An H-town steakhouse invades Uptown
When you're the new guy in town, you've got to stand out, or no one will sleep with you, except Winona Ryder in Lucas. And probably Winona Ryder now, if you told her you enjoyed When Love Is Not Enough: The Lois Wilson Story, and that you looove stealing. Coming to Dallas in the largest way possible, Perry's Steakhouse & Grille, open today.
The first North Texas outpost of the 31-yr-old Houston original (which actually started as a butcher shop), the Dallas Perry's has spared no expense to create the ultimate meat palace: 5 private rooms ("Wine Cellar", "Board Room", "Round Room" with coconut walls and an alabaster table...), an 18-ft-tall glass-encased wine room with 40 private lockers, the glitzy Bar 79 (centered around the circular "Booth 79" and leading to a classy sub-street-level patio), bathrooms sporting flatscreens behind one-way mirrors, and a power-curtained "Lover's Booth" you and your girl are free to occupy until Ed shows up. The menu focuses on pepper/herb-garlic buttered, dry-aged Prime steak in 8 cuts (12oz Filet Oscar, 22oz bone-in rib-eye, 20oz bone-in NY strip carved tableside...), plus Akaushi Kobe options exclusive to Dallas; other mains include a roasted-smoked-caramelized pork chop, pecan-crusted red snapper colossally topped with lump crab, and the filet mignon/lobster/shrimp "Symphony Kabob" -- a monster order for when you're hungry like the Wolfgang. Family-style sides include creamed spinach, mac-&-cheese, and Lyonnaise/au gratin/baked/whipped taters; prep your stomach with apps like crab-capped fried asparagus, house-made Polish sausage, seafood-stuffed 'shrooms, and "Cherry Pepper Calamari" (but not Cherry Popper Calamari -- this isn't one of those alarming Japanese cartoons).
Beer's limited, but the rest of the booze is staggering: 5,000+ wine bottles (600 labels), 24 scotches, 11 "Unique Spirits" (Don Julio 1942 to Louis XIII cognac), and 11 Dallas-only signature cocktails like the ri(1)/lemon/grenadine "Ward 8" and the Chopin potato vodka/pear/cardamom "Steak and Potatoes" -- between that and the actual steak and potatoes, if someone does deign to sleep with you, it's gonna be a lumpy Ryde.
