McKendrick's birthday dinner

Last night was my 46th birthday..........My God! I just can't believe that I am sliding right out of my 40's and making a big belly flop into the 50's. I guess that's what it is because I have already begun sprouting the belly for the big 5-0 flop. All these restaurants I have to try in the Atlanta area will not help to keep my belly from growing, but that's okay because I love food more than I care about carrying around some added weight. Besides, eating high calorie food ladened with butter and fat is just so tempting and extremely satisfying.

Anyway, last night Brian took me to McKendrick's Steak House. It's located right across the street from the Perimeter Mall. I haven't dined at a steak house in quite awhile and since it was my birthday, well that was just a good excuse. To make my self feel better about the bounty of food I was going to enjoy I skipped lunch, which probably wasn't the best thing to do because that just made me all the more eager to gorge. Steak houses are notorious for serving large portions and I was up for the challenge.

We were seated at a booth designed for four people. Steak house booths are large. I guess you need all that room on the table to fit each a la carte item that is ordered while salivating and eating a loaf of bread before the appetizer arrives.

I ordered a glass of Californian pinot noir to get the engine fired up while I perused the appetizer selection since I knew this would be a time consuming venture deciding on which salad, steak and side items to finalize on, so I wanted to give the waiter a little bone to justify him returning to the table inquiring if he could take our order.

Brian told me to order whatever appetizers I wanted and he would share it with me. Okay, so this really turned into a died and went to heaven kind of experience. Now I decided to have an appetizer, soup, salad, steak and two side items. Dessert would not be left out even if I had to carry it home and eat it later.

I started off with the baked oysters and seafood chowder. I told the waiter to bring them at the same time since Brian would be "helping" me. The oysters were served hot out of the oven on a bed of salt topped with diced tomato, onions and maytag blue cheese melted all over it. The chowder was, of course, a cream based soup with finely chopped sauteed tomato which blended nicely into the cream and gave it a pinkish color with diced potatoes, salmon and shrimp. Both were excellent.

The next course was an iceberg wedge salad ( Brian's choice.....I would have opted for the spinach salad with warm bacon dressing but I wasn't going to play the birthday card for every course.) This was just as good. It was huge even after the kitchen split the salad into two servings so we each had our own plate. Once again maytag blue cheese and tomatoes with a sprinkling of applewood smoked bacon. That combination of blue cheese and smoked bacon is Y-U-M-M-Y.

For our entree we both had a 16 oz. boneless ribeye steak chargrilled medium rare. I just don't know how they do it but it was perfect. It tasted just like I thought it would as we were driving to the restaurant and I daydreamed the whole way there about that grilled flavor and the texture of a steak as you take that first bite through the grilled, crusty exterior and then sink your teeth into the melt in your mouth juicy interior as tender as a stick of butter at room temperature. I ate the whole thing.

Our side items included sauteed mushrooms in a red wine reduction, garlic stir fried spinach, and a baked potato that was as big as one of those trimline phones from the 70's. The mushrooms were humongous as well. I tried to eat my half of the potatoe but only accomplished part of it and had to leave the rest of the salted skin behind.

After all this I was stuffed more than a cornbread dressing filled Turducken is at Christmas dinner. I just couldn't do dessert but Brian insisted I pick one out to take home. We both were given dessert menus to look over the selections. I did my usual elimination technique to decide which one to carry home. After I decided on the coconut cream pie I turned to Brian to ask him which one he would choose if it were his birthday. He said the coconut cream pie. Everyone can have their own entree but by the time dessert rolls around you need to be in sync with your partner because desserts are meant to be shared.