The little butcher shop and restaurant down Main Street in Fort Lee has a tiny parking lot and a minuscule sign that most passerby would miss completely unless they were trying to look for this hole in the wall. Prime and Beyond has been here since 2003, and easily rated one of the best steak houses in the area. With all the new commercial and residential development in town the past year, Fort Lee started their own little Restaurant Week to promote old and new restaurants. My wife and I made a reservation for a prix fixe dinner for two, at $30 each. My first worry about a low cost prix fixe from such a high end restaurant would be the small portions they would provide. Some of the best places serve an 8oz or less steak for over $45. Considering what we got on the menu, this was an incredible bargain.
His:
Beef Tartare, Wet Aged Ribeye 14oz Medium Rare, Soybean Paste Stew
Her:
Applewood Smoked Thick Bacon, Dry Aged NY Strip 16oz Medium Rare, Soybean Paste Stew
The atmosphere was a romantic, dim, and cozy spot, with sporadic flares of yellow light from the kitchen flames in the background. I appreciate the lack of loud music or ambiance like most New York restaurants. I guess this is Fort Lee, NJ after all. The first sight walking into the restaurant is the glass display of their amazing aged steak, it looks legit. If you love American grilled steak and Korean flavors, there is a bit of fusion going on here. While they don’t do anything to force the flavors together, they provide the Korean sauces if you’re in the mood. The beef tartare was on point, and the bacon was just fatty and crispy at the same time. My favorite cut is usually the ribeye because of its fattiness, but the New York Strip had an amazing nutty aged flavor that I’ve never tasted before and it was truly a new experience. Both cuts were cooked to perfection as ordered, medium rare. I think the ultimate compliment we could give about this dinner was that my wife asked me to give her my leftover steak to finish. If my wife looked displeased in the photo, it’s the exact opposite because she couldn’t comprehend how delicious the food was.
If you haven’t been to Prime and Beyond, I highly encourage you to treat yourself to an amazing steak experience.
Photos taken with an Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark II, Olympys 17mm f/1.8
