. if it hides or otherwise overpowers the pasta, you will have better luck moving on.
Know a great restaurant where the sauce is outstanding? Let me know. I
am always on the prowl for great Italian food.
