Charlie's Steak House: Is It Worth It?

The opening salvo at Charlie's, onion rings stacked higher than Tulane's Kappa Sigma house. 

Want to know why New Orleans is different? For two and a half months we abuse our bodies with binge drinking and gluttonous gorging. We make poor decisions, commit multiple sins, and smoke too many cigarettes during Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's and Mardi Gras. But on Ash Wednesday and the first Friday of Lent, we have convinced ourselves that if we don't eat meat the charms and delights of heaven, nirvana, or the fields of Elysia await should we meet an untimely death on St. Patrick's Day.

Which is all the more reason why on the first Friday of Lent, I crave a steak. Because of my Catholic schooling, I know that God expects us to yield to temptation, so long as we repent. Not one to let God down, I headed out to Charlie's Steak House on the first Friday of Lent to do some sinning. Charlie's occupies a blink-and-you-miss-it block of Dryades Street about two blocks off Napoleon. Its the kind of neighborhood joint that once littered the New Orleans landscape, before NIMBYs decided such things were as welcome as a varmint bearing Wal-Mart plans.

You enter through the bar, and veer left into a dining room lined with photos, newspaper clippings, and wood paneling. You should feel right at home if you remember the old lions of New Orleans dining - the Brunings, the Mr. Ed's, Bull's Corner. The wine list is short and sweet, but the Old Fashioneds are stout and cold. Soon a plate of onion rings arrive, thin and begging for a few good shakes of salt. The onion rings come not with some newage guacamole aioli, but some hot sauce and ketchup. They are fried crisper than a new twenty dollar bill.

Sometime after eating half of the onion rings, a salad will show up that is so tragically unhip, its cool in the Bywater. Iceberg lettuce, a chip of sliced, grayish red tomato, and a thick blue cheese dressing. If you are a person who looks at wings as an efficient delivery mechanism for blue cheese, this is your salad. Also, we may be soul mates. Pro tip: add the onion rings to the salad.

Your options are limited: a T-bone, a filet, and a newly added ribeye. The ribeye is a massive shingle of glistening fat streaked beef. The filet is taut and thick cut allowing a maximum ratio of charred exterior to rosy or in my case, red, interior. The steaks suffered from a slight lack of salt, but this was remedied by combining the steak and mushrooms bordelaise into one bite. Very rarely does one plus one equal three, but in this case it does. Feel free to skip the potatoes au gratin which are clunky.

Here is the thing with Charlie's. This is the kind of place that isn't anywhere near perfect and it doesn't try to hide its imperfection. You come to Charlie's for the service, which is sharp and funny, the ambiance, which is slightly garage band in a good way, those onion rings, blue cheese dressing that is richer than a Gates, the mushroom bordelaise and a well-cooked steak. I wouldn't recommend coming to Charlie's just once, but if I had to pick one restaurant in New Orleans to become a regular at, this would be in the running.

The road to eternal salvation may not be paved with steak on Fridays, but the path to the garden of earthly delights is.

Charlie's Steak House: Is It Worth It? Yes.
4510 Dryades St.
895-9323
Dinner only, Tuesday - Saturday

A New Orleans Tradition Renewed

After a week long of minimal air conditioning, excessive amounts of family bonding time, and subsisting on whatever foods were next-in-line to be discarded from the rapidly defrosting refrigerator, I made the 70 mile sojourn back to NOLA for some much needed refueling. after all, man can only live on peanut butter and boudin for so long.

My first meal back was on Friday night at Charlie's Steak House - a place where I had not dined since long before Katrina, much less since it's recent reopening. My foursome included The Folk Singer, The Pope, and His Holiness' lady friend, Battle House Honey. Even though we did not arrive till almost 9:00, we still had a short wait at the bar before being seated, which gave me an opportunity to survey the remodeling. Although Charlie's was always well known for its unpolished decor, pre-restoration patrons will likely be taken aback by the new bar and computerized wait stations. This ain't your grandpa's Charlie's. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Just as in pre-K times, Charlie's does not have a menu (or at least we did not request nor were offered one). You start with the onion rings, which are second to none other in the city. Somehow Charlie's manages to serve thin rings which include both soft flesh of onion with a crispy coating of just a simple dust of flour. It's the yin and yang of onion rings, and not many achieve this pinnacle like Charlie's. Note, one order of rings is big enough to split among a table of four.

After the rings, you must get the wedge of iceberg covered with the homemade blue cheese dressing. As with the onion rings, one wedge can (and should) be split between two diners.

Then the beef. Your options are limited: T-bone (small, medium, and large) or the filet. For the life of me, I don't think Charlie's even offered a filet before, but maybe I just never heard of anyone ordering one. La Papa and I each got the large (24oz.), while the ladies ordered filets. Each steak came out still sizzling on its on broiler pan. I thought the T-bones were great, but the filets were not cooked to the ladies medium-rare specifications. They were more "Pittsburgh" (or "black and blue"). Maybe this was because the filets (which were twice as thick) were cooked under the same broiler as T-bones.

We ordered one each of the potatoes au gratin, mushrooms bordelaise, and melba toast; but we decided to pass on the wedge fries because we still had half of our second order of onion rings left to finish. The au gratin were chunks (as opposed to mandolin slices) of potato suspended in cream and covered in cheese - great side. The mushrooms were a nice addition to my steak sandwich on melba toast.

They were out of spumoni, so dessert was a slice of casatta from Brocato's. Oh, and of course a Grand Marnier for The Pope. The meal overall was good, but I must say that the highlight was an off the menu item. La Papa was kind enough to bring along a bottle of Caymus 2001 Special Selection Cabernet. The waiter was curious as to what we needed uncorked, and La Papa offered him a taste. Minutes later, the manager (who I think was, in fact, owner Gene Dwyer) came over for a look. He was in awe, and after his first sip all he could muster was, "Wow." I think The Pope put it best: "Drinking this wine is like eating grapes."

Charlie's Steak House - Par.

Charlie's Steakhouse

Has quietly reopened and is slated to open Thursday, August 14, according to Fr. Tom's Radio Show and a caller.

My friends call me T-Bone.