Beef, straight up

If my father were still around, I’d enjoy introducing him to Taylor’s Prime Steaks in the Wilshire District. It’s just the kind of place where he would have felt right at home. Not a crack of daylight sullies the premises. There’s always a gaggle of regulars ensconced at the bar, eyes swiveled toward the ballgame, passing the time companionably. Others are cozied into one of several horseshoe-shaped booths fit in a tight line right inside the bar, where they can keep an eye on the game and tuck into Taylor’s signature culotte steak at the same time.

For my father and many of his generation who came up in the working class, the ultimate dinner out was always a hefty steak, preferably a porterhouse, charred rare, with a baked potato and all the fixings. That was living large, and Taylor’s would definitely fit the bill.

He didn’t like pretension or waiters fussing. He just wanted his food served promptly by someone he could joke and feel comfortable with. He would have loved the veteran waitresses at Taylor’s, who call everybody Honey and Sweetie and don’t have an ounce of ‘tude. These ladies aren’t waiting for the next casting call or intent on making an impression on clients in the business. At Taylor’s, it’s all about having a good time.

This year, in fact, the restaurant becomes one of L.A.’s oldest as it celebrates its 50th birthday. Founded by “Tex” Taylor in 1953, the steakhouse’s formula has hardly changed a hair through the years. In 1972, Times restaurant critic Lois Dwan described Taylor’s philosophy as “buy the best and cook it simply.” The menu, she wrote, is “scored in the key of beef, which is all Eastern prime -- steaks, roasts, short ribs, brisket, sirloin tips, etc.” And dinners, with soup or salad -- still the format today -- cost $3.25 to $6.50. Now, the range is more like $15.95 to $26.95. Back then, the restaurant had a phenomenal wine list of Bordeaux and Burgundies, many from fabled vintages. But that ended years ago, once wine buffs discovered it and cherry-picked what was left. Today, there’s also a second branch, in La Canada Flintridge, where Bruce Taylor, the owner and Tex’s son, lives.

I love taking people to Taylor’s for the first time, especially those who have suffered through the worst of the trendy places with me. Here, no one agonizes over whether what they’re wearing will pass muster, or has to gird themselves in social armor before venturing inside. Taylor’s is as comfortable as an old pair of jeans. The minute they walk in the door and are seated in one of the comfortable, splendidly retro red vinyl booths with extravagant ruching around the top, I can see them relax and shrug off the day’s frayed indignities.

I watch as they look up at one of the down-to-earth waitresses expectantly. “A Manhattan?” she might repeat. “How do you want that, Honey? Maker’s Mark? You’ve got it.” When it comes, it’s the real thing (somehow I don’t think this is the place to ask for a green apple martini). And it’s only $4.50, instead of the $12 you pay to drink in trendier places.

You want to split a Molly salad? No problem. Our waitress, Doris of the long, slender gams, arrives with it already divided onto chilled glass plates. And when she realizes there won’t be enough grilled prawns in one order for everybody at the table, she takes it upon herself to double the order. Nothing is ever a problem at Taylor’s. The waitresses couldn’t be more accommodating or cheerful. I suspect it’s because the customers hardly ever complain: The food is always as advertised, and the prices are affordable.

Those grilled prawns, for example, are big and delicious, served with little crocks of drawn butter, like poor man’s lobster.

The straightforward menu includes a handful of other appetizers. Don’t expect innovation, but do expect consistency. The garlic bread is more like scratchy toast without the emphatic taste of fresh garlic. The garlic quotient is so muted, in fact, that it’s more like a faint dusting of garlic powder.

The Molly salad is named after a longtime waitress no longer here. It’s a wedge of iceberg lettuce with diced tomatoes, sweet onion and about as much dressing as can possibly fit between the leaves and over the top. It’s drowning in the stuff, but it is such a beguiling mix of blue cheese, creamy blue cheese dressing and vinaigrette that somehow most of it disappears, maybe because it has an elusive taste of the salads of our childhoods, but better. It’s kind of astonishing that a salad this generous is just $4.50.

Oddly, there’s also a London broil appetizer: a few fingers of the rosy pink beef in its juices, with a little container of creamy horseradish sauce.

Stick to the formula

Everybody’s steak dinner comes with soup or salad, so ordering extra appetizers may be overkill. If you opt for soup, it may be chicken noodle with a tangle of firm noodles, diced chicken and threads of celery. Shades of school lunches, with a texture about as thick as the usual clam chowder. Navy bean soup served up one night drinks in the bacon’s smokiness with beans cooked so long they dissolve into a delicious sludge. If this isn’t comfort food, I don’t know what is.

The beef is billed as prime or certified Angus, but the menu skirts the issue by not identifying which is which. The consensus easily seems to be that the porterhouse T-bone is the best cut. It’s not he-man thick or heavily marbled, but the flavor carries a finish, and it’s always expertly cooked, like all the steaks here. I like the Delmonico, which is available on special occasionally, better than the regular New York cut, but the bone and its size command the highest tariff here: $34.95. At that price, I might expect the steak to stand out more.

The culotte steak is impressively thick, truly a piece of meat to sink your teeth into, but leaner, and therefore less fatty than either the porterhouse or the New York. I ordered mine charred, medium rare one night, and got just that.

Sometimes there might be a fine roasted tri-tip, sliced and fanned out on the plate in its own juices. In addition to the London broil, you can get a sirloin pepper steak in a powerful cracked black peppercorn and cream sauce. Prime rib is decent too, especially if you order the extra cut prime rib, three fingers high.

For an impressive $8.50, you can order a burger made from the day’s steak trimmings. The meat is firmer and more flavorful than most burgers, and certainly leaner. The bun, however, is a little cottony, and the square of yellow cheese melting on top is pure Americana. Oh, that $8.50 includes fries.

The baked potato is fine-textured, not the size of a football, and comes with sour cream in the pleated paper cup with a few sliced scallions mixed in. Cottage fries are tempting too, like thick, homemade potato chips. Oh, and everybody gets a little dish of cauliflower in cheese sauce or some frozen peas.

Like most steakhouses, desserts are beside the point. Only two, in fact, are made here -- the apple pie and the creme brulee. The pie has a short, crumbly crust that shatters the minute you put your fork to it and a sweet, old-fashioned filling of thinly sliced apples scented with cinnamon. Creme brulee is just as straightforward, half an inch of custard with a crackling, burnt sugar crust. Oddly, it’s served warm all the way through, so you don’t get the beautiful contrast between cool custard and warm, caramelized sugar, which is the whole point. You could go with the purchased New York-style cheesecake, served plain. Or a scoop of ice cream that, just like the old days, is not house-made. Leave that to the fancy places, my father would say.

He never ate desserts anyway. He just lighted up a cigarette.

*

Taylor’s Prime Steaks

Rating: * 1/2

Location: 3361 W. 8th St., Los Angeles; (213) 382-8449.

Ambience: Dark, clubby, old-fashioned steakhouse with red vinyl booths and motherly waitresses. Fifty years old this year, Taylor’s draws everyone from college kids and hipsters to police officers and octogenarians for its moderately priced steak dinners.

Service: Unpretentious and friendly.

Price: Dinner appetizers, $3.75 to $12.95; steak dinners with soup or salad, $15.95 to $26.95; prime hamburger, $8.50; specials, $14.95 to $20.95; desserts, $4.95.

Best dishes: Grilled prawns, Molly salad, navy bean soup, burger made from steak trimmings, Porterhouse steak, cottage fries, tri-tip, pepper steak, bone-in prime rib, London broil, apple pie a la mode.

Wine list: Modest and middle of the road. Corkage, $10.

Best table: The horseshoe-shaped booth at the left front of the dining room.

Special features: Private dining room and an upstairs dining room with its own bar.

Details: Open for lunch Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Dinner Monday through Thursday, 4 to 9:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday till 10:30 p.m.; and Sunday till 9:30 p.m. Full bar. Valet parking, $3.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.