Great service and decent food at the Bourbon Grill
One of Santa Fe’s newer restaurants, Bourbon Grill offers a nostalgically classic steakhouse experience. Friends and I came once for appetizers and then again for full dinners. Each time, the service was exceptional and the food, while nothing to rave about, was well prepared and presented as advertised. The menu struck me as generic American; the owners of Bourbon Grill could take this concept anywhere in America without changing a thing.
The restaurant occupies the spot held by The Steaksmith for many years and, like The Steaksmith, specializes in meat. The menu includes lobster and crab legs but, since the “market price” turned out to be around $60, we didn’t try them. Yikes!
The establishment includes a large, quiet dining room with white tablecloths, and a large bar area with muted televisions and a more casual vibe and menu. One of the best things about Bourbon Grill is the view you enjoy as you walk from the restaurant back to your car. The lights of Santa Fe and Los Alamos twinkle below you.
In the bar, we sampled appetizers, all of which were good. But the best part of that experience was dessert, a wonderful crème brûlée ($8), one of the best I’ve ever had. This classic French treat arrived with the crisp sugar top still warm and, beneath it, a rich custard that was just sweet enough. The chocolate mousse ($7) was close to perfect, too, with the added bonus of bits of unmelted chocolate to give it an interesting texture. I’d go back to Bourbon Grill for these two dishes on their own!
The spring rolls ($8.95) were also excellent. Very fresh, light and pretty. Unlike eggrolls, these consist of raw veggies — cabbage, spinach, avocado, green onions and cilantro — wrapped in rice paper and served with a bit of Asian chili sauce. From the dining room menu, we also tried oysters on the half shell. At our request, the kitchen served up two different kinds, large blue points and a smaller, saltier variety. They were fresh and beautifully presented on ice and a white, triangular plate ($14.95).
The Caesar salad ($9.95), despite its billing as “traditional,” lacked anchovies. Unfortunately, many restaurants consider this version, a plate filled with crisp romaine lettuce and croutons, to be a Caesar. I should have asked.
As if to make up for the salad, the nachos were loaded with toppings — tasty bits of steak, pinto beans, guacamole, cheese, sour cream and fresh pico de gallo on corn chips of three colors. At $11.95, this ample snack was a bargain. Easily sharable among four of us, this is one of the restaurant’s few nods to the Southwest, along with a chile-free veggie quesadilla. If you’re interested in dining in the bar, that menu includes other standards — fish and chips, burgers, shrimp tacos, a steak sandwich and more. Food prices top out at $12.95. Service was good-natured, efficient and informed
Different friends returned with me for dinner. They remembered the cheese balls from the Steaksmith days, so we ordered them as a starter. The serving consists of five balls topped with a light hollandaise sauce ($7.95). They were OK, but soggy rather than the crisp appetizer bites I recalled.
However, I loved the prime rib, available as a giant 20-ounce cut or a large 14-ounce slice ($21.95). Mine arrived rare, as requested, juicy and delicious with plenty of fat, which I could easily remove. My friends’ servings were leaner and smaller. My fellow diners asked for medium rare and theirs looked a bit undercooked to me, but they didn’t complain. The meat came with au jus and creamy horseradish sauce, and a large baked potato.
Before the meat, the waitress brought a basket of warm bread with butter and then our dinner salads. Although mostly lettuce, the salads included grape tomatoes, cucumber, carrot swirls and thin slices of red onion, everything wonderfully fresh.
We also sampled the shrimp scampi ($24.95). The five large, garlicky shrimp topped a nest of linguini tossed in a white wine sauce with a touch of lemon. For some reason, the kitchen served up the prime rib about 10 minutes before the pasta dish. We offered to share while our friend waited for his dinner to cook. Odd. The waitress apologized and gave my seafood-loving friend a free dessert. He picked strawberry cheesecake and the rest of us shared a piece of the bourbon pecan pie ($8) to keep him company. Both were OK, but a distant second to the mousse and crème brûlée.