The last stop in our Quest for Prime was House of Prime Rib. At 9 p.m. on a Saturday, the joint was jumping, with patrons standing under the front canopy outside smoking and downing martinis as they waited for tables. We could barely find the reception desk in the throng, and our reservation didn't shorten the wait any, but merely guaranteed us a table -- eventually. The crowd, dressed come-as-you-are, had joined for the quintessential meat-feast of the British Empire. There were families and birthday parties, couples, and girl groups and boy groups, all eventually moving into the labyrinth of 1949 American "Dickensian" dining rooms, each with dark wood walls and a fireplace.
While we waited in the bar, I sipped a perfect martini -- very good, very cold, and seemingly inexhaustible. The wine list, too, shows generosity, with markups about double retail. If you can't pay $375 for the '85 Lafite-Rothschild, you'll find Lafite's cadet chateau next down the list for one-tenth that price. The white wine list is as strong as the clarets; the weakest areas are in pinot noir of any country, and in wines by the glass (mainly Clos du Bois for $6-6.50).
The dinner menu is dead simple: Eastern corn-fed prime rib ($20-24), cooked under a coarse salt crust and cut at your table to various serving sizes, from a slim "City cut" up to a trencherman's "Henry VIII cut." The whole roasts are wheeled around on domed silver carts, as at London's Connaught grill, though here the carts resemble metal trash cans lying on their sides. It's the Brits democratized, simplified, Americanized, and set to the strains of Ella and Ellington in the Big Band Era.
There's one other entree: the catch of the day ($21.45). All meals come with a big, delicious salad of iceberg, leaf lettuce, and pickled beet batons in an addictive Catalina dressing -- a slightly sweet pink vinaigrette thickened with cooked egg yolks. You have a choice of very buttery mashed potatoes with slightly reduced, very salty au jus gravy, or baked potato with all the trimmings. The vegetable is (again) creamed spinach, this time with odd-tasting bits of uncrisped slab bacon.
Traditional English horseradish sauce comes in two versions here, regular or spicy. Best of all, with your roast you get Yorkshire pudding -- a skillet-cooked puff (something like a large popover) made of flour, milk, and egg; the pudding gets tucked next to your meat to soak up the juices. Furthermore, if you finish anything, including your meat, they'll give you seconds for free if you're still hungry.
The roast, served on the bone, was excellent, albeit a tad less flavorful than Izzy's. (The Henry VIII, rather than my smaller cut, might bring out the flavor better -- and your "dog" will love the leftovers.) The day's sea bass proved a mighty nice piece of fish, moist and juicy, respectfully grilled. The accompanying mango-papaya sauce was a flawless taste of a warm island, with fresh, ripe, fine-diced fruit and a hint of hot pepper.
Afterward, we watched other people digging into English trifle and wished in vain that we had enough appetite left for that final taste of reckless, retro indulgence.
