I’m Eric Sze of 886 and Wenwen, and today we are outside
of an American institution, Delmonico’s.
Delmonico’s is known as a steakhouse,
but really it’s a restaurant restaurant.
I’m gonna hit every single item on the menu.
I brought my great friend, chef Ed Szymanski
of Dame and Lord’s.
All right, let’s get to it!
I’m very, very excited.
This also means we have to behave
a little bit ’cause it’s so classy, right?
If we’re capable of doing that.
Delmonico’s, the first fine dining restaurant in America,
has one of the biggest wine cellars in America,
which you’re a massive wine guy.
Yeah, if the budget stretches to it,
I’ll try and get down there and sneak a few bottles.
And they also invented a bunch of dishes
like the Baked Alaska, Chicken a la King.
I’ve never had it. Lobster Newberg
and Delmonico Steak.
Yeah. There are some iffy claims.
They maybe claim they invented a few more things
than they really did, but either way, historic restaurant,
awesome to have a chance to eat everything all at once.
Before we dive in, we gotta establish some ground rules.
We need to order one of everything off the menu.
We can only take one bite of everything.
The order of which we frolic with these dishes,
it’s completely up to us.
[Ed] It’s up to us.
And at the very end, we’re gonna give out awards
to the best dishes.
Let’s do it.
Round one, Raw & Cold, let’s go.
[bright music]
First round.
Okay. Raw & Cold.
Everything’s here.
I have a dirty martini here with gin
and two blue cheese olives.
[Ed] Dry gin for me.
Magnificent spread.
[Ed] I think it’s enough.
I think we start with the caviar.
So these are potato chips that they make in-house,
cooked slowly, flattened, really fancy.
There’s probably at least $25.
This is an obscenely decadent thing.
I’m just trying to get you full so you tap out before me.
Yeah, it’s one bite- It really is personal.
But it doesn’t specify how big the bite. Chin chin!
Chin chin. Cheers, sir.
[patrons chattering]
That’s a really good caviar.
I don’t eat caviar a lot. That’s some good caviar.
If you did eat caviar a lot,
you wouldn’t say it on camera, though.
That would be obnoxious.
We can only have one bite? I want another bite. [laughs]
What do you wanna do next?
Let’s do the Seafood Plateau.
Interesting name, Seafood Plateau.
Yeah, it’s a fancy word for tower.
On the bottom, these Kumamoto oysters.
[Eric] What sauce are you going with?
Just a little lemon, I wanna taste the oyster.
I’m not even gonna go with lemon.
[Ed] Okay.
All right, cheers, sir.
Salud.
Hmm. Super meaty.
This is a hamachi tartare.
Very fresh, delicious.
Top tower, prawns. Prawns, here’s the thing.
I love shrimp cocktail.
I’m just not in that tax bracket to order it at restaurants.
No, I’m not normally a cocktail sauce guy.
I don’t love this American affinity
to put ketchup in everything, but this is very good.
So the shrimp is cooked in dashi
with a lot of shallots, dill, and peppercorns.
It’s a very unique shrimp cocktail.
And it’s also straight. Why is that?
I think you probably stick a metal skewer in it
when you cook it so it doesn’t curl.
[Eric] Ah, okay. So lobster tail and lobster claw.
They’ve very kindly separated
the segments of the lobster tail.
[Ed] Should we have the claw?
[Eric] We should. Let’s see.
We should come here not on camera sometime
and eat more than one bite of everything.
This is like the best way to start a meal.
[Eric] We already had these,
but we’re gonna have to take another bite
because we play by the rules.
[patrons chattering]
Those are great shrimp. Just as good.
[Ed] Yeah!
I actually really wanted a second one.
[Ed] And another oyster for you? Very good.
Just as good as the first time.
So the yellowtail is cured in kombu for a day,
and it’s served with an avocado puree,
and it’s rolled in this crispy rice pearl, all right.
Delicious, and very complex.
Like you were pointing out, this is not just a steakhouse,
and this food is quite ambitious.
Very strong across the board.
It’s kind of cheating to say the caviar,
’cause of course that’s amazing.
I think the crudo surprised me.
I’m gonna say the caviar, very strong start.
I’m still very, very hungry.
Yeah. I’m famished, actually.
Next up, we have the appetizers.
[upbeat jazz music]
We got some champagne.
We are drinking some Pol Roger,
cuvee Winston Churchill, 1986.
I’m kidding. I wish we were. [laughs]
We’re drinking some Bruno Paillard champagne,
which will be very refreshing and delicious.
Salud. Cheers.
Cheers, to us.
Like true gentlemen at a fine steakhouse.
We have our appetizers here. We’re still pretty hungry.
[Eric] I say we go with the Caesar first.
Apparently they paint every leaf
in the kitchen with the dressing,
so I feel bad for the guy on garde manger
who has to do that.
Safe to say, there’s so much seafood in this Caesar salad,
it’s a sea-sar salad.
Did you think of these last night?
Little gem for a Caesar salad
is just so much better than romaine.
Yeah, it needs to be something really crunchy,
and like romaine can be a little too leafy.
This is a wedge salad,
which they claim to have invented here.
You want a huge bite of this?
Little tomato. Thank you, sir. Tomato.
Tomato.
I want everything in one bite.
[mellow music]
It’s so hard to get a salad
to have the textural sort of melody that this has.
This might be one of the best wedge salads ever.
Textural melody, what a phrase.
We’re picking up all day, okay?
Burrata. Burrata.
Beautiful composed bite.
That’s a posh Caprese salad. Bacon next?
[Eric] The bacon is sous vide and then braised,
and it’s glazed with a maple syrup dressing
that’s been emulsified with foie gras.
The foie is great.
The bacon itself is very fatty to begin with.
This is just luxury.
[Eric] Crab cakes.
[Ed] Crab cake, yeah.
This is the fanciest crab cake I’ve ever seen
in my entire life. Yeah!
It’s wrapped in, what is this,
like, the fanciest julienned potatoes.
[Ed] It’s starting to feel
like we’re having a real lunch now.
It’s like a hash brown wrapped outside
of the thing. It’s kind of the ideal
crab cake, really.
Good crab cake. Is this one bite?
Mm-hmm. Mm, that’s very good.
That one’s like, I would like to go back in
for another bite of that now.
That’s very tasty.
The crispy potato on the outside
and then mustard coming through in that tartar sauce,
herbiness as well from the parsley oil
and the parsley powder, that’s really good.
You really shouldn’t be fooled
by the presentation of this dish.
Tastes like some grandma in Maryland made it for you.
For me, this one’s kind of easy.
Like, I think the crab cake takes the cake if you will.
[Eric] I gotta go with the wedge salad, man.
[Ed] Okay.
That bite with the tomato, with the lettuce
and the blue cheese and the onions.
This round is done. Next round, steaks.
[upbeat jazz music]
We have the first three steaks here, and-
[Both] There’s a total total of eight.
All the steaks, they’re baste in dry-aged beef fat,
a little bit of brown butter,
and a little bit of rendered duck fat.
Here we have the piece de resistance.
[Ed] Yeah, piece.
Piece. De resistance.
Okay, I’m not even gonna try-
Vive la France.
This is the centerpiece, the Delmonico.
[Ed] That’s right.
So it’s essentially a ribeye that’s wet aged
and seared to perfection, served with crispy shallots.
And in terms of sauces, we have the blue cheese sauce.
The black garlic butter is seasoned with white shoyu.
We have their take on the au poivre,
which is citron peppercorn sauce.
And here we have the jus.
It takes a whole day to just boil down
and the second day to season it with shallots
and a little bit of soy sauce.
This is the spicy kosho butter.
It’s got pickled peppers inside
and balanced with a teriyaki glaze.
We are drinking a bottle of Christophe Roumier Musigny
from 1993, my birth year.
My birth year, too!
[Ed] There you go.
Ah, congrats. Well, it’s just fermented grapes to me.
These are all of my favorite wines
that I could never afford to drink,
so I’m pretending that they’re in our glass.
[Eric] I think it would be a crime
if we didn’t start with the Delmonico.
[Ed] Yeah, oh, I agree, nicely cooked.
This looks like a nice medium rare.
I want this spinalis cap here.
Some people return ribeyes for being too fatty,
but they’re just wrong.
For me, this is the best part of the animal,
this like little bit off the top here.
I’m going to fold a little bit of these fried shallots,
because somebody worked very, very hard
for these fried shallots.
Come on!
So good you would name a restaurant after it, perhaps.
That’s delicious.
That’s peak ribeye, and it’s not dry aged.
It’s very simple.
The lore is that the Delmonico steak
sort of means butcher’s cut
and was at a certain point in time,
whatever cut they had on hand, they needed to sell that day,
and they would market it as the house steak,
same way that modern steakhouses will call it
a butcher’s cut or a chef’s cut, something like that,
and they called it the Delmonico’s cut.
The restaurant was so popular throughout the 19th century
that other restaurants started imitating this
and would put a Delmonico steak on their menu
even though they had no tie to the Delmonico family.
And eventually like throughout the course of history,
it settled on being this cut,
the wet-aged boneless ribeye from the chuck end.
Next on, we’re gonna try the Delmonico
sans spinalis dorsi, just the eye of the Delmonico.
The Delmonico is a ribeye, right?
And a ribeye is comprised of the eye
and also the spinalis dorsi.
That’s right. If you want a leaner cut
but you don’t want the filet mignon, this is your cut.
Filet mignon for people with a little more character.
[Eric] I’m gonna do the spicy kosho butter.
[Ed] Okay, I’ll do the black garlic one then.
All right, not gonna waste.
[patrons chattering]
Wow, I’m not gonna say I prefer it
over the regular Delmonico,
but I will say that it took me by surprise.
I mean, the cook was just perfect!
[Ed] It’s absolutely perfect.
[Eric] Dry-aged ribeye, dry aged for 30-plus days.
Even though this, it’s the same cut
as the Delmonico, different farm,
different preparation, too, different product.
You know, the one bite only thing means I gotta go
for this one. Oh, you picked
the right one. Yeah.
Look how juicy it is!
Look, you could see the fat dripping off this.
This is just like a competitive eating challenge. [laughs]
I’m gonna dip it in the au poivre.
[Eric] I’m gonna do the shallot jus.
You can tell whoever’s making these sauces
knows what they’re doing.
Very good flavor and much more intensity.
Anyone who wants a study in dry versus wet aging,
it’s very obvious to me from this like,
this tastes like funk and blue cheese and aged beef.
This tastes fresh.
It’s delicious, but it tastes like fresher beef.
It’s very tender, and that’s part
of what the wet aging process does.
Without developing the funk,
it tenderizes the meat.
Dry aging does both.
That is the first three steaks. We have five more to go.
We’re not done. We’re just gonna clear these.
We are still in the steaks.
I think the stakes are a little bit higher this round.
We are drinking some Chateau Margaux, 1982.
[lively jazz music]
For this mini-round, we should focus
on going leanest to most fatty.
Agree. So we’re gonna start
with the filet mignon.
How big of a bite do you want?
[Eric] I could take a big bite of filet.
You would order the filet
if you wanted a lean cut of beef.
So traditionally, old-school restaurants,
you would serve the fatty beef without a lot of sauce
or with a lean sauce like an au jus or something like that,
and you’d serve the lean cut of beef with a rich sauce,
serve this in a cream sauce
or something with fat emulsified into the sauce.
Nowadays, they finish cattle with so much corn
at the end of their life that even the filet mignon
can be pretty rich.
Okay, if it’s very dry,
I’m not gonna be able to eat this whole thing
in one bite. Yeah, that’s true.
They say you should be able
to cut filet mignon with a spoon.
[Eric] Let’s see. Shall we?
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there you go.
Yeah, there you see? That’s good.
[bell dings]
That is a really good filet steak.
I’m not just saying that- How did you
down that so fast? because the staff
are all looking at me.
Also very well seasoned. The flaky salt on top is great.
Incredibly tender, but perfectly charred
and well-cooked, too.
You overcook or undercook a filet, no good.
[Eric] Next up, New York strip.
And mind you, all of these steaks are dry-aged
except for the wagyu.
The muscle that we call the New York strip
is the same as the eye of the ribeye.
It’s just from further back on the calf.
So it should be tender and fatty and delicious.
[bright music]
Oh, yeah.
[Ed] That’s very good.
I actually might prefer New York strips over ribeye.
I know it’s the same muscle.
Well, same muscle but different part of the muscle,
right? Exactly.
So different flavor. So like further down.
A5 Miyazaki wagyu.
Wagyu means [speaks Japanese], which means Japanese cow.
Miyazaki is where they produced it.
A5 is the ranking of the cow.
This steak actually takes a little bit longer to cook
because they have to cook it slowly to A, not overcook it,
and B, render out most of the fat,
or else you’ll just be eating like a cube of tallow.
Very prized cut, very expensive,
hence the miniature portion,
but we won’t fault them for that.
I’m eyeing this piece. Just remind you
that so you said you could have 34 ounces of steak,
so that’s 10 of these.
[Eric] First of all, I said 34 ounces of steak,
not A5 Miyazaki, okay?
This is like the fourth shot of whiskey
at two in the morning at the bar.
You know it’s a bad idea, but it feels so right at the time.
This is just like clogging my arteries as it goes down.
Each bite is like somebody shooting
a water gun of beef fat in your palate.
I think I have to go for a jog right now.
This is like exercise in refinement.
It’s very delicate, and the like flavor profile
is just fat and beef,
whereas this tastes like smoke and char and peppers,
and there’s like all this sauce
that’s sitting on the bottom of the plate, too.
It’s a real privilege to be able to do this side by side,
’cause you wouldn’t frequently have a chance to do that.
All right, we’ve had six steaks. We’ve got two to go.
We have cote de boeuf and a porterhouse.
And in our glass, they very generously poured us
Domaine de la Romanee-Conti La Tache from 1990.
I think we might have to break the rule for the porterhouse,
’cause the magic of the porterhouse
is the two different muscles on both sides of the bone.
You have the filet on one side,
and you have the strip on the other side.
[Eric] This is the New York strip, right?
[Ed] Mm-hmm.
[Eric] And then we will take the filet.
And this is very difficult technically
to cook the two muscles to the same temperature.
New York strip, filet mignon.
[upbeat jazz music]
I’m not sure how you can top that,
’cause the New York strip is leaner.
The filet mignon is obviously a little bit more tender.
So when you’re biting down,
there’s that contrast of squishy and tender.
It just constantly is flowing through.
And every bite of the New York strip
actually gushes a little bit of juice.
So your mouth is, your palate is always lubricated.
I feel like my body temperature has risen
like five degrees in the last few minutes
throughout the steak course.
I would imagine-
[Ed] That’s a cote de boeuf, all right.
I would imagine you flip open a dictionary,
you look up cote de boeuf, and this photo pops up.
Yeah, cote de boeuf is a ribeye, too.
This is Australian wagyu. The beef is delicious.
It’s not as fatty as that Japanese wagyu we just had,
’cause imagine a 36-ounce portion of that.
Eric, you said 34 ounces.
Please, take it away. Eat the whole thing.
That’s the next- At 11:00 AM today,
I could’ve put this away.
Okay, all right. For sure.
And have space for sides and dessert.
Well, on that note,
which slice would you like me to serve you?
Actually, I think we should start with the bone.
Okay. And we should
share this bone.
Okay.
It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever done.
That’s really good, so fatty it’s glistening.
And they’ve done it- You can tell
it’s pretty raw towards the top,
but it’s the best kind of beef.
All right, let’s get a slice two.
The cook is definitely different.
Like, it’s notably less cooked
than some of the other steaks.
My assumption here is that’s to showcase the fattiness
of the Australian wagyu versus the domestic beef.
You can see the shine on the product,
and again, like beautifully rested,
nothing on the plate beneath it.
So out of the eight steaks,
which I know seems like a century ago-
[Ed laughs]
Which one was your favorite?
The most surprising to me was the filet.
That was really a lot better than I thought it would be.
It’s hard to beat that first Delmonico.
There’s a reason the restaurant’s named after that.
I gotta say, my number one steak, dry-aged ribeye.
It’s something about dry aging a piece of ribeye
where the funk completely comes through.
When it’s perfectly cooked,
the fat in the center between the longissimus
and the spinalis is rendered just enough where it’s edible
and it’s not a chewy flab of bullshit fat.
They achieved it. They achieved it.
That’s it for the steaks.
Coming up next are the sides.
[upbeat jazz music]
Eric, how you feeling?
I feel like I could use another two steaks.
I’m not steaked out. Hand-cut fries.
[Ed] Chips.
Of course the Brit says chips.
And this is a spicy mustard aioli.
You know we’re in a fancy place
if they serve them in like a posh little basket.
British chip shops serve them in newspapers.
That’s right, contrast. Not in Kansas no more.
Very good, good chips, well seasoned, nice and crunchy.
He’s not gonna stop calling it chips.
Let’s move on, grilled asparagus.
This asparagus is to me incredible, it-
[Ed] That’s great, yeah.
It checks all the boxes of what I’m looking for
in a summer barbecue, right?
It has a char flavor. It’s tender, it’s fresh.
A little bit of olive oil to garnish.
Broccoli rabe. It’s really tasty, well cooked.
The Aleppo pepper on top’s a nice hit of spice.
It’s a very bitter of vegetable,
so it worked well to cut the foil
of some of the richer meat dishes we just ate, very tasty.
[Eric] Pommes puree, it’s potato and a lot of butter.
You’re gonna do a quenelle? No.
Not exactly the best.
We’re getting there, right? You got it, sir.
Just as Joel Robuchon intended.
Now it feels rude to eat it.
Please. Giving me a piece of art.
Very good, like good technique happening in that kitchen.
[Eric] Wild mushrooms.
They had a crazy night last night.
That was a underrated joke. All right.
That tastes like three cup mushrooms from Taiwan.
Yeah, the sesame flavor here is quite strong, too.
Like, it’s fun to have a side that’s nonconventional.
Yep, I would order that.
Yeah? Let’s do the hash brown.
It’s cooked with a lot of butter,
a lot of duck fat, and a lot of potatoes.
It looks very daunting, and it’s served
with a dollop of creme fraiche.
It has a shallot jam on the bottom.
I want them to show my kitchen team how to do quenelles.
That’s a very nice shape and creamy on the inside.
Oh, yeah, the shallot jam.
That’s light sweetness, and it’s just a hint of it.
It really brings everything together.
Yeah, that’s great. It’s delicious.
Right? I would order this hash brown every single time.
I think- Yeah, that’s really good.
I have a winner for this round.
[Ed] But we haven’t tried the spinach yet!
It’s [beep] spinach, bro.
It’s green.
[Eric] All right, let’s eat it.
[Ed] That’s good, really good.
That’s fantastic.
Initially, we turned our noses up at this.
But now after tasting it, you would order this, right?
I would definitely order this.
If I have to pick one, I’d say the hash brown.
There we go. We can finally agree on something.
We’ve had our sides. Let’s go to our entrees.
Let’s do it.
[upbeat jazz music]
We have our entrees.
These are the entrees that are not steak.
Well, let’s get the stuff
that they didn’t invent out of the way first.
Lamb chops, and on the side here,
it’s homemade yogurt that’s been hung for about a day or so,
and it’s combined with a caramel
so that it’s like a caramelized yogurt.
There’s pistachio powder in these lamb chops.
Unfortunately, my dining companion
has a severe allergy to nuts.
This’ll kill me.
So I will do the honors and dip it in the yogurt.
Yogurt, as you might say.
That’s fantastic, impeccable cook.
And the caramel actually really does come through.
Yogurt tends to like overpower
and be a little bit too rich sometimes,
especially paired with lamb, but this just cuts it.
It retains that tang perfectly.
Shall we do the wild mushroom risotto?
[Ed] Risotto, let’s do it.
Looks like a pretty classic risotto to me.
Hmm. Mushroomy, truffley.
Sweet, too.
That’s good. Let’s do the pasta next.
That’s good. If your toddler came,
he/she doesn’t really want steak,
you get a bowl of this,
have plenty Of leftovers. This is good, comforting-
Nothing wrong with it.
The salmon? Let’s do it.
Fantastic cook on it. Dover sole.
It’s like a Sunday breakfast.
It is buttery.
Yeah, the brown butter just, it shines.
It’s swimming in a pool of it.
But then it never gets too much, right,
because it’s still so meaty.
[Ed] Okay, Chicken a la Keene.
So they invented this dish, little shell pasta.
Looks like bacon, a little asparagus.
Bacon. Or peas.
[Ed] Yeah, this is like a school lunch, right?
Very fancy TV dinner.
Yeah, exactly.
In my opinion.
[patrons chattering]
It’s delicious!
Yeah!
Brilliantly executed chicken dish, if I may I say so.
This very much goes by everything you can buy in a can.
Yes, yes. Except for the chicken.
That’s, you might be onto something there.
Like, that might be where all this,
canned mushrooms, canned tomatoes,
canned asparagus, canned peas.
We are on to the final entree, the Lobster Newberg.
The lore is that it was a fisherman called Wenberg
who invented it, brought it to Delmonico’s,
but they got into a massive fight.
The owners renamed it Lobster Newberg.
Very chefy presentation, again,
served with a side of caramelized gnocchis.
That’s a dish worthy of the name.
It’s like a steamed lobster plus lobster sashimi in one
with a nice creamy sauce. That’s like a creamy,
tomato-driven spicy sauce.
You wanna try some of these gnocchis?
Let’s do it.
I don’t normally order lobster when I go out,
same thing as shrimp cocktail, just not in that tax bracket.
Sure.
But I would save up just to order this.
Yeah, this is really good.
[Eric] It’s delicious.
What are your favorites of this round?
[Eric] No question, the lobster.
The lobster? I think you’re right, yeah.
This has the delicate layers and the variety of texture
paired with the gnocchi.
It’s a perfect lobster dish in my opinion.
We are finally ready for the grand finale, desserts.
[upbeat jazz music]
How you feeling?
My meat sweats are hitting now.
It’s a delayed hit, but I am feeling it.
You look a little glazed over,
but these should reinvigorate us.
I’m ready for nap. Some frozen things.
A little sugar high wouldn’t hurt right now.
How are you feeling?
I’m ready to go for a jog.
[Eric] Mango sorbet, raspberry sorbet.
All of this is made in-house under love.
Delicious. Tastes like raspberries.
Come on.
It’s good. That’s refreshing, and then some mango.
[patrons chattering]
One of the best mango sorbets I’ve had.
Delicious.
Typically mango in the States
is a little bit too artificial.
This one you can taste it’s the real deal.
Ice cream’s next.
[Eric] Vanilla and chocolate?
[Ed] Yeah.
Sweeter than most vanillas you’ll find
in your store-bought ice creams, not in a bad way.
Yeah?
In a that’s very refreshing after 45 ounces of steak.
Exactly, chocolate?
It’s like they took milk chocolate
and turned it into ice cream.
[Ed] You have the hazelnut one. Lemme know how it is.
All right. I won’t have
that one, either.
That’s why it’s near you, ’cause of the nuts.
Again, super smooth. Just crazy decadent.
[patrons chattering]
That’s good?
That’s my favorite.
[Ed] Am I missing out on something?
[laughing] That’s my favorite.
You wanna try this cheesecake?
Yuzu and blueberry and sesame.
Nice and light. Not a huge portion, which I appreciate.
I don’t know if it’s light, buddy.
It’s just overtaking my mouth,
but as all cheesecakes should, very yuzu forward.
[Ed] Coconut cream pie.
Shall we try the ice cream first?
Yeah. Passion fruit.
Cuts like a passion fruit ice cream.
[Ed] Mm-hmm, tart and tangy. Let’s go for it.
All right, and you need that passion fruit ice cream.
That acidity really brings it over the top.
That’s a fantastic dessert.
Chocolate cake. Chocolate cake.
[Eric] This is the vanilla ice cream. Shall we dig in?
[Ed] Yeah.
[patrons chattering]
Come on.
That’s a great chocolate cake.
Come on! What is in this chocolate cake?
This is not just a chocolate cake.
A black current liqueur in this cake.
So it gives it that nuttiness
without bringing too much alcohol into your palate.
It is creamy. It’s very, very creamy.
But pair with that vanilla ice cream,
even though it’s more cream, it blends together.
But you have the best for last.
You have this Baked Alaska in front of you,
and it’s the only dish we’ve had
that is served on a Delmonico’s plate.
It’s also invented here, walnut cake, apricot jam,
meringue around the outside set on fire.
They pour black rum all over it,
and then everything lights on fire, and it’s super showy.
Everybody in the dining room is very jealous
that you got one.
This one will kill me ’cause of the walnuts.
So you will dig in. You can eat both.
Both for me. You’re eating my bite.
You have the cake and you have gelato,
and then you have the meringue.
[patrons chattering]
[Ed] How is it?
It’s good.
You look happy.
The banana and the apricot melds together,
and then you have the sort of sponginess,
but also a little bit of ice crystally texture
from the gelato, and everything just vroop,
homogenizes in your mouth.
I’m impressed by the restaurant.
I’m also impressed by us,
’cause it seems like we’re doing okay.
I think the chocolate cake is the winner for me.
I might have to go with the Baked Alaska, but it’s unfair.
Yeah, that’s why it’s- I can’t make
the executive decision.
It’s famous for a reason.
So we’re gonna clear the table,
and we’re gonna be back.
We’re gonna figure out our awards.
[upbeat jazz music]
We’ve had a bite of everything on the menu.
We feel okay. We’re still alive.
Yeah, we feel good.
We can actually have
another beer after. Should we do it again?
We have to decide our awards.
Okay. So we have The Star,
which is the best dish overall.
Every time you’re coming here, you’re ordering this.
The second is The Return.
You’ve been here before. You know what the Star dish is.
But what is something that you’ll keep getting?
The third one is The Repeat. You come here once a week.
What are you getting that other people are not?
I think your doctor’s advice
is to not come here once a week.
Doctors be damned!
If you ignore that, then-
Yes. Okay.
What is something that you tried,
you’re so blown away, defeated all your expectations,
that one dish that took you by surprise?
Delmonico’s Steakhouse, known as the first
American fine dining restaurant,
low key, it’s a potato restaurant.
Some of the best dishes we’ve had have been potato focused.
That hash brown and that crab cake,
that crab cake, I see you,
it’s better than most other crab cakes.
That’s the kind of thing I would come and eat once a week.
If I was sitting at the bar by myself
and crushing that crab cake, it’d be a good sight.
I would not be ashamed of it.
I think he has a point. The Repeat is the crab cake.
I could not agree more.
The shoestring fries wrapped around the crab cake itself
and the presentation, right?
I’m curious to hear about your Return,
’cause the Lobster Newberg is fantastic.
It probably is one of the best bites today.
That was the thing that I said,
Well, that’s the best version of that.
This is the place to get it.
[Eric] So the Return is the Lobster Newberg.
I couldn’t come here and not have that.
What is your Star?
Maybe it’s the lore, maybe it’s where we’re sitting,
maybe it’s the walls around us,
but like if I’m coming here one time in my life,
I’m ordering a Delmonico steak.
I don’t think you can come to Delmonico’s and not do that.
Okay. It may not be
the greatest steak you’ve ever had.
It may not be the most complex cut.
We may prefer dry aging to wet aging,
but there’s steakhouses around the country
that have a Delmonico steak on their menu,
and we’re sitting in the place that it was invented.
If you’re coming here once, that’s what I’m getting.
[Eric] I’m voting for the hash brown.
Yeah, this is where the exercise is a little tricky,
’cause you really need both of those things.
I get your allure.
I get the entire atmosphere, and you’re at Delmonico.
It’s the name steak, name-steak, but man. We’re chefs, man!
You want the hash brown?
That hash brown was fantastic!
It was! No arguing. It was the best hash brown
I’ve ever had!
We’re skipping a lot of things here.
Remember those appetizers?
Wasn’t just the crab cake that was great.
Like those shrimp, really well cooked.
The lobster, the rabe, the caviar was great.
We had a lot of good food today.
Hey, I don’t think
there’s a wrong answer here. Not counting the butter.
You pick yours.
Rock, paper, scissors.
Okay.
Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
Rock, paper, scissors, shoot.
As luck will have it, the Star is the Delmonico steak,
but order the hash browns.
There you have it.
That is one of everything at Delmonico’s Steakhouse,
carnivore’s dream.
That was a huge meal. I wonder what the bill was.
I’ll put my card down first.
You pay me back with Zelle later.
[bright music]
This article was originally published by a www.bonappetit.com . Read the Original article here. .