Have a Power Lunch in Beverly Hills Once a Year
The Grill on the Alley is an old school LA steakhouse that doesn't feel like it completely steals your soul.
Once a year my friend Nick Harris and I like to go to Beverly Hills and eat a “power lunch” at The Grill on the Alley. I put power lunch in quotes there because we don’t talk about anything important; we just eat like idiots. I met Nick through stand-up comedy, when he was the manager at Helium in Portland. Now he’s a big time agent or works at Dick’s Sporting Goods or something I don’t know. I don’t really care what Nick does because he doesn’t ever talk about work. Do you know how fucking important that is? To have friends who don’t talk about work? Get you a few of those. And when you do, buy them lunch at a steakhouse.
Grill on the Alley is a classic American grill with fine enough food, but it’s a pleasurable experience mostly due to the goofy ass servers that work there. These are lifers who love to strike up conversation with their guests, and once in a while you need to experience and embrace that uncomfortableness because it ends up being very fun. Sometimes the staff says extremely inappropriate things, or they’ll hit on me pretty directly, or pry with intimate questions like, “Are both of your parents still alive?” Our last server commented that I wasn’t the “bright one” between Nick and I, I believe in an effort to neg me. Also, he wasn’t wrong. I’m not that bright. And I did end up having sex with him, so the negging worked.
The food at Grill on The Alley can be damn good, though in some spots it’s severely underwhelming. The shrimp & crab louie is an over-dressed, overpriced mess of greens that feels limp and lifeless, the type of food best described as a “pile.” Sometimes I like a good food pile. It can be homely. “Come on inside kids, and get your food pile!” Mom used to say as she rang the dinner bell. Don’t order the shrimp & crab louie salad here, though. It sucks. My guess is this isn’t the only miss on the menu, but it is the only critical miss in my three times at the restaurant. The shrimp cocktail (pictured in the header) is standard, but a great standard. The shrimp were firm, buttery, and not at all overcooked. The cocktail sauce had a proper amount of seasoning (and I suspect Worcestershire), plus you get a little sidecar of horseradish if you’re a damn freak and like to go shrimp-to-horseradish like me.
The steak tartare doesn’t look like anything special here, and it’s not, but it’s again a welcomed standard. The portion might not look it, but it’s way too much steak and bread. I do like that it comes served with huge, thick slices of beefsteak tomatoes, grilled bread, and arugula. The tartare is made from filet, and has a rich flavor, but this definitely could have used a little more citrus. It’s not even in the top ten best tartare’s I’ve ever had, but there I found myself unable to stop eating the damn thing. Unexpectedly, I find myself thinking about this big, beefy seasoned tomatoes more than anything. Thick slices of tomato are wonderful.
The move at Grill on The Alley is steak, and in my most recent visit I made the error of not ordering one. Pictured above is a filet served Oscar style, that is with asparagus, crab, and béarnaise sauce, which is as classic as it gets. Me? I like to order a petite filet mignon (8 ounces) for 60 bucks, a side of creamed spinach, and a stainless steel gravy boat full of béarnaise for only an additional 5 dollars. This is as indulgent as it gets, which is what the steakhouse is all about. In fact, I would go so far as to say that these types of preparations - Oscar, béarnaise, hollandaise, and peppercorn sauce - are the types of things that separate a great American steakhouse from whatever-the-fuck a chain steakhouse is. The type of place blander than your baked potato wrapped in foil (I hate baked potatoes, it should be known).
Steakhouses are all about mid-day indulgence, the type of gluttony that can make you feel fucking alive. Pour the buttery béarnaise emulsion all over your steak and have a god damn day. That’s the move: To eat steak for lunch with a pal and feel like royalty. To have a couple classic martinis at noon. To overpay for food once in a while just for the hell of it. To go home and take a well-earned, restful meat nap at 2pm. That’s who the steakhouse is really for. Not agents, managers, or CEOs robbing the general public blind. It’s for people like me who can’t really afford to pay the bill, but go once a year just to feel something.
Bonus Move: Order key lime pie. Their key lime is excellent. Our first time there, Nick and I ordered ours to go, but with a 35 minute drive back from Beverly Hills, it didn’t last. Eating key lime pie in your car is the type of thing every American should do at some point. Don’t worry, you can pull it off. Everybody in Los Angeles is eating in their cars. That’s what makes this city so great.
Parking Tip: The garage on N. Camden. It’s two blocks away, and will end up costing you three dollars.
Grill on The Alley
Open Monday - Friday from 11:30AM - 9PM
Saturday and Sunday 4-9PM
Good job, Danny! Think I’ll celebrate by injecting some béarnaise sauce into my veins.
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That’s it for now. Not sure what else you want.