Nick and Stef's Steakhouse

"Yeeeargggghhh...touchdown!" yelled the guy at the bar as J and I walked in to Nick and Stef's Steakhouse in our philharmonic-going finest. We were planning to grab a quick but elegant snack before taking in some Mahler at the Walt Disney Concert Hall--we'd forgotten the TVs in the bar at this downtown temple of beef, and didn't realize the ample bar menu doesn't exist on Saturday and Sunday nights.

Oh well. We had already parked in the bowels of the skyscraper, and the nearest alternative was much farther away than we wanted to walk in LA's bone-chilling (okay, 4o something degrees, but still!) cold. Twist our arm, we'll order off the regular menu and eat some meat. The dry-aged, midwestern corn-fed steaks here have nothin' on our recent Argentinian grass-fed behemoths, but J's petit filet mignon was more than passable. My tender, moist kurobata pork chop sat atop creamy, tangy not-from-a-can white beans and cubes of bacon and disappeared quickly, amid bites of our shared sides--creamed spinach (eh) and roasted new potatos (hard to go wrong).

The Nick and Stef's ideal, however, is a weeknight happy hour (warning: you may think you're in Washington, DC, what with all the white guys in blue button down shirts) -- bartenders here make a mean martini and the bar menu includes delish mini-hamburgers sold for song at $2.

NOTES: Don't be alarmed if your waiter brings you a bottle of sparkling water you didn't ask for. They don't charge ya for it (I don't know whatcha do if you like flat). Also, be sure to get your parking ticket validated, or you'll pay a ridiculous amount and feel like a dope. Not that I know or anything.

Fellow LA foodblogger, The Delicious Life, recently went to Nick and Stef's too.
Nick and Stef's Steakhouse
330 S. Hope St
Los Angeles, CA
213.680.0330