Steak On A Stone

Place: Steak On A Stone
Website:  http://www.steakonastone.us/
Location: 145 Montrose West Ave. Copley, OH  44321 Google Maps

Quick Blurb

Although I wouldn’t go again, it is a fun place to eat. The food is of good quality and you definitely don’t leave hungry. I like the Greek dishes, and the place serves Mythos, so that’s just awesome. Personally, I find it to be more of a novelty restaurant – cooking a steak on a volcanic stone.

Review

Appearance/Atmosphere:

The entrance is welcoming and trendy. Once in, it looks like most other restaurants. Besides the cathedral ceilings, there isn’t much else to distinguish it; a little boring. There seemed to be an outdoor area, which was enclosed when we went, but that could be neat in the warmer months.           

Staff:

We were greeted promptly and politely. We had reservations and they quickly found our name and sat us. Nothing special.

Out waitress, while friendly, was a little flighty. She started the conversation stating that she only got a 10% tip from her last table – I found that to be an interesting opening comment. She acted a little robotic; staring off into the distance while reciting lines. In fact, it was so programmatic, she started blurting off the wrong set of lines and had to restart, as if she was given the wrong tele-prompt. This takes away from the personal touch.

As if to make up for the lack of personal touch, the manager/owner came by to ask us how everything was going. He went on to give his spiel on the concept of the restaurant – as if we couldn’t figure that out already seeing as though we were halfway through our main course. He proceeds to give us his positive spin on it “A chef’s definition of medium, my definition of medium, and your definition of medium are all different. This way, you cook it exactly how you want it”. Well, that’s just great. You save money on not having cooks around and I get to pay to cook my own meal….I’ll continue my comments later on in the main meal review…

Meal:

Appetizer:

We started off with the Greek fried cheese and fresh bread. This was delicious. Four of us had been to Greece recently and this brought back memories. The flavour was intense and addicting. Everyone else at the table were fans of it as well. Fried cheese – what more could you ask for?

Entrée:

So basically, the process of the main course is as follows:  you choose a meat (beef, chicken, veal, pork, seafood) and a choice of a multitude of sauces and sides. There was a lot of decision making to be done and I got confused and exhausted by all of the possible combinations (there are a lot!). I can appreciate trying to please everyone, but I like to be given a “recommended combination” and then I can alter it if I so choose.

I got the filet mignon and the shrimp, with sides of sweet potato fries. I honestly can’t tell you what sauces I got, because I ended up getting 6 different sauces and even a few extra (thank you waitress). All of them went well with the beef and shrimp.

The food was of good quality. The beef was fresh and looked good. They serve it to you already cooking on the stone and they proceed to give you a talk about they put salt on the stone to help it not stick (which the waitress told us that wasn’t true and it sticks anyway). She flips it once and then it’s yours to finish.

I like my steak rare. By the time I got the steak in front of me, it was cooked how I wanted it. However, my plate is a 750* volcanic rock, with two spots on either side, one with raw shrimp and the other with fries. So as I eat and my steak, it continues to cook through to medium and medium well and finally well done. Coming back to the manager’s comments on how fantastic it is that I can cook my steak how I want to, that’s a joke. I wanted to cook it to rare and got well done in the end. Frustrating.

I would like to interject that even though it managed to cook all the way to well done, it was not because I was busy talking. In fact, I hardly looked up to have a conversation. 1)  Because my meat was cooking so fast and 2)  Everyone else’s meat was cooking fast, they were busy eating quickly as well. Whether you're there on a birthday celebration or a simple date, conversation is fun to have at restaurants - this place took it away.

Drinks:

Mythos was flowing…

Overall Experience

As I said in the beginning – it’s a novelty meal. The food is good quality, but you ruin it by cooking it too much, which is rather sad. The robotic waitress and the laughable justification comment of the owner/manager were annoying. I’m still at shock that someone actually proposed at this restaurant that night (Valentines day weekend – and no, we went as part of a friend’s birthday). Give it a go if you know what people talk about when they say cooking meat on a stone, but there are better options out there.