It's Paradise, I Tell You!

It's enough to make a grown man salivate like a toothless infant while at the same time hallucinating a vision of having entered paradise — especially after a day-long fast.

Three friends and I wondered whether one of us should order fish [at New York's famed Peter Luger Steak House], just to try it.

"Do you go to Hawaii to ski?" the waiter huffed, letting us know that the only sensible decision was steak for four, along with creamed spinach, of course, and German potatoes, naturally.

What a steak it was. Even before I saw it I could smell it — the acrid top note of its char, the funky bottom note of properly aged beef. I could even hear it, still sizzling from its time in one of the high-temperature broilers.

It was already sliced, and the waiter buckled down to the familiar Luger ritual, putting some filet and some sirloin on each plate, then spooning the pooled juices over it. The beef had a subtle tang, an intense mineral quality, a crazy richness and a spectrum of textures: crunchy at the edges, tender at the bone. I had to keep reminding myself to take it easy, to slow down.

No other steakhouse serves a porterhouse so breathtaking.

Better than good sex, it is — at least when you've reached my age.

RTWT here (but, interestingly, it's more a critique than a rave).