Steak Up At Bat

There’s been some confusion surrounding NYY Steak, the “recently opened” restaurant on the second floor of the new Yankee Stadium. It’s partly owned by the “Seminole Indians,” from Florida, who, as you probably recall, waged a series of wars led by Chief Osceola against the U.S. Marines in the 19th century and emerged victorious. The only tribe to “remain unconquered,” these savvy Americans “wrestled alligators” for money during the 1920s “Florida tourist boom,” and in 2007 they purchased the Hard Rock Café chain.

So to be clear: NYY Steak is in no way controlled by the “Cleveland” Indians, who have rarely waged “too much of a fight” since 1948 and, from what we’re told, are “frightened by salamanders.”

With designs on being a “game-changer,” NYY Steakhouse—a 110-seater, with dark wood floors, blue leather chairs and floor-to-ceiling windows providing a view of “The House that Ruth Built”—is one of several properties in the new Yankee Stadium, including a Hard Rock Café and Jimmy’s BBQ, sushi in the “food court,” corporate conference rooms and a Yankee “Museum,” that hopes to attract a clientele “year-round.” At NYY Steak’s opening day, we said, “play ball.”

For starters, it was the Chef’s Twist, a “pretzel” served with tongs on a ceramic plate shaped “like a baseball diamond,” alongside an “ambitious accompaniment” of mustard seed or cheddar cheese spread. “Pinstriped waiters” periodically reminded us that NYY Steakhouse water, “filtered five times” by a charcoal filtration system and served in glass bottles, is “green.”

We spoke to the “executive chef Jason Tilmann,” a Michigan native (the Yankees always lacked “home-grown talent”) who worked for David Burke and “appeared on Iron Chef.” He assured us that the steak is “all-prime beef” and aged for 21-28 days; the fish are caught with “lines, not nets”; and the crab-legs “hail from the Bering Sea.” The steak, he says, is every bit the equal of Peter Luger’s, because he buys it from the same wholesaler, although he told me “not to quote him on that.” When I asked Tilmann where “that wholesaler was located,” he looked at me as if I had “given him the bunt sign” with two strikes and two “outs.”

For appetizers, at our “pinstriped waiter’s urging,” we ordered the “Maryland” crab cakes, topped with a “bouquet of micro greens” and “sitting on a drizzle” of mustard sauce, dry and flaky enough to wish we were at Baltimore’s Camden Yards.

When the flagship “Prime NYY Steak Burger” arrived, we thought they had mistakenly “served us a batting helmet”—10 ounces of ground sirloin on a mega-bun with two slabs of bacon and cheese, enough carbs to “last until the trading deadline.” The Lobster Milanese, with lemon, capers and a spinach salad, was “a fried offering,” a reminder that we were on “River Avenue in the Bronx.”

Although the kitchen was slow, not unusual for the first day, the staff was attentive, knew how to “help a brother out,” and looked out for each other, reminding themselves on occasion that there is no “I in Steakhouse.”

As for the steak, well, the Porterhouse, all 28 ounces of it at $54.75, was “excluded from the media menu,” as was the Long Bone Ribeye ($47), but “Sal the Lawyer” next to us, who “knows from steak,” told us his porterhouse was “crunchy at the edges” and tender “in the middle,” a “delightful” assortment of textures and notes, and still “sizzling” from the broilers.
It’s early in the season, so it’s hard to imagine NYY Steak competing with the “venerable Luger’s” or even Ben & Jack’s, but “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over,” and who knows—it might get “so crowded that no one will ever come here.”

>NYY Steak
Gate 6 at Yankee Stadium
1 E. 161st St. (betw. River & Jerome Aves.), Bronx, 646-977-8325, www.nyysteak.com