Right Wing Nation

A year ago today, I posted this rather sad bit of news:

State College has no steakhouse—and no, Outback doesn’t count. Let me rephrase that. State College has one restaurant that bills itself as a steakhouse, Down Under Steak House at Toftrees. We’ll see. We’re going there tonight for my birthday dinner.

It’s the only place in town I’ve found that has ribeyes on the menu. Did you catch that?

Well, there’s Kelly’s Steak and Seafood, which bills itself as a steakhouse. It’s not. They only have three or four steaks on the menu, though the prime rib there is top notch. But that’s why I’m skeptical about the Down Under.

Like I said, we’ll see.

This is where I’d prefer to go for my birthday dinner:

T-Bone Porterhouse Sirloin for Two Sirloin for Three Chunks of Sirloin Filet    Super    Petite Rib Eye    Center cut only New York Strip Gypsy Steak Kabob    Served flaming

24 oz. 28 oz. 36 oz. 52 oz. 16 oz.   11 oz. 7 oz. 18 oz.   16 oz. 10 oz.

But that’s over 500 miles away, and choices for serious carnivores here are oddly limited. There’s Kelly’s, and while it really does serve very good food, it ain’t a steakhouse (though the prime rib seriously rocks the house). There’s the Down Under Steak House, which again isn’t, where we went last year only to find they had just taken the ribeye off the menu (like I said, it isn’t a steakhouse if it doesn’t serve ribeye). I was more inclined to try it until we ate Thanksgiving dinner at Toftrees, and if that was a valid indicator, they’re highly overrated.

There’s Alto, where we haven’t yet eaten, but Italian isn’t my first choice for a birthday meal, it’s chi-chi California pinkie-up pseudo-Italian like Faccia Luna (which everybody here loves for some odd reason–they’re impressed that they make their own pasta, like I could care less about that instead of the quality of the food) and I’m suspicious of an Italian restaurant that can’t spell “gnocchi.” I’ve heard good things about Finelli’s, but that’s a 40-minute drive from here, though you can tell by the menu it’s a real Italian restaurant, and not some “Italian bistro” restaurant.

I’d like to try Duffy’s in Boalsburg. It reminds me of the Wayside Inn in Middletown, Virginia. We were going to try it last Memorial Day when we were at the Memorial Day celebration in Boalsburg, but it didn’t happen.

We’ll see. Definitely not the Outback, though (Mr. NYC Educator will be glad to hear that.)

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007 at 7:08 am and is filed under Food.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.