What's at Steak

IT seemed comforting this past winter, des­pite all the bad news about global disasters, to see two new steakhouses opening up in Healdsburg.

Also noteworthy was how little they had in common except for beef on their menus.

At Shimo Modern Steak, owner Douglas Keane promised to “push the envelope” on traditional steakhouse fare. No French fries on the menu, for one thing, and you could order a steak that weighed one ounce.

Down the street at Frank & Ernie’s there didn’t seem to be much envelope-pushing in evidence. “Old school,” one reviewer called the simple dining room with dark wood wainscoting, “Reminds me of my youth in Fresno.”
It may be that if you’re not pushing the envelope in a trendy Healdsburg eatery these days, people will love you just for that.

On a recent Sunday night, Frank & Ernie’s was full of diners digging into steaks, fries and appetizer plates of deep-fried peppers and onion rings. Frank & Ernie’s people look like “just folks,” glad to be basking in the phenomenally unthreatening vibe of a place where it still feels like it’s 1958.

Two older guys sitting at a table sipped red wine and stared quietly into the void. One wore red suspenders. Next to them was a grey-haired guy with a pony tail protruding from the back of
his cap. He arrived with a group in an old Volvo station wagon.

“Steak  Spirits  Sports” it says on Frank & Ernie’s awning. In the bar at one end of the room, there are games on TVs being watched by guys drinking beer in their cargo shorts. Country-western music plays on the sound system and bottles of Heinz ketchup sit on the tables along with Darigold butter pats wrapped in gold tinfoil.
Frank & Ernie’s evokes old Healdsburg—the pre-wine-boom small town that was there before fashionable people began strolling the plaza and browsing really expensive shoes.

“People feel safe here because the steak is good, prices are reasonable and you don’t have to dress for dinner,”said one patron.

“I could sit here all night and have about seven of these and call a cab,” said my dining companion, sipping her margarita on the rocks with salt.

The wine list is local, e.g., Rochioli ‘08 Pinot Noir, which at $57 a bottle isn’t much over retail. There are good Zins and Cabs with almost none priced above $50 a bottle.

Frank & Ernie’s used to be the Western Boot, a steakhouse in the Old West cowboy tradition with memorabilia on the walls in homage to John Wayne. Thankfully owner Ron Palmieri hasn’t followed that school of tricked-out shrine commemorating wild-Western exuberance. It may be unfortunate that for some of us the word “steakhouse” connotes something Western, rustic and bawdy—a cowboy’s lair, a sort of buckaroo’s rumpus room where a humongous slab of beef with a name on the menu like The Cattle Baron’s Lollapalooza is served with a baked potato the size of a football.

Today’s modern meat-eating experience has grown more complicated
thanks to the pesky moral questions raised by meat industry critics such as Michael Pollan, who wrote “The Omnivore’s Dilemma.”

A vegetarian writer on a local radio food show last year said meat-eating is “going the way of smoking,” but I’m not sure how soon that will unfold. Will there be sections in restaurants designated as meat-free areas?
As for the health benefits of steak, some Australian scientists a few years ago said people on a meat-free diet may suffer brain shrinkage owing to a Vitamin B-12 deficiency.

But who goes to a steakhouse to try to be good?

“I didn’t come here to diet,”said my dinner companion, reading the menu at Stark’s in Santa Rosa, where the wine country steakhouse revival got rolling a couple of years ago. Stark’s, in a former Italian restaurant near Railroad Square, is exactly what its website describes: mostly young urbanites in the noisy bar and old-timers in the more sedate separate dining room.

Owners Mark and Terri Stark also run Willi’s Wine Bar in Santa Rosa and Willi’s Seafood & Raw Bar in Healdsburg, two favorite foodie haunts that specialize in tapas-style small plates.

Entering Stark’s on a weeknight at 5:30, I was afraid we’d be the evening’s first customers, but surprise: Stark’s bar at happy hour is jammed with off-work revelers who may all know one another just by the fact that they’re there. Several dozen people knocking back cocktails and talking non-stop filled the barroom; well-dressed young women showing lots of cleavage fondled iPhones and a tall liquor menu listed good bourbons, Scotches and other whiskies.

It’s almost like two different worlds—the noisy,crowded Stark’s bar and the more low-key dining room with mirrored walls, muted lighting and Frank Sinatra singing ballads. It’s retro, but not cattle baron retro—more like
“Mad Men.”

“Of course, in ‘Mad Men’ this place would be full of smoke,”said my dining companion.

You get the impression that people here are focused on eating good food. I watched the woman at the next table take a bite of her steak and say, “Amazing.”

Embossed on the back of the Stark’s menu were the words “Steak done well.” That was apparent in the Snake River Farms American Kobe flatiron steak that came with iceberg lettuce dressed with “the usual suspects” of bacon and blue cheese. With a bottle of Carol Shelton 2006 Wild Thing Old Vine Zinfandel, we were in steakhouse heaven.

Stark’s can inspire discussion about famous steakhouses from the past like Delmonico’s and Lawry’s for prime rib. When I was a kid growing up in L.A. in the 1950s, going out to a steakhouse was a special occasion. My mother would wear a dress and my father might even wear a coat and tie; I remember red carpeting and leather banquettes in places like Alfred’s in San Francisco and L.A.’s Steak‘n Stein, which is still there, “serving up satisfying and delicious meals from a classic dinner menu,” says the website. “Leave the world of fluorescent lighting and in-and-out service behind and enter the relaxing Steak ‘n Stein Inn. With its circular fireplace, dark wood and brick interior...[it’s] the perfect spot for a thick, tender steak and some camaraderie with friends...”

This could also describe Santa Rosa’s Cricklewood restaurant, an old-school steakhouse that bills itself as “an eating and drinking place.”

Cricklewood lives up to that: conviviality is the message. You can order a martini at the long Cricklewood bar and sip it in an easy chair in front of the fireplace. And then tuck into a bountiful dinner, whether starring Angus steak or other offerings.

Guy Fieri, the food celebrity and creator of the Johnny Garlic’s and Tex Wasabi restaurants in Santa Rosa, called Cricklewood’s French onion soup, “One of the best things I ever ate.”

One way to tell what experience you might expect from an eating and drinking place is by what kind of gin they serve. You won’t find a Junipero gin martini at Cricklewood nor at Frank & Ernie’s, but you will find it at Stark’s and Shimo, although our waitperson at Shimo pronounced it “jewnipero,” with a hard ‘j’ and the accent on the third syllable.

Shimo is the Japanese word for frost and refers to the marbled grains of fat visible in beef.

“Food is like fashion,”said Amanda Hesser, who just published The Essential New York Times Cookbook.
How this jibes with the rise of the steakhouse may be explained at Shimo Modern Steak, the newest Healdsburg restaurant from the creators of Cyrus, which has two Michelin stars.

From the Shimo website: “Shimo is a modern steakhouse in style combining traditional dishes with Asian flavors and in philosophy best described as quality not quantity.

“Owner Douglas Keane believes that steakhouse portions are too big but the best steaks come from thick cuts of dry aged prime beef, cooked on the bone and finished with a hard sear and basting to create a wonderful crust and delicious umami flavor.”

One nice thing about the Shimo experience, even before the Junipero martini, is sitting at a table for two at a window looking out on Healdsburg Avenue’s passing parade.

At Shimo, we wiped our hands with moist warm towels scented with lemon grass. A candle flickered in an orange cup. A Japanese steak knife rested on the recycled wood table along with a dish of really good salt that comes from La Mar’s Mendocino Sea Salt and Seasoning Company.

“Ethereal, contemplative, focused,” I wrote in my notes.”It’s not uptight. Nice funky piano on the sound system.”

Shimo gets its beef from Allen Brothers in Chicago. Keane and staff tasted beef from 200 purveyors; their only criterion was flavor. Shimo’s complementary fried wonton chips and sauce are alone worth a visit
here. Another exquisite touch was the tiny cup of potato soup topped with Preston olive oil and a flower petal from a local winery’s garden.

“I just ate the flower petal,” I said to my wife.

”You can do that,” she said.

Our server, Anne, said Shimo’s Australian Wagyu steaks, cut by the ounce, offer “an elevated flavor profile.”

We ordered two.

“You’ll be very happy,”said Anne.

And we were. A little taste of really great steak may be the defining moment in what is meant by “modern steak.”

Shimo is pricey—our dinner for two was more than $300 including tip—but
we did order three steaks and a decent bottle of wine.

“At Shimo you get what you pay for,” I wrote in my notes, “a modern steak served in a buckaroo-free zone.”

Great Steak Out
Area codes 707.

Cricklewood
4618 Old Redwood Hwy.,
Santa Rosa
527-7768
cricklewoodrestaurant.com

Frank & Ernie's
9 Mitchell Ln.,
Healdsburg
433-2147

Shimo Modern Steak
241 Healdsburg Ave.,
Healdsburg
433-6000
shimomodernsteak.com

Stark's Steakhouse
521 Adams St.,
Santa Rosa
546-5100
starkrestaurants.com