The Many Sides of Beef

Downtown Long Beach looks so retro that if it weren’t for the salty tang in the air and the Queen Mary’s lights across the water, you’d swear you were somewhere in the Midwest, maybe Cincinnati. 555 East, the city’s premier steakhouse, has an old-fashioned ambience, too. The walls are plastered with photos of Frank, Dino and the Rat Pack, Gina and Sophia, and formal portraits of somebody or other’s Italian ancestors (left over from the time when the owners turned the place into a red-sauce spaghetti joint before coming to their senses). With its dark wood wainscoting, burgundy leather booths and crisp white tablecloths, 555 East is a clubby haven for enjoying a martini or bourbon on the rocks, followed by a good steak and bottle of Cabernet.

What’s unusual about 555 East is that, unlike the famous Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn, where the only thing you can eat is the steak, this kitchen turns out well-crafted side dishes in addition to its meat. You can start with an array of icy oysters on the half-shell, perhaps briny Malpeques or crisp Coromandels. They come with cocktail sauce and pungent freshly grated horseradish, but I like them best with only a drop of lemon juice, the better to taste every nuance. The crab cake is terrific, too: a single plump disk of pure Dungeness crab meat, sauteed to a crunchy golden brown and set down in a pool of beurre blanc scattered with chives. Shrimp cocktail is enlivened by a good house-made cocktail sauce and diced cucumbers and celery. Fried calamari are tasty but heavy.

If you’d rather begin with a salad, I recommend the hearts of romaine, which is what I crave every time I come here. A sheaf of chilled romaine leaves napped in a creamy dressing thick with crumbled Maytag blue cheese, it’s garnished with tomato wedges that actually taste like tomatoes in season. The sliced tomato and sweet onion salad features the same flavorful tomatoes and a sprinkle of diced onion that really is sweet.

Most nights, a piano player valiantly belts out nostalgic standards. Fortunately, there are plenty of tables and booths far enough away so that you can talk more easily. And if no one is using the wine room, you can retreat there for a quiet meal and conversation. (The large wine list showcases California all-star Cabernets and includes some older vintages, yet it doesn’t have quite the pizazz it had in 1984, when 555 East opened and the restaurant’s biggest draw was its wine.)

The Kansas City strip, on the bone, is 555 East’s most satisfying steak. Charred and juicy, it has heft and chew, and the closer you get to the bone, the better the flavor. That’s followed by the porterhouse and the T-bone, versatile cuts that give you tastes of both the strip and the more tender filet. But I’ve had better New York strips and rib eyes elsewhere. Fact is, there’s a limited amount of prime beef out there (about 2% of all beef produced) and the large steakhouse chains have top buying power. Aging also has a great deal to do with a steak’s flavor.

If you look closely, some of the newer steakhouses feature a single prime steak on their menus; everything else is Angus or choice. Here, every steak, with the exception of the filet is prime. However, there is prime and there is prime. These steaks don’t have the gaminess of Arnie Morton’s dry-aged steaks or the succulence of Ruth’s Chris’ charred slabs sizzling in molten butter. 555 East’s steaks fall somewhere in between: a little aging, a little butter. Whoever is running that broiler, a little blast of hell at 1,600 degrees, knows how to cook a steak as ordered. The menu lists seven degrees of doneness: from black-and-blue Pittsburgh-style (charred outside, raw center), very rare (raw center), rare (very red, cool center), all the way to well done (cooked through). You can generally trust that medium rare will be exactly that, more rare than medium.

Of course, not everybody who goes to a steakhouse indulges in red meat. For those folks, 555 East offers grilled chicken breast with mustard sauce, pasta dishes and, of course, seafood. On the blackboard above an aquarium is the inventory of Maine lobsters. When I ask a waiter how they’re cooked, he says: “We steam them and serve them with drawn butter.” Perhaps surprised that anyone would inquire, he then adds: “But we’ll broil them if you like.” No thanks. You can’t go wrong with a simple steamed lobster with plenty of drawn butter for dipping. It’s perfect. So is the grilled salmon I try one night, served with garlic mashed potatoes and emerald sauteed spinach.

Your choice of potatoes comes with the entree: fine French fries with the skins on, a gooey gratin topped with cheddar cheese, a straightforward baked potato with the fixings or those garlicky mashed spuds. Other vegetables include nicely trimmed asparagus with hollandaise spiked with Dijon mustard, sauteed button mushrooms and crispy onion “strings.”

Service, however, leaves something to be desired. Every time you need the waiter, it seems he’s by the computers. In an attempt to get the bill one night, I have to wave frantically to get his attention.

After a big meal, only those with the most ardent sweet tooth will be game for dessert. Skip the hearts of cream, an overly sweet concoction of mascarpone and cream in raspberry sauce. The hot fudge sundae is made with vanilla bean ice cream topped with real whipped cream and glazed walnuts, but it falls short in the fudge department. The sauce is closer to chocolate syrup than real fudge.

With its intelligent take on steakhouse fare, 555 East is the place to go when you want to indulge in a little nostalgia. The classics have been updated just enough to appeal to today’s tastes. And to think, a steakhouse where you can actually eat the side dishes. Now there’s a concept.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

555 EAST

CUISINE: Steakhouse.

AMBIENCE: Old-fashioned steakhouse with wood wainscoting and leather booths.

BEST DISHES: hearts of romaine with Maytag blue cheese dressing, crab cake, oysters on the half-shell, Kansas City strip, asparagus Dijonnaise.

WINE PICK: 1993 Spottswoode Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley; 1990 Castello di Monsanto Tinscvil, Tuscany.

FACTS: 555 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach; (562) 437-0626. Lunch weekdays only; dinner daily. Appetizers, $5.95 to $8.95; steaks, $16.95 to $27.95. Corkage $7.50. Valet parking.