I was recently in Chicago with the family, visiting some dear friends, and decided to eat some meat.

Gibson’s is a prototypical old school steakhouse, some would say “an institution”, the kind of place where framed portraits of celebrities are plastered over every inch of wall. This is your chance to eat at the same place where the guy who starred as the bitter paraplegic vet in Forrest Gump devoured a porterhouse. The restaurant is located just north of downtown Chicago at the epicenter (the “G spot”?) of an area known as the “Viagra Triangle”, named presumably because it’s where formerly virile captains of industry bring their silicon-enhanced, pre-fab trophy fillies (with whom they are cheating on their third wives with) to consume Cobb salads and long drink cocktails just prior to chemically enhancing their flaccid male appendages.

The night kicks off when the white-jacketed waitron—a pro’s pro, he’s been doing this his whole life—presents you with a slab of naked meat that’s nearly startling with its immensity and near-pornagraphic bravura. The meat parade is one of the odder steakhouse traditions. It is quite uncomfortable being presented with raw flesh, just inches from your face, while some stranger prods the tepid meat with his index digit. The spiel here is relatively short, straightforward and sticks to the script. Menus are dropped in quick order and drinks are dispatched. Service here consisted of several, interchangeable and well-oiled apparatus – brusquely appropriate and warmly efficient.

Bread is brought immediately.

Gibson’s raison d’etre. The steaks are wet aged, as opposed to dry.

The menus and wine menu. Like many images on this blog, clicking on them will allow the user to view a larger specimen.

We started with this “Crabmeat Avocado”. It was quite good–and expertly carved avocado half, inverted and topped with plenty of sweet crab meat, topped with a tangy goddess-like dressing.

A velvety-smooth lobster bisque and perfunctory caesar salad accompanied our steaks.

I got the bone-in tenderloin. Now, some may say this steak is burnt. I’m not going to go that far, but I will state the exterior char was nearing a level that I’m not normally comfortable with (but not quite).

The steak itself was cooked perfectly to the medium-rare I requested. It was a decent slab of meat, however it could have benefited from a bordelaise sauce, something to add flavor and richness. I’m not sure why I order tenderloin when I know it’s going to be, well, just tenderloin–a mostly flavorless cut, even when it’s prime beef.

And the tarragon-flecked hollandaise it’s served with is a cloying, middling affair.

This sirloin, served atop a red wine reduction, on the other hand, was packed full of flavor. This was excellent the next morning (with some leftover rice) for breakfast.

The sauteed spinach and mushrooms were really just spinach mostly wilted from the heat of the sauteed shrooms. Somewhat disappointing.

And this double baked potato was comically immense.

But really, what is better than fine red wine and fine red prime during a night on the town in the City of Broad Shoulders?

Yippee! Let’s get cake. This slice fed the three of us.

So we had to take the other 4/5ths back home to the fridge, where the cake will stand, uneaten for the most part, in prime real estate on the second shelf, slowly but surely mocking you as a reminder of all the bad decisions you’ve made in your life. This latest, cake-over-ordering episode is simply another instance.

Gibsons Bar & Steakhouse

1028 N Rush St, Chicago
(312) 266-8999
www.gibsonssteakhouse.com