Meat Market

“It’s alive!” gasped a friend. What she was talking about was part of the menu offerings being presented to her at the new Morton’s of Chicago. One of the last things you expect to hear — or for that matter, want to hear — when you’re dining at an upscale steak house is that your meal-to-be is still on the hoof. But in this instance that was exactly the case … sort of. Perched on the cart of meats rolled from table to table to show just how fresh the Morton’s offerings are was a lobster that was very, very fresh indeed. So fresh that it could still eye the people who wanted to order it.

Seeing lobsters swimming in a tank is one thing; having one wave its rubber-banded claws at the edge of your table is something else again. Our waiter politely hedged our questions about how long the poor fellow had been subjected to the discomforts of being part of a food parade — do they give the display lobsters a break by rotating them back into the tank every half hour or so? We never found out. But believing in the moral merits of being acquainted with your food before you eat it, one of my tablemates resolved to order the baked lobster for dinner. He did, and was presented with a whole crustacean cut neatly down the center into two halves. Steamy tomato-red in color, the meat was perfectly soft but chewy, sweet but pungent, and fitly complemented by the saltiness of clarified butter. The lobster, we agreed, was great. But my companion never quite got over the feeling that he was making a meal of a friend.

Lobster issues aside, the tableside presentation is still an odd ritual, one that seems a step closer to the prosaic than to the luxury fostered by the rest of the Morton’s experience. Morton’s is one of those rare restaurants that create a feeling of immunity when you’re inside their walls; from the moment you’re there, you can join the beautiful people in imagining that all’s right with the world. Expensive prices abet this sense. So does the conservative atmosphere usually adopted by such restaurants: dim lighting, Sinatra crooning over the sound system, crisp white linens, dark wood, intimate, small-scaled spaces. Surveying my well-heeled fellow patrons at Morton’s recently — tables of women sporting frosted coifs, tables of men speaking businessese, a couple planning their wedding — I allowed myself to bask in the fantasy of privilege.

It was only on my second visit that I noticed that Morton’s has no windows. No unwelcome intrusion of the outside world at this establishment! When you enter the ground-level mahogany door and wend your way up a circuitous staircase toward Morton’s hostess stand, you’re entering a space seemingly designed for the express purpose of insulating you as much as possible from anything, and everything, unpleasant.

But then there’s that live menu tableau. It’s entertaining in a surreal but rather vulgar way to be presented with shrink-wrapped dolmens of raw meat, tree trunks of fresh asparagus and broccoli and uncooked tomatoes and potatoes that are roughly the size of softballs and footballs and instructed to make your menu choices from this bounty. For those of us short on memory, a card that recaps the simple, abbreviated menu is left at the table. Since Morton’s doesn’t offer half portions, I was dismayed to learn that the smallest steak available was a 14-ounce filet mignon. (Isn’t “14-ounce filet” an oxymoron?) But the real behemoth was a 48-ounce porterhouse, the Stonehenge of steaks, suitable for two (only two?) diners, we were told. At $59.90, it had better be suitable for two, I thought.

Of course, there are worse things than taking home leftovers from a restaurant, so why fight the Morton’s “more is more” mentality by ordering something like a virtuously broiled piece of fish? I went for the filet. In spite of the meat’s being more done than I usually prefer (I made the mistake of ordering my steak medium instead of medium rare), the filet was consummately tender and nicely charred. The accompanying barnaise sauce, sweet with tarragon, was just congealed enough to remind me of its heart-seizing levels of butter and egg yolks. Along with the steak, I ordered a baked potato that I would have loved to measure before my waiter squeezed it open. It must have been eight or nine inches long. The potato flesh was fluffy and arid, almost translucent, and brittle bits of potato skin chipped off as I ate it, signs that Morton’s baked potatoes are done the old-fashioned way — the right way — in that they’re actually baked rather than steamed in a foil jacket.

The Caesar salad was bravely ripe with anchovies, but it lacked sufficient garlic flavor, and the croutons hadn’t the charisma needed to make it truly memorable. The simple Morton’s salad, on the other hand — iceberg and romaine lettuces drenched with the all-American steak and salad accompaniment of roquefort dressing — has earned a place in my long-term memory. Certain green vegetables at Morton’s also stand out, if not always for reasons of culinary perfection. The steamed asparagus pears, for example, were a pretty shade of chartreuse that was a nice reminder that spring is in the air, but they were also disconcertingly large — almost freakish — and,

consequently, tough. Here, less would be more. The steamed fresh spinach, however, was buttery and delicate. Perfection.

An appetizer of sauteed wild mushrooms, however, excited: a jumble of portobello, shiitake, and oyster mushroom slivers tossed over a homemade, coaster-sized crouton that absorbed the excess juices, it was in turns bitter and woodsy, raw and earthy. But the starter to end all starters consisted of succulent, chubby, broiled sea scallops wrapped in bacon. The sweet and salt of this dish were a perfect complement, while the razor-sharp bite of the accompanying horseradish sauce nearly put the whole affair over the top … and that’s not a complaint.

While Morton’s of Chicago only made it to Houston a few months ago, the original restaurant is 18 years old. In 1978, Arnie Morton and Klaus Fritsch, who both hailed from families of restaurateurs, opened the first Morton’s in, of course, Chicago. They wanted to operate what they termed a “comfortable saloon,” and a steak house seemed the logical choice, given Chicago’s status as home to the nation’s largest stockyards. During the company’s nearly two decades of business, Morton’s has gone public and expanded to more than 30 locations nationwide. True to this capitalistic history, Morton’s sells as gift items a few of the trinkets that adorn each table: sets of oversized steak knives and a kitschy sleeping pig lamp made of pewter (it defies further description, but I’m already scoping out potential recipients on my Christmas list).

Those hefty knives are a reminder when you sit down that Morton’s is, first and foremost, a merchant of steaks and chops. They are used for everything. Though I found myself wishing for a more suitable butter knife when I was preparing to eat a wedge of the complimentary — and divine — onion bread, the steak knives did come in handy when it was time to pry open the lobster shell or coax bites of lamb chop off the bone. Those crusty lamb chops were served with an iridescent spoonful of mint jelly that tasted as bright as it looked. I almost didn’t need the knife, however, to consume what was the best piece of meat I’ve eaten in a long time: a 16-ounce Cajun rib eye. Cooked perfectly medium rare, its gritty coating of the dry seasonings imparted a scandalous amount of flavor to what is an incredibly juicy, tender steak. Yum.

The best chocolate dessert I’ve had in a long time also issued from Morton’s. Their chocolate velvet cake manages to find the perfect middle ground between decadence and restraint, avoiding the killingly dense texture that keeps so many chocolate-goo style cakes earthbound. This is dark chocolate for lovers of dark chocolate, and tempering its richness with bites of fresh whipped cream transports it to the realm of the sublime. I liked the leathery-on-the-outside, downy-on-the-inside lemon souffle, too, but found the accompanying sabayon sauce a weighty, cloying affair.

It’s also harder to transport leftover souffle home in a doggie bag. At Morton’s, they take that term literally by sending you home with a shiny foil sack that has the restaurant’s whimsical, dog-bone shaped logo emblazoned on the front. Emerging from the Morton’s cocoon into the orange glare of parking lot lights, firmly clutching my bag of goodies, I said to myself, “If this is a dog’s life, then I’ll take it.”

Morton’s of Chicago, Centre at Post Oak, 5000 Westheimer 629-1946.

Morton’s of Chicago: sauteed wild mushrooms, $7.95; lobster, $17.50 per pound; Cajun rib eye, $23.95; filet mignon, $28.95; chocolate velvet cake, $4.95.