Three of us had dinner there last night. The last tuime I was there, I saw Marc Morial on a man date behind one of the booths with curtains. Yuck! That had soured me so much on the place, that prior to last night, I hadn't been in seven or eight years. My general preception of the CCS was that it was on par with Charley's but a notch below Dickie Brennan's and Ruth's Chris and light years away from La Boca. To quote Lee Corso, "Not so fast my friend". The steaks we had last night, while very retro in presentation and style, were as good as anything I have eaten at DB's and Ruth's Chris.
First the menu, while somewhat limited is a little more advanced than Charley's. They have a few salad options, several apps, we consumed two orders of onion rings, and a beef vegetable soup, this was the worst thing brought to the table, canned veggies and old steak. The house salad is pretty solid, ice berg lettuce with some shaved onions, anchovies and a bleu cheese vingarette. Nothing creative but plenty of flavor and certainly not boring.
There are numerous cuts to choose from including a porterhouse for two or three. I went with the strip. DC #1 had the porterhouse and DC #2 went with the ribeye. We also ordered sides of french fries, potatoes au gratin (which were as totally awesome as that pic of Obama and Sarkozy checking out that Brazillian chick's ass.), some broccoli sans cheese and mushrooms.
My strip was huge. I think in terms of size, it was bigger than the ribeye and just a tad smaller than the porterhouse. I asked for mine prepared Pittsburgh style and they nailed it. The outside was charred evenly and crisply while the inside was as rare as Reggie Bush practicing without pulling a hamstring. Both DC's asked for their steaks to be cooked medium rare and they as far as I could tell they were cooked perfectly.
The wine list is limited. We drank two bottles of a fairly foregettable Bordeaux @ $35 a pop. I suspect they may not have a huge objection to bringing in your own bottle but I didn't ask.
Overall, the meal I had last night was much better than my previous impressions of the CCS. I would highly recommend heading there as an alternative to Ruth's or DB's. Excellent meal. Definitely has a legit shot on being on the year end ten best meals list.
Crescent City Steakhouse
Re: Crescent City Steakhouse
Went to CCS last night. Total disappoinment for me. Start out with onion rings & garlic bread for apps. good. 3 DC's all order filet. really looked great & they all said it was perfect. I ordered the rib eye, it was a tiny steak. 1/3 was grissly fat. The steak was only 1/2" thick, actually was expecting a lot more steak than what I got. it was cooked OK, but only OK. Really disappointed in the steak. Sides were good au gratin potatoes, cream spinach, lyonaise potatoes. This steak was so thin I wouldn't buy it at the grocery. I will return but not to get a rib eye.
Re: Crescent City Steakhouse
I usually don't go to CCS with the exception of Mardi Gras Day. It's about 3 minutes from my house, so getting around town isn't a problem. The crowd is interesting to say the least. We hit the gap between lunch and dinner (around 5pm), so the wait isn't long, if at all..... This has become a fun tradition for us.... 7 or 8 years now, and looking forward to the next one. But I agree....if I'm going out for a steak, it's La Boca for a Hangar.