First piece of steak in the Year of the Ox

Another Friday Lunch Club gathering - the first for the Year of the Ox. Appropriately a steakhouse was chosen as the venue, and we visited Dakota Prime for the first time. I had heard a lot of good things about this place, both from friends as well as some reviews on the internet, so I was pretty eager to try it for myself.

The 3-course set lunch was a real bargain, and I decided (for once) to go the cheap route and did not upgrade to a better cut of beef. All my research told me that the meat was good even with the cheap cuts...

I started with the mini lump crab cake crayfish remoulade. It is indeed very mini, but I thought it was pretty well done. It was mostly crab meat, and you can really taste it. There was a good amount of seasoning so the natural sweetness isn't as prominent. The capsicum purée around the crab cake provided the sweetness to balance the savory flavors of the crab. A good start to the meal.

The grilled USDA Prime flat iron steak - at 10oz a pretty decent size for lunch - was as good as other netizens claimed. Even though it's not a fillet, strip or ribeye, it's still marbled enough to be classified as USDA Prime. I asked for medium rare, and what I got was slightly more done than I wanted, but it was still very juicy and tender. In fact with every cut made by my Laguiole knife, more jus came running out of the steak... Surprisingly it was the center of the steak that was more done than the edges. But honestly, I'm not going to complain given the price that I'm paying here. The roasted potatoes were very good, as was the side of sautéed onions, tomato and red peppers. The tiny sauce pan came with (what else?) some sauce that seemed to be based on tomatoes and peppers, which was a lighter alternative to the classic Béarnaise.

I actually finished the steak without feeling stuffed, which was quite a surprise. Maybe all the eating I've done in the last 2 months has stretched my stomach? I was actually pretty eager to dig into the Anjou pear poached in red wine and raspberry sauce. Someone remarked that the pear slices - dyed red on the outer edge while the inner edge remained a little white - resembled slices of char siu (叉燒)... Well...they kinda do. Anyway the pear was delicious, with a bit of orange flavor on top of the obvious raspberry. It was gone in no time.

It was a really good lunch, and one that was extremely good value for money. I was completely satiated, not stuffed to the point of discomfort, and no "food coma" ensued - much to my amazement. I would definitely return very soon to try out the other cuts of beef, as well as the burger...drool...