Pine Club - Dayton, OH

Pine Club - Dayton, OH: We owe John Catt big-time. Mr. Catt is a Roadfood enthusiast who wrote us several months ago to describe an eating trip he had taken up the coast of Maine. He said that he had found both The Clam Shack of Kennebunkport and Flo’s Hot Dogs of Cape Neddick to be spectacular, an assessment that proved his credentials as a man of excellent taste. So when he went on to recommend a restaurant to us, we took his tip seriously.

The place he recommended was in Dayton, Ohio, named The Pine Club. In his words, it served “phenomenal steaks in a no-nonsense old world naugahyde-laden pine room. No credit cards, no reservations, just great meat and potatoes. Kind of a Gene and Georgetti's run by, well, people from Ohio! For my money, there is no better steak in the USA and, believe me, I've done the research!”

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Catt. We visited the Pine Club and sure enough, it turned out to be paradise for steak-lovers. A true Midwest supper club (open only in the evening, until midnight on weekdays, 1am on Friday and Saturday), this is a place to which people come for highballs at the bar and splendid cuts of beef at the table. You have your choice of filet mignon, porterhouse, or sirloin, each cut and aged on premises and cooked on a grill so the outside gets crusty dark but the inside is still bursting with flavorful beef juices.

Start with a plate of scallops: sweet, firm nuggets with a pale light crust and smouldery sea taste. Brilliant tartar sauce comes on the side. All meals are served with a basket of dinner rolls, and steaks come with a handful of onion rings and choice of potatoes that includes Lyonnaise: an eight-inch pancake of shredded spuds woven with veins of sautéed onion. As for salad, although a mesclun mix was added to the menu a while ago, the traditional Pine Club salad is iceberg lettuce – cold, crisp chunks served “red and bleu,” which is French dressing loaded with enormous clods of dry blue cheese.

Dessert? There is none. If you’re in dire need of something sweet and don’t necessarily want a high-proof libation such as a grasshopper or a Golden Cadillac, you can step outside and go next door to the Ben & Jerry’s store.