When we heard that our IT guru and champion scoffer 'Helsinki' Erik Thomasson, aka The Flying Finn, was coming to New York, we booked a table at Midtown meat emporium, Bobby Van's. I've been going to this place for years, and being a bit of a meat lover myself I have to say their steaks are truly excellent. I have much to compare with, although I have never been permitted a reservation at Williamsburg's steaktastic Peter Luger's. I hear it is THE place to go for a nice juicy rib eye or porterhouse. It's all in the dry-aging process, I believe. Muscle will keep respiring for some time after death, and in the absence of oxygen, it produces lactic acid. These acid compounds 'tenderise' the meat. All it needs is a little heating or blackening on either side, and there you have it. Well enough of the science.
After a few carefully chosen apperitifs, we descended on the place. It's always the same smell when I walk in through the door - the smell of charred blood, with a faint whiff of Shiraz and cigar in the air. It gets the juices going, like a decent martini. After a quick visit to a well stocked and effiecient bar, we are seated. I need no menu. I know exactly what I want. Medium rare rib eye, hashed potatoes, and zucchini sticks fried in a 'parmesan' tempura batter. I watched the Finn eye the menu, like a big cat stalking his next meal. We had been trying to persuade him to eat a porterhouse for two himself, to really test his mettle, and we must have done a great job. Erik ordered it rare.
We didn't know quite what to think when it turned up - 3lbs of slightly warmed cow on a burnt plate. The waiters will carve the bugger up too, so you don't have to worry about expending energy cutting your food - You're gonna need that to digest it.
Being
a marathon runner rather than sprint finisher, Erik starts off nice and slow and builds speed gradually until he hits a 'wall' after about half
an hour of non-stop chewing.
With some advice on avoiding potatoes and zucchini and encouragement from us all, he manages to polish the thing off. He did look like he might struggle at a couple of key points in the meal but my faith was strong.
God knows how he felt the morning after, or how his guts felt to be more precise. I did remember the ground rumbling in Brooklyn on Saturday morning, no doubt aftershocks from some seismic event on Manhattan's west side...
