knife - the highland hotel

three of us had a business meeting over breakfast at knife.

the food was good, but the menu was limited and most items were meat oriented.

two of us has eggs, bacon (they were out of sausage) and toast. all good, just limited in selection.

the third had an off-menu bowl of fruit which was very good, and fresh.

verygoodservice and a quiet atmosphere for discussion

was in town for 1 night, nothing but steak houses in this city. however, due to the proximity to our hotel and recent esquire article, i gave it a try. wow, glad i did. sat at the chef's counter. service was excellent. food was too. they have lots of side dishes that are quitegoodand enough choices of different things that you don't feel like you're at a typical steak house. great vibe too. highly recommend!

mistakenly came for the appetizers. bacon, uni, bone marrow- 1/5 (only 1 bone, bone marrow rendered so it's just grease mixed w/ bacon bits with hot, fishy uni on top)
open-face beef cheek sandwich- 5/5 (incredible meat but sauce was a bit too heavy)
avocado fries- 4/5 (avocado seems to be unseasoned which baffles me)
tuna tartar- 5/5 (verygoodseasoning, oddly served with a big piece of bread that tasted like naan but thinner)
cocktails- 3/5 (mostly uninspired but margarita was surprisingly good)
the appetizers appear to be grossly overpriced for the quantity/quality. the bone marrow dish was the most expensive one i have ever bought and the worst one i have ever had, and i honestly had extremely high hopes. it didn't even come with a piece of bread, i guess you eat the greasy bacon directly with a spoon...??
i will not make a judgement about the place as a whole because some items aregoodand some are bad. maybe i should stay away from appetizers and focus on the meaty main courses.
fyi- you can criticize online reviewers all you want but i eat at all the best restaurants in in texas and colorado and here i have analyzed each dish separately and with complete integrity. every dish seemed to have a flaw although some were overlooked because other elements in the dish were so good. the beef cheek i wish i had one right now but nothing else that i experienced would i look forward to in the future. the avocado fries were decent but portobello fries at villa-o or libertine blow them out of the water. we also had a few salads that i didn't mention because they weregoodbut nothing memorable. after coming here i suspect that many of the criticisms of knife are completely warranted.


-----02 sep, 2014-----

sous vide beef cheek open faced sandwich with morel mushroom gravy. the meat is so tender it's amazing but the "gravy" it a bit too heavy and sweet

my first official trip to knife was mostly agoodexperience. all of the food was great, with the exception of the chuck flap. our waitress was very attentive and was very informative when we asked questions regarding the menu, but i wished that we would have received our sides at the same time as we received our steaks. the dining room is very appealing to the eye, but the chair i had could have used a little higher back to make it more comfortable for men that are 6'5" like myself. the tables at knife are large and perfect for sharing large plates with your dining partners, but their length makes it hard to carry on conversations. despite a few minor glitches on this visit, i think knife is a very nice addition to the dallas steakhouse scene and it's menu is unlike any other steakhouse in dfw. i believe that tesar has another winner in knife!