03/28/09

Good, but not worth the cost

by joshofstl

Thanks to some special circumstances, my wife and I were fortunate to be able to go to Citizen Kane's for a recent dinner. The restuarant is beautiful, situated in a scenic old home in the heart of Kirkwood. We're pretty middle-class and most of our steak experience is of the chain-restaurant variety, but I'd been told years ago that Kane's had the best steak in St. Louis.

That much, at least, is true. The steaks are perfectly cooked, wonderfully marinated, and quite tender. On top of that, they are absolutely enormous -- I ordered the Ribeye and it looked well like it could have been 32 ounces. (It was good for two meals beyond the night at the restaurant.)

The rest of the meal was of variable quality. The salad was excellent, particularly with a Mayfair dressing that was as good as any dressing I can recall having. The appetizer sampler, by contrast, was decent but was indistinguishable from (and in the case of the mushrooms, inferior to) the much cheaper fare available at other locales. The entree sides were okay but, again, unremarkable. My wife got the shrimp pasta but found the white wine and garlic sauce a little too strong on the white wine, which may or may not be a good thing depending on your tastes.

One other note: the service was predictably good but there were a couple of oddities about it that sort of offended our more middle-class sensibilities. One, costs for soda and coffee were not listed; were it not for the other reviews on Citysearch we would not have known they charge for refills. Two, when they took our food away to wrap it up for us, they summarily discarded anything that was not part of the main entree, including bread and potatoes. They even threw away any pieces of steak that I had cut off the main piece but had not eaten. Perhaps that is par for the course for a "fine dining" restaurant, but we've certainly been to other places of comparable cost that sent us home with more.

Overall, Kane's certainly is a nice place to go, especially if you adore steak, but in the end it was hard to justify paying two to three times the cost of a Longhorns or Lone Star for a meal that wasn't twice as good.

• Pros: Fantastic steak, superb Mayfair salad, nice venue
• Cons: Parts of the meal were mediocre, some service oddities

02/21/09

Wasn't impressed

by emoblues

My wife and I went there for our first wedding anniversary tonight. We decided since this was a special night we would splurge and go for a more upscale steakhouse. Going by what we had heard and reading some reviews on citysearch we made our decision for Citizen Kane's. Our favorite place has been Tucker's for a long time but were made to believe that Kane's was "at a higher level".

We were seated approximately 20 minutes past our reservation time and had to wait (standing) in a very cramped and extremely loud bar area. Once we were seated, in an area that was also noisy, our waiter did a capable job for the most part. My wife had the filet and on the waiter's recommendation I ordered the ribeye. Both were ordered medium but were brought to us to medium-rare at best. Both of us were ready to eat though and didn't want to send them back to have to only wait longer for what we came for. Although undercooked, the filet was still very appealing. The ribeye lacked alot to be desired, though. Even though it was also undercooked, it was somewhat tough. If it had been cooked for much longer, it would have been an unbearable chore to finish. For a $32 steak, the time spent chewing on it should be minimal and this definetely was not.

Also, my wife and I discovered when the bill was brought to us that we had been charged for EVERY refill of soda. Yes, soda. ($2 for each one) Are you kidding me??? Although we didn't ask, I would at least expect the waiter to inform us of this at the time. The drink prices aren't on the main menu, by the way. Had we known, we would have just drank water. For a place that seems to garner such great reviews and at the prices they charge, we honestly expected much more and didn't feel it was worth the extra money. From now on, for the value and food quality we will gladly go to Tucker's.

• Pros: Sauteed mushrooms
• Cons: Noisy, cramped, charge for refills of soda (I wonder if they do the same for coffee?) Not worth the extra money.

12/31/08

Lick your Chops

by margocorpening

We went to Citizen Kanes for our New Years dinner and what a great way to end a not-so-great year. After reading a review before going that touted the pork chop and its sweet/horseradishy sauce as to die for.... I felt it a must to try. OUTSTANDING!! It was most thickest, juiceist, perfectly cooked pork chop I have ever encountered. I'LL BE BACK!

• Pros: location, overall menu, prices, quality
• Cons: loud crowd noise