SueZ: And our money . . . so don’t get all money snobby.

Jon: There’s really no point in ordering the sides at Murray’s. I’m sure the caesar salad was about the only really edible thing. Perhaps that’s not fair. Everything was edible — in a 1950’s out of the can, powdered au gratin, hyper-saliferous way. Actually even the steak was pretty damn salty.

SueZ: I’ve got nothing against salty steak, it should be noted. Though we didn’t try any of them, I suspect that there was probably a decent dessert option on the menu. How bad can you screw up cheesecake?

Jon: This whole sides problem was pretty damn funny too, and practically unacceptable.

Jon: Except that this place is a fricken institution. For example, we were given a basket of “bread items” for the table with our before-dinner martini (PERFECT!) and wine. God only knows why there was a giant shopping-mall pretzel at the bottom of this basket full of Salted Salty-Toast Rounds and Triple-Salt Salted Rolls. The toasts would also appear as the basis for our multi-cultural “bruschetta” appetizer. Hard enough to double as air-hockey disks, these little bastard toasts were quite a bit sturdier than required to support the three various toppings: “Classico” was the most edible, consisting of fresh mozzarella, a basil leaf, and 1/2 a definitely-not-fresh-roasted roma tomato; “Napoli” paired rustic, whole-from-the-jar artichoke hearts, and the kind of Parmesan cheese you’d get in a big bag from Sam’s Club — quite nearly impossible to bite into without catapulting the tough ‘choke and a spray of cheese at neighboring diners; and “Picante” which I didn’t try due to an allergy to uncooked avocado (the pico de gallo looked freshly opened though).

SueZ: I don’t think they actually intended us to eat anything from the bread basket. Thinking back, I don’t think anyone else did and I’m pretty sure that we gave ourselves away as virgin Murray’s diners by even thinking about eating any of that stuff, let alone actually trying it. To be fair, I don’t think either of us tried the salty salt rolls and at least for my part, I was too confused to try to mall pretzel.

SueZ: Okay but the “bruschetta” what the heck was that about? It should have had a different name–maybe tomatoes and stuff on stale toasts? Yeah, that probably wouldn’t entice anyone to order it. The avacado ones were pretty tasty but not even remotely bruschetta. I was all set to cut them some slack and looked up the definition of bruschetta–it’s basil, cheese and tomatoes on toasted bread with garlic, olive oil and a little salt and pepper.

Jon: The people dining around us, I would imagine, may not have minded the over-saltiness. It was the kind of crowd for whom sodium intake isn’t really an issue these folks have access to the finest blood pressure medicine modern science has to offer.

SueZ: This begs a side story about the folks in the booth to my right. It was clearly a dad and his 2nd (or 3rd) wife. But it was totally unclear which of the younger couple was the dad’s progeny. I voted for the girl based on her appearance compared to the dad. Of course, the guy’s behavior indicated that he was probably the child. He was so full of himself and not afraid to show it. So, maybe I’m wrong. Oh, and the 2nd wife, she sat quietly all evening. Just like 2nd wives are supposed to.

Jon: We both had the 8oz filet. Of course, the show-stopper at Murray’s is the Butter-Knife which we could have split, but the filet is what i always prefer to order as a measure of the place. Murray’s fillet measured LONG, WIDE, LARGE, and GREAT. I think it was pretty much the best filet I’ve ever eaten, if not the best steak period. Except for being too salty. It was saltier than I’d have salted it myself, and that didn’t allow me to even pepper it, since that would have ruined it I think.

SueZ: Yeah, I’d 2nd that. That steak was amazing. We should have completely skipped sides and gotten 2 filets and a butter knife. That would have made me soooooo happy. Next time, okay?

Jon: I wish I had pictures. But the place was far too incandescently dark.

SueZ: Did you even have your camera with you? It would have amused and mortified me if you’d tried to take some snapshots of the meat. And while we were at it, some pics of the mirrored walls with the heavy pink drapes would have been awesome.

Jon: The music was really great too: two guys in black-on-black vest and shirtsleeves, one on violin, the other on piano. You have to hand it to them, the swank cocktail renditions of “Bali Hai”, “Open Arms”, and “Wind Beneath My Wings” were spotless.

SueZ: Oh c’mon, you’re totally underplaying the fabulousness that was the musicians. The violin guy would leave the stage periodically and go play something sappy tableside. I wonder who you had to tip to make that happen. And I wonder what his range was. After the Journey started, I began wanting to request all of the great old tunes from my roller rink days. Like, why didn’t he play 99 Red Balloons??

SueZ: I think we need to mention that we saved our dessert course for Corner Table–which isn’t a steak place. They did have a flat iron on the menu last week but we opted for the semifreddo and the chocolate cake with homegrown cherry topping.

SueZ: I think the moral of the story is there are some places where you’ll have a well rounded, tasty dining experience and others that do one thing better than anywhere else and are okay with the rest of their fare being simply okay. Murrays is the latter and damn, their steak is good.