Metroprime, Birmingham, AL – AVOID THIS PLACE
There are establishments that elevate the genre of the “steakhouse”, and then there is Metroprime. The hype in this instance does not match the quality of food. A good indication is the vibe from the locals, which all said was pricey and that they had heard mixed reviews. Unfortunately, I found this out AFTER my meal…when I was trying to fill my belly with something worthwhile before I headed back to my hotel. I always believe in starting off with the positives before delving into all the dreary, horrible, no good, very bad details. Here we go:
Service: We arrived a half hour early for our reservation and they still sat us right away. The caveat is that it was a Monday night. There are excellent servers for water, bread, table runners, and a “main” waiter. All very attentive and polite. Polite is a backwards description in this case. It must be difficult to recommend items on a menu that you know isn’t very good. However, when asked, we were told specific items were “very good”. It’s not their fault.
Atmosphere: Brick, red glass lighting fixtures and black tablecloths/napkins. Simple but typical steakhouse motif. I know that a restaurant is lacking for space when my fiancée tries to engage couples sitting near us in conversation. Such was the case in our semi-cramped booth & chair row seating. There were a few four-tops that came in after us where I watched the patrons pull their tables away from other diners. It can get tight.
Menu: Typical steakhouse menu items, but lacking Prime New York Strip. Also, the dry aged steak that they seem to be so proud of was only offered in a Delmonico. We ordered anything that remotely stood out: bacon lollipops and Kobe lettuce wrap for appetizers. Ice block salads, beef wellington and their signature Metroprime steak for entrees, with sweet potato hash and lobster mac & cheese sides. Chocolate soufflé for desert.
Food: Bacon Lollipops- If you could imagine putting a piece of unrendered fat at the end of a stick, you would be in the wonderland of Metroprime. It tempted many a table from the menu as I looked around the room, but alas, only one was eaten by the time the salads came. The hype exceeded the execution here.
Kobe Lettuce Wraps: Three small lettuce pieces with sliced WAGYU beef (almost fajita sizes slices) topped with peanuts, ginger, and Asian seasoning. Once again, this was not Kobe. What they don’t tell you is that all those seasonings are served in mayonnaise…a lot of it. If the “Kobe” is steakhouse worthy, why cover (suffocate) it with mayonnaise?
Ice block salads: Our favorite steakhouse staple! How can you go wrong with a double towered salad? Metroprime can unfortunately answer that question. The bacon should be crispy, but it was more like sliced ham. Croutons were miniscule and out of a box. The dressing lacked seasoning and was more like blue cheese and milk.
Beef wellington: After years of watching Gordon Ramsey beat down Hell’s Kitchen contestants for not cooking their wellingtons perfectly, I would say we were ready to experience a good encrusted piece of beef. Chef Ramsey would have thrown out the whole kitchen and shut the place down. Mushroom shabbily replaced the liver pate. The filet lacked any kind of seasoning and was not the tender piece of meat that should blossom out of that golden pastry shell. Oh, that poor pastry shell…pure mush, sitting on top of mushed potatoes.
Metroprime Cut- It’s a sirloin and supposedly their signature steak. The menu reads, “less tender than the filet, but makes up for in flavor”. Um, there is no flavor. It’s a tough piece of meat with no seasoning at all. It is grilled, not broiled. Any juice that might have been in the cut was completely cooked out. It is also not very big at $31 dollars a pop and served with steak sauce. If you must serve your signature steak with a pot of steak sauce, then maybe you should rethink it. Steaks shouldn’t need anything, especially at that price.
Sweet potato hash- Cubed sweet potatoes grilled up with some bacon pieces. Once again, nothing was seasoned and the bacon was undercooked.
Lobster Mac &Cheese- Noodles were rigatoni noodles. Doesn’t really work for macaroni & cheese…the “sauce” was oily and separated at the bottom of the crock. The two pieces of lobster had more cheese soaked in it than anywhere on the noodles.
Chocolate soufflé- We sent it back. Yes, we were THOSE people. In all honesty, our first clue should have been that no one said anything about the soufflé at any point in our meal. A good steakhouse with a good soufflé will showcase it somewhere at the start of the meal and let you know that if you want it, it will take about 25 minutes and to allow for time. We asked our waiter for it. He did inform us of the wait, but we were on the salads so it wouldn’t be a problem. It was deflated chocolate cake served with thickened whip cream. It actually looked like hard butter melting on a chocolate cake when our server pathetically proceeded through his tableside service. Yikes.
Please avoid this place. You will pay big bucks for food that will not impress you. You will long for a local diner or even an IHOP upon paying the bill.
-Sylvia Hurst
Recent Comments