We’ve all been there: third date coming up, and you need that one final push to seal the deal. It’s time to bust out the steak. Now, we here at Brokelyn have felt your plight, especially when the check comes and you realize you’re in for a romantic walk home because you won’t be able to afford that cab home. You could make a steak at home, as this fine butcher will tell you, but sometimes it’s nice to have someone do the cooking for you. Yes, there are probably cheaper steaks in Kings County, but let’s save your poor date from grabbing steaks at that biker bar that grills on a sideways shopping cart. Negotiating the factors of romance and budget, here are our seven picks for where to go for the big third-date swing.
Northeast Kingdom
18 Wyckoff Avenue, Bushwick
Hangar steak with Kingdom Farm Mushroom Hash and Horseradish Hollandaise, $24
Northeast Kingdom in Brooklyn is famous for their farm-to-table-ness, making sure all of their ingredients are as fresh and locally-sourced as possible, so when they start serving a Hangar Steak for only $24, you know it’s going to be the good stuff. From Autumn Harvest Farms in New Hampshire and butchered in-house, this is a steak must-have for the Brooklyn locavore, and the Hollandaise sauce draped over it, along with the mushroom hash, don’t hurt either.
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Sunshine Co.
780 Washington Avenue, Prospect Heights
New York strip steak with potato aligot, spinach, and salsa verde, $24
Sunshine Co. in Prospect Heights is already earning itself a reputation for unique and inventive plays on traditional classics, and their treatment of the classic meat and potatoes keeps that streak alive. They cook up a New York Strip Steak to perfection, and serve it up with potato aligot (which is basically the ideal way to fuse mashed potatoes with copious amounts of cheese, which in this case is Cabot clothbound cheddar). This is served alongside some spinach and topped off with salsa verde, which is steak’s BFF in life. This steak is amazing and creative, but not too off-the-wall for the…well, meat-and-potatoes people.
The Rabbithole
352 Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg
Hangar steak with garlic butter, grilled broccoli with lemon oil, and fingerling potatoes, $20
The Rabbithole is a constant on the Williamsburg food scene: everything that comes out of this kitchen is as solid as when it first opened, and the steak here is no exception. The Hangar Steak comes draped in garlic butter as well (for some reason draping butter and garlic on stuff is getting popular), along with lemon oil, fingerling potatoes and grilled broccoli. Of course, Rabbithole is also famous for their brunch game, which also features a solid steak and eggs for only $13.
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St. Anselm
355 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg
Butcher’s steak with garlic butter, $16
This is probably one of the best secret-not-secret deals going on in W-Burg: for $16 you can get yourself a Butcher’s Steak at St. Anselm, the grill-master’s happiest place on Earth. The steaks here are all amazing, and priced very well for the quality, but the Butcher’s Steak is hands-down the best deal. It comes dressed with garlic butter, and while there’s no side, when that magical hunk of charred meat arrives, I don’t think anyone’s going to be complaining.
Do Or Dine
1108 Bedford Avenue, Bed-Stuy
Flank steak with queso tots, zucchini, and tzatziki, $24
The culinary nihilists at Do Or Dine serve up more than a few dishes that sound like the ravings of a mad food blogger, and while the frog legs in a Dr. Pepper glaze of the infamous foie gras donut might fall out of some people’s comfort zones, their flank steak focuses less on the zany technique and more on the solid quality of the ingredients. The flank steak comes with potatoes, carrots, and bulgogi sauce (think kimchee), and all under $25.
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Fonda
434 7th Avenue, Park Slope
Skirt steak with sweet corn mushroom sauce and green bean escabeche, $23.95
Fonda offers a lot of fantastic dishes of the latin persuasion, but when nothing but steak will do, they have you covered with their Skirt Steak with Sweet Corn Mushroom Sauce and Green Bean Escabeche. It seems that Mexico is onto something here too, since while the steak alone is drool-worthy, the addictive sweet corn-mushroom sauce is, well, icing on the cake doesn’t seem like the right expression, but you get the idea.
Mominette
221 Knickerbocker Avenue, Bushwick
Vegas strip steak with pomegranate reduction, provencal tomato, and frites, $23
When it comes to the quest for the perfect steak, the French have been tweaking and tinkering with their version, the Steak Frites, for generations. To see what they have discovered so far, check out Mominette, the French bistro-by-way-of-Bushwick, for their fantastic (and affordable) Vegas Strip Steak, which comes with a pomegranate reduction, provencal tomato, and of course, frites.
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Krolewskie Jadlo
694 Manhattan Avenue, Greenpoint
Hangar steak with sweet dark beer sauce, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach, $16
Of course, if your date is demanding a large chunk of meat (Hey-O!) and your first thought isn’t Krolewskie Jadlo, then you are horribly mistaken. This Polish haven for all things heart-attack-worthy serves up huge hunks of pork and giant fried potato pancakes, so you’d best believe they’d have a massive steak to match. This particular version, a big ol’ Hangar Steak, comes paired with a sweet dark beer sauce, mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. That’s right, steak with beer right on top. When I die at Krolewskie Jadlo, I will die happy.