My House: Steak Night - Filet Mignon

Kansas City has tons of fun hot spots.  I love going out on the town at night, but it gets expensive.  Saturday night, in order to save some money, I decided to stay in.  As this blog is dedicated to finding the best steak deals I thought I would describe one of the most cost effective steak nights in Kansas City: grilling at home. 

One of the best deals I've found on steaks is at my local grocery, Marsh's Sun Fresh in Westport. They have a bargain bin for meat that needs to be eaten sooner rather than later (the meat's not bad, they just need to move it fast). I bought 2 choice cuts of filet mignon (aka beef tenderloin) for 10 bucks.  A filet is cut from the center of the loin of the cow and has no muscle producing a very tender piece of meat.  Marinading this cut for an hour or two significantly enhances natural flavor of the steak.

I use a little Worcestershire sauce, and a little chocolate balsamic vinegar from the Tasteful Olive in Overland Park. It adds a very subtle sweet and salty flavor that amplifies the tenderness of this cut.  Many people like to make a balsamic reduction sauce to put on top of a filet, but I find this marinade actually brings out the natural steak flavor while adding some of the balsamic flavor.

After the steak has marinaded for an hour of two I take it out of the fridge and let the steak get to room temperature. Personally I like to salt the outside of the steak first. This helps seal in the juices when you put it on the grill. I realize there is some controversy as to whether to salt the steak pre-grill, but after experimentation I found that salting before has made for better steaks. I take some kosher salt and sprinkle it on the outside of each side of the steak.  I do this one side at a time, and let the salt absorb in while the steak is getting to room temperature.  Salting one side then flipping it 30 minutes later and salt the other is a good rule of thumb.  

While waiting for my steak to get to room temperature I pulled out a nice bottle of Eugina Tempranillo and poured myself a glass.  It's a nice Spanish dry red wine, with some spice and cherry hints to it. As my wonderful Uncle Alan once told me, the most important drink with your meal is the one you have while cooking!

This is my BBQ pit, and I can actually call this a BBQ pit because there is a smoker there! *Note: BBQ involves smoking wood to create amazing flavors, grilling does not.  Tell your friends on the coasts (and here in town if they make this mistake) they are insulting our culture when they say "I'm having a bar-b-que" yet fire up a grill for burgers and brats.* Generally I prefer to grill on charcoal, but I have a difficult time lighting charcoal when I'm alone, it's just a little too wasteful (and costly).  Tonight I had to settle for the inferior flavor of the propane grill.

Once the grill was plenty hot I put the steak on.  You may notice a difference between this picture and the last steak pictured.  I decided to be decadent and wrap the steak in bacon.  Before I put the steak on the grill I put a little bit of olive oil, then kosher salt and some coarse black pepper on the side I planned on placing on the grill first. Once the already-coated side was on the grill I added a bit of olive oil, kosher salt and coarse pepper to side other side.  I like to leave the grill very hot.  This is a fairly thick cut of beef so it takes a bit more time than a normal steak would to cook.  Usually I leave it on the original side for 6 minutes, giving the steak a quarter turn halfway through. Then I flip it and do the same on the other side. However, I was watching a show tonight and left it 8 and 8 so this one was a bit more cooked than I normally enjoy.

 

To accompany my steak I had a nice wheat dinner roll and a leafy green salad.  The salad was a spring mix with red peppers, mozzarella cheese, and Ott's original dressing. Ott's is a type of French dressing with some horseradish added into it. It is sweet with a little spicy kick to it, but not too spicy.  It is very well balanced. If you've never had it I'd highly recommend trying it, it's my favorite dressing.
  

As I mentioned, the steak was a little more done than I would like, but it was still quite excellent, as you can see.  I just like a little bit more pink in the middle, but this was within the acceptable range.  Normally at this point I'd give you a breakdown of how everything was, but it was all awesome.  One of the benefits of a Kansas City steak night at home is you make everything the way you like it.  All in all this was an excellent Saturday night in. I had a great steak. I had good wine. I have a steak left over for tomorrow. Plus, I spent less then I would have even at a very cheap steak night at a local pub.

Here is a picture of what I did with my night: steak, sides, Netflix ("Eureka" mini-marathon) and some wine to wash it down with.  I had an Old Fashioned and a cigar to top this all off and then went to bed. Steak night at home will always be one of my favorite Kansas City Steak Nights!

Fric & Frac: Tuesday Steak Night

Deal: $10.99 10 oz KC strip with baked potato and a side salad.  

This is my first post as a non-law school student! It has no relevance for finding red meat awesomeness but I wanted to brag.

My most recent Kansas City steak night adventure was to an old Kansas City neighborhood bar and institution: Fric & Frac.

Fric & Frac has been around since 1976 dutifully serving the KU Med/39th street crowd beverages and food for 36 years. This is the only Tuesday steak night that I am aware of (right now) in the metro. 

Fric & Frac is located at the corner of Genessee and 39th St in Kansas City Missouri. It is a wonderful bar that is famous for its cheese steaks and burgers.  This is a great place to shoot pool, have a beer and some tasty food.  If you haven't been to the 39th street corridor in a while you should it is loaded with great restaurants, bars, boutiques, cafe's and fun stores.

I was leaving work and had been eating tacos for days.  I had one of my favorite taco places cater my graduation party on Cinco de Mayo, and had tons of left overs. Pastor tacos with pineapple are one of my favorite foods, but the thought of another taco was frightening.

Not being able to eat anymore Mexican I decided it was time to return north of the boarder for some classic American food. What is more American than a juicy steak?  My dining companion and I sat down and looked over the menu.  Not sure why, I did I know what I was going to get.

The deal here is a 10 oz. Kansas City Strip Steak with a side and salad. I opted for the baked potato. Also available are fries or steamed veggies.  Not being a fan of low carb diets, a classic baked potato with my steak sounded heavenly.

While my dining partner perused the menu we ordered a pitcher of PBR.  I'm not a regular PBR drinker, but this time it hit the spot. It was crisp, refreshing and cheap. They didn't have any great drink specials when we were there. They do have 2 for 1 drinks for happy hour from 3-6 p.m., and half off of all wells after 9PM. If you plan your steak night properly you can take advantage. Unfortunately I arrived at 7:15 p.m. and left at 8:45 p.m..  The PBR pitcher was $9.00, had I opted to order by the glass it would have been $3.10. They had glasses of wine for $5.00 as well.   

After we had some suds, my dining companion figured out what sounded good and we went on to order.

The salad came out quickly.  It was your classic house salad, iceberg lettuce, shredded purple cabbage, shredded carrots, black olives, onions, tomato, and a surprise of garbanzo beans. I ordered Italian dressing on the salad.  My dining partner and I ended up in a debate on whether anything but ranch or blue cheese dressing is appropriate with a steak. While I normally prefer a ranch dressing on my salad when having a steak, this time I decided against it.  Let me know if you think I committed a cardinal sin.

Onto the steak! This was a surprisingly excellent steak. It was obviously a choice cut of KC Strip steak and was lean yet well marbled.  It had the perfect amount of fat topping the upper portion of the steak. You could tell it had been cooked on a flat electric skillet with butter on it. I prefer less buttery flavor, but the buttery flavor was not so dominate to overpowered the steak's natural flavor like you get in some dinners (looking at you Denny's).

The steak was also fresh never frozen and hand cut, not prepackaged, which gets high marks in my book. Frozen steak is an abomination against all that is good an holy in the world. As always I ordered the steak medium rare. This came out exactly how I believe medium rare ought to be. It was brown on the outside, pink most of the way through and slightly red in the middle.

This steak did not have any crust built up around the outside, they appeared to only cook the steak in butter.  I personally like some cracked pepper and kosher salt on the outside. Overall the steak was excellent, especially when comparing to other steaks I've had at other steak nights.

I will only briefly address the baked potato. It tasted like a baked potato, classic steak side. Done.  

While this blog is dedicated to steak, my dinner companion ordered a Philly cheese steak that deserves honorable mention. Fric & Frac has amazing cheese steaks. While they don't use the same super high quality french bread that is mandatory on every Cheese Steak if you are in Philadelphia, Fric & Frac does offer a cheese steak with Philly cream cheese. I had a bite and wow is it good. I will go back and eat one another night (or possibly another afternoon) when I have not stuffed myself full of a KC Strip. If you are there on a non steak night do treat yourself to one of these it is quite choice. 

The service here was great once they realized we were there.  It is a seat yourself place so you need to catch the servers eye so they know you are there, found that one out the hard way. But the service was great, the server was quick with suggestions and offered bits of great information about the menu. 

To sum it up this Kansas City steak night adventure:

• Restaurant: Fric & Frac 
• Location: 1700 West 39th Street, Kansas City, MO 64111 
• Phone Number: (816) 753-6102 
• Ambiance: Fun bar atmosphere
• Steak: Excellent 
• Sides: Classics with no frills 
• Service: Good
• Philly Cheese Steak with cream cheese - worth the heart attack   

Fric & Frac does not have a website I can direct you to.  If you're craving a steak on a Tuesday night this is a great place to go.