The Unvegan

On Friday night, I was lucky enough to be invited to an all-expenses-paid dinner courtesy of the Chulews. We headed to a place in a strange part of town that isn’t quite West Hollywood and isn’t quite Beverly Hills called Cayenne Cafe. Not to be confused with the pepper or vehicle, Cayenne was a sort of upscale Middle Eastern restaurant with a side of steakhouse. Being Passover, I was a little bit limited by the menu, because I couldn’t get anything with pita. Fortunately, there was that whole steakhouse thing going on and I could take advantage of that.

I went with their Steak Bearnaise ($20), which was a top sirloin steak with bearnaise sauce, garlic herb fries and something ridiculous called haricots verts. I asked the waitress what this was and she told me it was green beans  Seriously? Then call them freaking green beans. Stop trying to trick me with your French shenanigans! And speaking of shenanigans, my water came to me with a slice of cucumber in it  Who wants cucumber in their water? I’d rather drink from the LA River. Fortunately, the water hadn’t yet been poured in the glass and the cucumber was just sitting on the ice. I carefully removed this intruder and went on with my life.

Oh, back to the steak. Once learning that the haricots verts were green beans, I was ready to order without except that the girlfriend volunteered to eat them. Well at least they wouldn’t be going to waste. My medium rare top sirloin didn’t take too long to arrive and looked monstrous. This thing was cut like a filet, but however it was cut, I was excited to get involved with it. I started slicing away and each time I cut a piece off, I felt the need to cut it again because of the size. What I tasted was a perfectly cooked steak. It was nice and juicy, and although tougher than a filet, it still had great flavor. The bearnaise sauce went great with the steak because it had a very subtle taste that complemented the meat rather than overwhelmed it like some sauces are known to do.

The fries were a delicious side and almost had a fast-food-like crispiness to them. This may sound bad, but think about eating McDonald’s fries with garlic and herbs you’ll find you’re in a pretty happy place.

So Cayenne done me good. The cucumber and fancy words for green beans were a little bit frightening, but they were overcome by a tasty steak at a good price. The fries made a great side and if they can cut down on their green shenanigans they could really go far.