about ray's the steaks

Tired of shelling out $100 a head for a proper steak dinner (and being charged extra for a baked potato)? Ray's the Steaks reminds carnivores they don't have to take out a loan just to enjoy a meal. Chef Michael Landrum buys great meat, which he cuts and ages himself, and includes in the price of a meal tasty creamed spinach and mashed potatoes, charmingly presented in little black skillets. While his New York strip and filet mignon are very good -- and the caveman-size bone-in rib-eye, lavished with soft onions and garlic, is enough to make a grown man swoon -- Ray's offers the chance to explore less common attractions, too, including chateaubriand and entrecote. "You won't believe how good these are," the menu brags about its crab cakes, which are lightly shaped from jumbo lump crab -- and taste fine, but not fantastic. Don't expect much in the way of atmosphere. The dining room is painted in shades of cooked meat and baked potato -- brown and beige -- and there's nothing to look at but a wall of wine that separates diners from cooks in the big open kitchen. But when you're eating some of the best meat around, who cares?

Most steakhouses around town feel as if they could have been ordered up from a central warehouse. At one after another, the drill goes like this: Big hunks of meat are brought to the table by big guys in ties, who encourage you to order a big red wine. The rooms all tend to look formal and masculine, and everything but the sprig of parsley that garnishes your protein of choice is ordered a la carte. If you're not someone's guest, or using the company credit card, you'll probably wish you were -- a proper steak dinner seldom costs less than $100 a head.

Ray's the Steaks is not your typical steakhouse. I first became aware of this not in person but on the phone, when I called the Arlington restaurant, anonymously of course, to make a reservation. Owner Michael Landrum noticed that the prefix of the number I gave him belonged to a neighborhood in Washington where restaurants are as plentiful as lawyers on Court TV. "You're coming here for dinner?" he asked. "I'm impressed!"

That genial exchange was the kind of detail that separates Ray's the Steaks from the pack. Another is the setting, which a diplomat might call spartan and a friend of mine likened to a garage. She has a point: There's nothing but paint on the cream-colored walls, which seem to go on forever but eventually meet up with a pressed-tin ceiling the shade of creamed spinach. Aside from a dark brown banquette that runs almost the length of the storefront, and a wine collection displayed in a series of wood-and-glass cabinets in front of the open kitchen, there's not much for the eyes.

Ray's is a mom-and-pop kind of place, with just one guy to juggle most of the cooking (that would be Landrum) and a few young women to take orders, deliver plates and explain to diners where the different cuts of meat come from -- sometimes, oddly enough, using their own bodies as diagrams. So you might need to be a little patient. "The chef is still making the soup," a waitress told me when I asked to start a meal with a bowl of crab bisque early one night.

With several exceptions, appetizers are not the reason to hang out at Ray's. The grape tomatoes in the mozzarella-and-basil salad are hard and dull, the black-bean-and-mushroom soup proves one-dimensional, and the garlicky grilled shrimp are nothing to write home about. If you want something to precede your steak, head for the satisfying Caesar salad, grilled calamari or, if it's ready, that bisque, gently creamy and splashed with sherry. A small plate of rosemary focaccia, which is baked throughout the evening here, helps stave off hunger pangs, too, and it comes gratis.

What follows will more than make up for any early disappointments. Landrum buys corn-fed beef from farms in Iowa, Nebraska and Washington state, then ages and butchers the product himself, sometimes even to order. Name your favorite cut, and it's likely to be found here. New York strip? Take your pick from 14 or 20 ounces of robustly flavored top loin, simply offered with sauteed garlic or gussied up with brandy mushroom cream, port wine or a crust of black peppercorns (au poivre). There is very good rib-eye, too, lapped with cool horseradish cream or ignited with Cajun seasonings (a rib-eye's depth of flavor makes it especially receptive to assertive sauces). And depending on the day and the market, Landrum might also have on hand those less tender but still tasty cuts of beef, such as hanger steak and culotte, from the boneless bottom portion of the sirloin. Ordering chateaubriand yields an orgy of thick slices of blushing, center-cut tenderloin, grilled and arranged with onions, mushrooms and bright asparagus. At $37.95 for two, it's also a deal of a meal, and if you're lucky, the chef will leave his post to carve it for you tableside.

Full of juice and savor, this is meat that doesn't need any help, but should you want more flavor, bearnaise sauce and blue cheese crumbles are only a request, and a dollar more, away. Too bad the kitchen no longer serves lunch, or a hamburger. Great while it lasted, the burger ranked as a local front-runner. My single encounter with fish -- blackened catfish with mango-avocado relish -- was a pleasant one, but going to Ray's to eat fish is like going to Reykjavik to work on a tan. Why would you? The wine list, meanwhile, is as focused as the menu, its choices few but solid.

The cost of the entrees includes vegetables served family-style in small black skillets: rich mashed potatoes with bits of red potato skin mixed in, and a nutmeg-laced creamed spinach that is equal parts dairy and vegetable. Both taste fresh and are very appealing. For $4 to $5 extra, you can also try sauteed mushrooms, broccoli or grilled asparagus. Should you have space to spare for dessert, the lightest choice is Key lime pie, the real deal, with fresh whipped cream on top. The slice is neither too much nor too sweet. And summer means Landrum is baking fruit pies, including blueberry, from scratch. There's also a two-toned mousse -- chocolate fluff with white chocolate fluff -- but it's not so compelling that you can't say no to it.

Ray, incidentally, is a nickname given to the chef by a former girlfriend. She's history, but "the play on words was too good to resist," says Landrum. Much like his affordable ode to meat.

Ray's the Steaks
1725 Wilson Blvd., Arlington, VA 22209
Phone: 703-841-7297

article via;

2004 Fall Dining Guide
By Tom Sietsema
Washington Post Magazine
Sunday, October 17, 2004