We had to evacuate our hotel room by 11am yesterday, grabbed breakfast at a bagel place, did some shopping, then went back to our friends’ place to kill time until my band practice. Football, laptops, fireplace (it’s COLD in Central PA!), trying to tire out the adorable kitten, lots of Indian food leftovers, some of which we had for lunch. Rehearsal went reasonably well, with a drummer who could’ve and should’ve been better prepared 
.
Left for Harrisburg late afternoon where we were crashing on our way home, and where we’d made a rez at a much-touted steak restaurant. I had one of The Best Steaks Of My Life at an Italian restaurant in Harrisburg (of all places), and we had a real hankering for red meat.
A dry martini with Haymans for me to start off, a Stella for my PIC, then we split a bottle of Lombardian rosé. We shared a ½ dozen oysters for starters (good Beau Soleil, very good Malpeques, very salty Wellfleet),
a surprisingly good Caesar
& a decent wedge salad, with perfectly cooked SBEs that were cold for some reason 
For our main, we’d ordered the 21 days dry-aged strip steak RARE with chimichurri-king crab butter, and haricot verts with onion straw and garlic butter. The beans arrived first,
the steak a little later. All steaks come with some sort of ‘treatment,’ which should’ve been a bad indication from the get-go. All a good steak needs is heat, s&p.
It was medium, so we sent it back. The next slab came back quickly — as it should, and was perfectly rare….
BUT it had a lot of gristle,
especially for an alleged dry-aged cut of beef. Most importantly, a place whose main allure is steak should at the very least have the basics down, like temps.
At least they comped us the martini & the beer.
Off to Philly shortly, where tonight’s dinner is TBD & likely to surpass last night’s disappointing experience.
