The high-end steak houses were peeved. Not a surprise, considering the ads Le Biftheque ran when they opened in Toronto: "Thank you, Ruth's Chris. Thank you, Hy's. At twice and thrice the price, your New York's are still outstanding." But what an attractive notion. If Le Biftheque sells a Ruth's Chris quality steak for half the price, why not? Why not? indeed.
We arrive at Le Biftheque at exactly the time we'd reserved, step up to the desk and say, in plain English, "'We have a reservation." The woman at the desk gives me a blank look but no words. We wait. At no time does the woman either address me or look at me. She says to a nearby colleague, "Can you take this five?" Nobody offers to take our coats, but at least we get a table. So far, neither Ruth nor Morton is quaking.
Then cometh our server: "Hi, guys." We ask her to explain the bowl of large chunks of fried (?) bread on our table. "They're croutons. Put 'em on your salad or just eat 'em. Go for it, guys." After we order, she says, "Thanks, guys." Lots of grins. Finally we get it. This is the Midwestern-cheerleader school of service (à la Keg).
At the table next to us are a bunch of guys drinking beer out of bottles. In fact, the place is filled with guys who should be home watching the game (or making six figures and eating at Morton's).
This is not your trendy thirtysomething dot.com crowd, no siree. These guys (and they mostly are guys) are an older, paunchier crowd, comfy because Le Biftheque is cheap for a steak house (yes, about half the cost of Morton's or Ruth's Chris), and you don't have to make too many choices.
To make sure nobody suffers from food confusion, there are computer monitors conveniently located throughout the dining room, displaying a nonstop parade of words and pictures -- show and tell for restaurant ordering -- such as filet mignon, rack of lamb, T-bone steak, New York sirloin.
Save for the flashing monitors the room is dark, decorated in ye olde saloon style, with portraits of racehorses running -- a bad image for a steak house. Are they feeding us cow or horse? Perhaps one ought to have been comforted by the life-size plastic cows out front, although in a town strewn with so many life-sized moose-art sculptures, the cows, however appetizing, don't mean that much.
Cheerleader comes back with our bottle of red wine. "How many of you are having wine?" We're not accustomed to being asked that question, but hey, guys, we're in beer country now. Le Biftheque is packed with folks who don't like looking at a menu that requires translation. This one is all laid out for you in English. It's a little rough around the edges, but that's part of why people find it so comfortable. Le Biftheque is Denny's with an upgrade.
The most expensive bottle of wine on the menu costs $42.95 (unless you go into the bubbly). Just like K-Tel, everything on the menu is priced to end in .95.
We start with iceberg salad with Kraft-style dressings, chicken gumbo soup with all the finesse of Campbell's, flavour-free French onion soup, horribly overcooked deep-fried calamari, and something they call wild-onion rose, an onion that's been partially sliced open to resemble a rose, breaded and deep fried. Voila! A new take on onion rings, and a jolly one at that, for aficionados of greasy deep-fried food.
And now for the main event: Our steaks arrive slightly overcooked. Rare comes medium, medium-rare comes medium-well. But otherwise they're unimpeachable, both filet mignon and T-bones. Charbroiled chicken is barely overcooked. Ribs are meaty. And, my dear, the prices are to die for. A 14-ounce roast prime rib of beef costs $17.95. A 10-ounce filet mignon costs $19.95. Half a charbroiled chicken is $12.95. A 24-ounce T-bone costs a mere $24.95. All these prices include fixings.
The less said about the fixings the better. So-called garlic mashed potatoes taste powdered. Fat fries taste frozen, in the manner of Harvey's. Stuffed baked potato has a filling that recalls cheap bottled mayo. Creamed spinach tastes of neither cream nor spinach. Do we care? Come on, guys, this is the kind of place where Don Cherry could walk in at any moment. It's the Olive Garden of steak houses. Let's party. Who's a stuffy gourmet snob now?
The desserts are huge, and hey, guys, they look so fancy. There's chocolate cheesecake with no cheese taste (no chocolate taste to speak of either), chocolate mousse cake with the chocolate flavour gone AWOL, millefeuille with custard filling that could be a new flavour of Jell-O, and key-lime pie that tastes horribly of bottled lime juice. Remember, guys, we don't care, because it's half of Morton's and Ruth's Chris, for half the price. Le Biftheque, 96 Richmond St. W., 416-366-4333. Dinner for two with wine, tax and tip: $80. Accessible to people in wheelchairs. jkates@globeandmail.ca