Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse

I have the greatest friends in the world. I’ve raved about them here ad nauseum, so I’ll just leave it this time at: friends who want to celebrate your personal victories and happinesses, however small or great, are friends to keep… and that’s how Dessert Zombie, Hungry and I wound up at Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse, which has been on my list forever and a day. I know many people who list this place as their personal favorite steakhouse in NYC, which is pretty high praise – we do not lack for steak.

After a brief wait at the bar where we all imbibed – me perhaps a little too much too quickly – we were seated and bread appeared. Generously covered with by not overwhelmed by sesame seeds, I quite enjoyed the bread with the seeds. Good start.

Hungry had apprised us ahead of time that there was an off-menu special of house bacon, $6/a piece. I didn’t take a picture to show scale, but these pieces were THICK, and HUGE. I ate maybe 1/3 of the very salty, smoky bacon, and took the rest to go home (and proceeded to do all sorts of amazing things with it; mini quiche, sliced onto toast with runny-yolked eggs, stuffing it into my mouth…). Do note that the pieces are huge and really salty; not a bad thing for salt lovers, but they are very salty.

Before I continue, I would like not just to apologize for the quality of the following photos, but to explain. As I mentioned, it was a celebratory occasion, and I’d started the evening ogling these giant glass jars on the bar that contained a clearish liquid and beautiful peeled and cored pineapple chunks. When we asked the bartender about them, he informed us that these were used for a Del Frisco’s signature drink, the VIP. After two weeks of soaking in Svedka clementine vodka, the mixture is strained (it’s possible they blend the pineapples and then strain?) and voila, you have yourself the VIP. Which is delicious, potent, and DID I MENTION DELICIOUS? … and I don’t know how many I had before dinner started. I’m sure DZ or Hungry will chime in. But this explains the following photos…

You can see the bottom of my drink in the second photo! When our server brought our steaks, he asked that we cut into them to make sure they were cooked properly, despite my slurred insistence that I was sure it was fine. It was fine. DZ and I both ordered the cowboy – bone in rib eye – and it was awesome. The best I’ve ever had? Probably not, but it was pretty darn close. I ate 1/5 (or less) before calling it quits, but taking it home wasn’t a problem. It was gooooood.

Mushrooms cooked in butter, which were good

Spinach supreme, or their version of creamed spinach – which I really liked

Chateau potatoes, which were chunk mashed potatoes with so much butter that some of it was still solid on the top and melted quickly…

Maque choux corn; this photo was taken by lifting my dSLR and aiming it in the general direction of the dish – which was at the far end of the table – and pressing the shutter button. Because I was drunk. And this was delicious.

My steak was cooked properly, and the sides were all either good to really good. I thoroughly enjoyed my meal.

… but the food didn’t end there. You can’t have a meal with Dessert Zombie and not have dessert. This lemon cake was ordered because Hungry and I both enjoy citrus desserts a lot, and it was good… very moist cake, the top icing wasn’t nicely balanced, and then between the layers was a lemon curd of sorts. I liked it.

There was also ice cream, but I don’t remember it.

It was a good night.

I enjoyed our experience at Del Frisco’s, finding the service great, the food very good, and the experience just perfect. The space is gorgeous – extremely high ceilings, lots of light filtering in, and you almost forget that you’re smack dab in the middle of the concrete jungle.