Pacific Dining Car:

The plan was for Nat and I to cook Lisa dinner for her birthday. I was heading back East from the Umami Burger truck when I got a call that dinner was now downtown at Pacific Dining Car. I had never been to Pacific Dining Car but for some reason the name was familiar. The interior of the restaurant is the inside of a railroad car. Low ceilings, white table cloths, tuxedoed waiters, and wood everywhere. It’s awesome. You know right away the only thing to order is a steak.

We sat in the Huntington Room. I was late so they had already ordered me a Cowboy Steak, which is a “rib steak that comes with added flavor of the bone”. We all chose truffle butter as the topping for our steaks. The butter was about half the size of a hockey puck and delicious. The steak was great. Perfectly red and charred on the outside. This is exactly what you want when you are craving steak. The steak was good enough without the truffle butter, but when I smeared that black butter on top my mouth went nuts.

The side dishes were scalloped potatoes and creamed spinach. Both dishes were fine accompaniments to the steak but nothing to go crazy over. I have not been to many steak houses in my life but both sides seemed standard steakhouse material. I think both dishes can suffer from being incredibly a bland a complete afterthought. I guess it’s a way for steakhouses to get off easy.

For dessert we had a flour-less chocolate cake with whipped cream. Not whipped cream from a can but real whipped cream. We shared one for the table which was more than enough. The cake was so rich you only needed a bite and a half to be happy. As for the whipped cream, I could have eaten a whole bowl.

This was one of the better meals I have had recently. It was the first time I had a true steakhouse dining experience. It was the type of meal I expected to eat one day on an important business meeting. While I was eating I kept wondering what kind of clientele this place draws. Keep in mind this place is open 24 hours a day. It takes some serious bucks to eat here on a regular basis and this is nowhere near Beverly Hills. I kept thinking of the movie Collateral as I made each cut with my knife.