steak | Randomly Edible

Any restaurant named “Epic Roasthouse” is either incredibly good or a total disappointment. As luck would have it, I had the opportunity to find out for myself recently, and I am happy to report that I had a very non-disappointing experience. The service is great, the food is even better, and the view isn’t bad either. Epic Roasthouse isn’t exactly cheap, but if you’re looking to save a few bucks, Taco Bell is right down the street.

We were banished to the ‘outdoor area’ which was still quite cozy.

” Oh dear. This was going to hurt. “

After a trafficky but otherwise uneventful drive into San Francisco, my wife Shawn and I left the car with the valet and walked inside Epic to claim our reservation. The place is oozing with a “reclaimed industrial” vibe, complete with exposed pipes and other excitingly chunky rusted things. It’s trendy and dangerously close to being too hip, but it works. We were led to our table on the patio, where we met up with the remaining 33% of our dinner party and sat down to enjoy the view.

The view here does not suck.

The menu was what I call “typical steakhouse length”, meaning that it fit on exactly two pages. This is either good or bad, depending on your particular tastes, but in this case it was a very good thing. Epic seemed to be reading my mind with every single menu item.

The offerings were refreshingly simple without being boring. Each featured some slight twist to show that they cared enough to make it unique, but not gourmet’d-to-death like so many restaurants love to do by adding of cheetah larnyx extract, hyper rare panda dung mushrooms, and tree frog kidneys. Nope, Epic forgoes the gastric silliness and instead offers good, old fashioned kick-ass steaks with kick-ass sauces, honest but delicious-sounding sides like “Julia Child” potatoes and bacon roasted Brussels sprouts, and desserts so wickedly decadent that you are tempted to skip dinner altogether.

Mmmmmmooooooooooo

We ordered a couple steaks, a build-your-own salad, and a healthy assortment of sides. The steaks were… well, they were epic. Ok fine, Epic Roasthouse gets to keep its name – they do indeed live up to the hype. They both talk the talk and walk the walk. Confirmed.

To be honest, I expected the steak to be amazing, so it was hardly a surprise. To me, the true character of Epic would be revealed in the side dishes, and I am happy to report that these were even better than the steaks. The clear star of the show was the späetzle gratin – it was a succulent and deliciously cheesy interpretation of classic baked mac that absolutely exploded with flavor. The fries were slightly above average, and the asparagus was tasty and fresh. We all kept going back to the späetzle though, it was simply incredible.

‘Späetzle’ is German for ‘straight to my waistline’.

At this point in the meal I was already uncomfortably full, and there was no way I was going to have dessert. No chance, none. The waitperson dropped off a dessert menu anyway, a useless gesture, and then my eyes fell on the s’mores brownie cake with peanut brittle.

Oh dear. This was going to hurt.

Have you ever seen peanut brittle at a restaurant before? Me either.

Mercifully, Epic’s dessert portion sizes were decidedly un-American (i.e., they were smaller than an aircraft carrier). The smores cake looked exactly as decadent as it sounded, and it tasted even better. The addition of scratch-made peanut brittle to the standard chocolate-graham-marshmallow combination really worked and helped to bring the whole dish together.

One of this things is not like the others.

A trio of sorbets also made an appearance at our table. The flavors were cala orange, blackberry, and banana. Those same flavors represented in intensity by font size were cara cara orange, blackberry, and BANANA. The orange was light, the blackberry was light and refreshing, and the banana was IN YOUR FACE and was at least ten times more potent than the other two. The orange and blackberry seemed downright watery after tasting the banana, but they actually worked quite well as a trio.

I have to say that I was rather impressed with my meal at Epic Roasthouse. It’s not a cheap place to eat, but in a strange twist I felt like I actually got my money’s worth out of the meal. Well, mostly anyway. The food is honest, well-made, and just creative enough to justify the lofty prices; think of it as an upscale restaurant that offers real food instead of typical “fine dining” fare. I give Epic 37 out of 40 feet of rusty industrial pipe, a solid rating for a solid establishment.

Pros
+ Straightforward, good food
+ Killer views
++ Best späetzle outside of Germany

Cons
– It stings the wallet a bit
– The dessert menu will hurt you
+ I guess that’s a good thing though

Epic Roasthouse
369 The Embarcadero
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415) 369-9955
www.epicsteak.com

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This is the gateway to an extremely full belly.

P.S. Whew, I made it through the whole writeup without saying “epic win” once!

P.P.S. Damnit, I just did.

Ha, fooled you! There’s no such thing as a “perfect steak”. This is because there are a thousand different types of steaks and a thousand different ways to cook each one*, and everybody likes theirs prepared a little differently. This of course means that, when cooking a steak, you are always guaranteed to delight some people while at the same time horribly offending others. The real trick is to only offend people who have no direct way of telling you that you’re an idiot, and if you can delight a few of the people within your immediate vicinity then that’s a bonus.
* Quantities are estimated

Skip to the short version

” The real trick is to only offend people who have no direct way of telling you that you’re an idiot “

I am not a steak grilling ace. I’m not bad, but I view myself as approximately average. I know the theory behind steak preparation quite well, but executing that theory skillfully is another matter. My father-in-law, on the other hand, makes the very best steaks I have ever had. His approach involves medium cut ribeyes, generous quantities of onion salt, a hot grill, and experience. I have yet to replicate his results, but I’m working on it.

The technique I prefer to follow is the “steakhouse style” sear-then-bake approach. I like this method not only because it produces nom-worthy steaks, but also because it’s fairly forgiving. Even if you get the searing completely wrong, you can easily adjust the baking portion to end up with something that’s still edible.

Coals ready? Good. Let’s grill.

Ingredients

Steaks (Do I really need to tell you this?)
Olive oil
Steak seasoning of some kind (Salt and pepper will do just fine.)

Directions

Skillet and oven
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. On your stovetop, preheat an oven safe skillet to a medium-high heat. If your skillet is cast iron (*cough* hint *cough*) it should smoke a little but not a lot. Rub your steaks with the olive oil and sprinkle your chosen seasonings on them. Put the steaks in the hot skillet and allow them to sizzle magically. The less you move the steaks the better, so don’t slide them around or peek underneath them if you can help it. After a few minutes there should be a nice, browned crust on the bottom of your steaks; flip them over and put the skillet – steaks and all – immediately in the oven. Check the steaks for doneness after a couple of minutes. You can do this either with a meat thermometer or, if you’d like to astonish your friends and family with your cleverness, use the “finger trick“. When the steaks are done to your liking, remove them from the skillet and allow to rest for five-ish minutes before unleashing your inner carnivore on them.

Barbecue/grill
Setup will be vastly different depending on the exact barbecue or grill you plan on using, but the basic idea is that you want a direct heat section for searing and an indirect heat section for roasting. If you have a gas grill, turn on one side to high and leave the other side off. If you’re using a typical charcoal barbecue, make your pile of coals off-center.

As above, rub your steaks with olive oil, season them, and put them on the hot side of your grill to sear. After a minute or two, turn your steaks 45 degrees to give them those signature cross-hatched grill marks that declare to the world you know what you’re doing. Flip the steaks over and repeat the process, a few minutes a side. If you don’t have nifty grill marks after this, your fire isn’t hot enough.

Move your steaks to the indirect heat area of your grill and close the lid. My grill (a Big Green Egg) allows me to change the height of the cooking surface, so at this point I just raise the grill up as high as it will go. Roast your steaks until the desired doneness has been achieved, allow to rest, and chow accordingly.

I made this. Be jealous.

tl;dr

How to grill a perfect steak

Ingredients

Steaks
Olive oil
Steak seasoning of some kind (Salt and pepper will do just fine.)

Directions

Skillet and oven
Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. On stovetop, preheat an oven safe skillet to a medium-high heat. Rub steaks with olive oil and sprinkle on steak seasoning. Place steaks in skillet. Sear for 2 or 3 minutes or until a crust has formed. Flip steaks over and place skillet in oven. Roast for several minutes, until internal temperature of steaks reaches desired doneness.

Barbecue/grill
Set up grill for high temperature, direct heat, retain part of the grill area for indirect heat. Rub steaks with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning. Sear steaks on both sides, then move to indirect heat area of grill. Roast for several minutes, until internal temperature of steaks reaches desired doneness.

See also

Randomly Edible

Mostly a food blog. Sort of.

Tag Archives: steak

Epic Roasthouse

How to grill a perfect steak

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