I've never been a huge fan of the River Palm Terrace restaurants. Their steaks just don't seem to be as exceptional as they should be at those prices. And maddeningly, I've never been able to get a straight answer on which of their steaks are actually 1) USDA Prime, and 2) dry-aged, rather than wet-aged (my preference is the former). They are generally cooked perfectly fine, but I don't usually detect any funky minerally notes that you can get with dry-aged steak. If you have any doubt of how funky and minerally tastes or smells, go to Peter Luger, where, I suspect, the butter/beef tallow "sauce" that they serve and cook the steaks with actually lends most of that flavor...not the meat itself.
But occasionally, we'll find ourselves at the Mahwah location, primarily because we can't think of any other place to have a decent dinner at a bar (bar dining is almost always preferable), and because the Mahwah location also offers "sushi" (rolls, raw fish dishes, that type of thing). On top of that, it's a little less hectic than the Fair Lawn location.
On our recent visit, I went through the same process that I always do, trying to figure out which steak might be exceptional. The best bet seems to be the porterhouse. But at 84 bucks, I'm not interested in rolling the dice. Then I look at the shell steak, and wonder if it's really dry-aged, or would taste dry-aged, and I sort of remember that it tasted like a regular supermarket steak (from a place like Fairway, not Shop Rite), albeit one with a nice char thanks to the broilers in the kitchen. But then the lamb chops jumped out at me. They seemed like a good idea. And they were.
The lamb chops are the least expensive meat entrees on the menu, coming in at under 30 dollars. There was also a special of a rack of lamb, with a red wine sauce, but we were in the mood for broiled meat, without anything additional that could screw it up. Broiled meat on a white plate. That's what we wanted.
And that's what we got.
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