Last month, Cindy and I were getting ready to celebrate our wedding anniversary (18 years!) and we decided to take a long weekend to go somewhere to get away for awhile. We contemplated going to Chicago (Cindy had just been in Chicago and I go there a lot for business), Minneapolis and Kansas City (too far of a drive - at least too far of a drive that I wanted to make), St. Louis or Indianapolis (I had been to both those cities just days before). We ended up deciding on going out to Omaha. Now, I like Omaha and it's a little over a 4-hour drive across the state of Iowa. I used some of my Hilton points to get us a room at the Embassy Suites in the Old Market arts and entertainment area in downtown Omaha. And for our celebratory dinner for our anniversary that weekend, we went to one of the more famous steakhouses in town, Omaha Prime.
Restauranteur Mahood "Mo" Tajvar opened Omaha Prime in the Old Market 17 years ago this year. It has been one of the "go-to" destinations in Omaha for power dinners for titans of industry and special occasions for locals and out-of-towners alike. And in a city that has some pretty damn good steakhouses, Omaha Prime is generally regarded as the gold standard for their meat, service and decor.
We had arrived on a Friday afternoon and were walking around the Old Market after we had checked into the hotel. I pretty much knew that I wanted to eat at Omaha Prime the next evening and we were walking near the restaurant. I told Cindy that I wanted to go and make a reservation for Saturday night, just to make sure that we would be able to get in to eat at a respectable hour. (Creighton University was also holding their commencement ceremonies the next day and I figured that restaurants would probably be packed.) We made our reservation for 7 p.m.
After a day of driving and hiking through the Loess Hills region in Western Iowa, we got cleaned up and made the short walk from our hotel to Omaha Prime. (see map) The same young lady that took our reservation the previous day greeted us at the hostess stand. The first floor room at Omaha Prime is pretty small and there is a small sidewalk seating area out front that we agreed that we would never want to sit in. The main dining room is upstairs. And there's no elevator to the second level, so if you have trouble getting up stairs or are handicapped, you're pretty much sentenced to eat in the small dining area on the first floor. (Restrooms at Omaha Prime are also on the first floor, so if you have to go during dinner it's quite a hike to and from the restrooms.)
We were led to a table in the main dining room (there was a dining room with a bar in the other area) on the second floor. The dining room featured subdued lighting with artwork on the earth- tone walls. Frankly, I was sort of surprised that the place was less than half-full at 7 p.m. considering all that was going on in Omaha that day.
As we were looking through the menu, our server for the evening, Terry, came over to great us. Terry was an interesting guy. With his white waiter jacket, somewhat wild hair, big glasses and sort of scattered manner, he looked more like an absent-minded professor than a waiter. He reminded Cindy and I both of someone who we couldn't quite place. He was a likable enough fella, but he did seem a bit out of place for Omaha Prime. (It turned out that Terry had been a veteran of fine dining serving for over 15 years. He previously had been at Passport, an upscale Old Market restaurant that was also owned by Mo Tajvar. Passport closed last year and Terry came over from there to Omaha Prime.)
Terry asked us if we wanted anything to drink and Cindy ordered an amaretto sour. I told him that I was going to look through the wine list to see if there was anything that tripped my trigger to go with our dinner. After he left, Cindy was amazed I didn't order a beer before dinner. She cringes sometimes when I order a beer in a fancy place.
Looking through the wine list, I thought the prices were actually pretty good. They had a Franciscan cabernet for under $50 a bottle. But what caught my eye was the Catena malbec from Argentina - also priced under $50 a bottle. I also saw that they had it by the glass. When Terry came back with Cindy's drink, I apologized and told him that I wanted to get a glass of the Catena malbec. He said it was no problem. I wanted to give it try to see if it would be good to go with our dinner.
Omaha Prime is a lot like other upscale steakhouses in that they bring a meat tray to the table to show diners what they have available that evening. Terry brought over the tray and showed the usual cuts - tenderloin filet, porterhouse, ribeye, strip - but he said he also had a t-bone available that evening along with a bone-in filet. Cindy was sort of interested in the lamb chops that were on the menu. But once Terry mentioned the bone-in filet, he had her.
I was sort of torn between the strip or the regular filet. The porterhouse was a 24 ounce cut with both the strip and the filet. I thought, "What the hell!" That's what I ended up ordering - rare plus.
For sides, they have a number of things to choose from including sauteed mushrooms, creamed spinach, Brussels sprouts with bacon, a huge baked potato, sweet potato fries, and sort of their signature side - blue cheese potatoes. And they're all served family style at Omaha Prime. I definitely wanted to try a taste of the potatoes, but I knew they'd be so rich that we couldn't finish them all. But the mushrooms were calling my name, too. And Cindy was sort of set on getting the creamed spinach. So we ordered all three.
For starters, they had a number of salads and soups (as well as appetizers). Cindy was sort of looking at getting the lobster bisque that they serve in a puffed pastry. But she ended up getting the Caesar salad. They had something called the Thunderbird salad at Omaha Prime. I asked Terry what that was all about and he said, "It's a bed of greens mixed with chopped tomatoes and some other stuff." In other words, he didn't really know. Still, I told him I'd give it a try.
And I did like the Catena malbec. Terry had poured me a glass out of a new bottle. Once it opened up, it had a great taste with a full body. I ordered a bottle for us when we ordered our dinners.
The salads came out first and they were pretty nondescript. Cindy's Caesar salad was pretty basic, but came with a handful of homemade croutons. Curiously, a lemon wedge came with the salad. She said, "I've never had a lemon wedge with a Caesar salad before. This is kind of interesting."
My Thunderbird salad was pretty much what Terry said it would be - a bunch of mixed greens, chopped tomatoes, some shredded cheese and a special "Thunderbird" dressing that was oil-based. It was all right, but nothing spectacular for $8.95. Actually, I was sort of perplexed about the Thunderbird salad.
It turns out that the Thunderbird is sort of a well-known salad in the Omaha area. Now, I've been eating at steakhouses in Omaha since the mid-80's and I had NEVER heard of or even seen a Thunderbird salad on a menu before this visit to Omaha Prime. Back in the early 60's, Peruvian-born chef Luis Villamonte came up with the salad and a homemade dressing at the Happy Hollow Country Club in Omaha. Moving around to other restaurants in the area, he took the Thunderbird salad with him. Today, the Thunderbird Salad is a trademarked name owned by Villamonte's son, Steve, who owns Villamonte's Cuisine - a local catering company. In fact, in order to have a Thunderbird salad on the menu, the restaurants have to buy the "Thunderbird Dressing" from Villamonte. I guess Thunderbird Dressing is available at a lot of places in Omaha from other restaurants to grocery stores to gourmet food shops. But I'd never known about it before. To me, it isn't anything to specifically seek out.
It was time for the steaks and the sides. Our steaks looked pretty good, but I was sort of intrigued by Cindy's bone-in filet. There wasn't much of a bone on the steak. Usually, I'll see bone-in filet's with a large bone around the meat. This one had a little bone toward the back of the filet.
My porterhouse was big, but it wasn't as thick as I remembered seeing it on the meat tray. It nearly covered the whole plate. The first cut into the filet side showed that it was cooked a perfect - for me - rare plus. It was tender and flavorful without any hint of a seasoning. There were grill marks on the one side and when I turned it over to get at the strip side of the porterhouse, there was none. They cooked it very quickly on the underside of the steak to make it rare plus. But they did it right. However, I can't say that there was really anything outstanding about the steak. It was a good USDA Prime Beef steak, but one that you can get from a dozen other places in Omaha.
Since the sides came family-style, we had a shitload of food on our table. The mushrooms were sauteed in a soy sauce giving them sort of a salty flavor. I don't know if I cared for the soy sauce saute on the mushrooms, but they were good enough to go along with my steak. Cindy even tried some, which I thought was remarkable for a person who doesn't care for mushrooms. We finished about half the dish by the end of the meal.
The blue cheese potatoes were nothing more than taking a baked potato, cutting it into cubes, adding blue cheese that would melt during the warming process, and then adding some herbs before mixing it all together. As I predicted, it was very rich, but it didn't taste too bad. I had them all to myself as Cindy has been eschewing potatoes as part of the diet she is on. Quite honestly, I think I only took three or four bites before I ended my dinner.
And Cindy's creamed spinach was the smallest serving of the three sides we got. She offered me a bite and they were all right, but nothing to write home about.
I was stuffed and about ready to pop after I finished the last bite of my steak. When Terry came back to start clearing dishes away, I told him to get rid of the blue cheese potatoes and the mushrooms before I ate anymore. We were sitting there letting our meal settle when Terry came back with the check. Cindy looked at him funny and said, "Wait a minute. Don't you have dessert and coffee?"
Terry sort of verbally fumbled and said, "Well, yeah, but you said you were stuffed and I figured you were done."
Cindy admonished him. "Maybe HE'S full," she said pointing at me. "But I'm interested in the dessert."
Terry began to become a little flummoxed at that point and he then told us about three or four desserts - I think he told us the same one twice, actually. He mentioned that he had a frozen key lime pie that was made by a retired dentist whose hobby was to bake desserts. "A dentist baking sugary desserts," Terry chuckled. "There's something wrong about that." Cindy ordered a piece of the key lime pie and two forks.
The small piece of key lime pie was surrounded with a raspberry drizzle with a tuft of whipped cream topped by a raspberry. The pie tasted funny - Cindy thought it was freezer burned. It did sort of taste like that. We weren't impressed with the key lime pie. "You've made better key lime pies at home," Cindy said. And she was right. It wasn't very good.
We had talked about getting an espresso, but decided to go grab one from one of the coffee houses that dotted the Old Market area. It was a lot of food and we were done.
My impressions of Omaha Prime - it was expensive, way over $200 bucks with a tip. The steaks were good, not outstanding. The sides were all right, but, once again, not outstanding. The salads were "meh!". The key lime pie was a throw away. And Terry's service was a little choppy, but he did all right. He was a little mentally scattered working with other tables in addition to ours. I can think of two or three other steakhouses in the Omaha area that I probably like more than I did with Omaha Prime. I can't really complain about anything specifically, but none of what we experienced was truly outstanding like we thought Omaha Prime would be.
I think your review of Omaha Prime is spot on. I've always thought it was good, but not outstanding. it's not as good of a value as other steak places in the area and definitely not the best in Omaha.
Posted by: Sherman Richards | May 30, 2014 at 10:55 AM