Beef, two ways

By Paul Reidinger

BEEF (OR do I mean war?) is the American way, notwithstanding last winter's brief flirtation with mad cow disease. That little flare-up of bovine spongiform encephalopathy was the gastronomic equivalent of a spike in gasoline prices; it was a portent and caused a shiver of discomfort and dread but no real diminishment of appetite and consumption.

The durability of beef as an American institution was made vividly clear to me on a recent Saturday evening, when our troupe rolled up to Harris' Restaurant for an early dinner and found the valets already busy, the host's station crowded, the front dining room rapidly filling as a muted roar flowed from the other. Harris' is an old-line steak house, of course, a kind of throwback – its overall feel combines elements of the Pullman car and of New York joints in the late 1940s – and it accordingly tends to attract a lively but not young crowd that likes to eat early. Hence the 6 p.m. pile-up in the vestibule, with the late-spring sun still high in the western sky.

Older people, I have noticed, are attached to beef far more devotedly than are recent generations. Vegetarianism, in my experience, is unknown in people over 50 – people who grew up with beef as a near nightly staple in a time before factory farming, when food was still largely produced by small, family-held concerns that generated neither today's broad range of choices nor its periodic health crises, the outbreaks of BSE and E. coli. Beef was honest and simple and good, or at any rate it is romantic to remember that it was, even if, as Upton Sinclair's The Jungle made clear, it wasn't.

That romantic aura persists at Harris', although it might seem peculiar, even discordant, to anyone who has driven past the vast Harris Ranch stockyard in the Central Valley, whose stench makes the traversing of several miles of I-5 an unforgettable experience. At the restaurant, by contrast, all is muted elegance: high ceilings, tall windows formally draped, banquettes upholstered in leather, air freshened with conviviality. It is a stage set for a single star, and that star is the meat.

There are plenty of nonbeef treats on offer at Harris', it must be said, including a "famous" martini, "shaken and served on the stem," a soup du jour ($8 for a broad bowl) – on the jour of our visit a simple and intense shrimp bisque – and naturally the side dishes that accompany your slab of rib roast ($29, or $33 for the "executive" cut on the bone). These consist of creamed spinach (subtly scented with nutmeg) and some kind of potato (buttermilk mashed, say); they are notable mainly for their discretion and uncompetitiveness. They do not detract from the meat.

And the meat is splendid, tender and rosy, with delicate marbling. The single slice of rib roast is nearly an inch thick and is more than enough to keep an avid carnivore busy for a good while. My one (mild) complaint pertains to seasoning, or underseasoning; quality rib roast doesn't need much help, but it does need a little – an herb crust, possibly, with a bit of salt. Luckily I was able to raid my neighbor's plate of steak Diane ($31), filet mignon pounded thin and grilled, then served with a demiglace of shallots and cognac – a luxurious sauce that translated nicely to my monster slab. (On my other flank, meanwhile, lay a plate of simply grilled lamb chops, $33, tasty but lacking an exportable sauce.)

Harris' still operates a butcher counter, for those who remember the not-so-long-ago days when Harris Ranch beef was the best stuff going. These days the cognoscenti are more likely to be found seeking meat from Niman Ranch, and one unlikely place they will find it is Burgermeister, which is essentially a classy hamburger stand at the edge of the small park through which Muni Metro's N-line train wends to and from the westerly mouth of the Buena Vista Park tunnel. (There is another Burgermeister outlet, on Church near Market, quite near the mouth of another Muni Metro tunnel. A pattern?)

One has eaten so many abysmal hamburgers in San Francisco over the years that the prospect of yet another causes little more than a dull ache. Displayed at Burgermeister's cash register is a small placard announcing the shop's exclusive use of Niman Ranch beef, which is carefully and humanely raised, et cetera, so that we humans need not spoil our appetites with fretting about moral and health issues. That is nice enough, but a good burger would be better.

And – hallelujah! – the burgers aren't just good but better than good: in fact excellent. They do tend to be a bit on the pricey and huge side (from $7 to $10, and consisting of a half-pound of meat, exclusive of rich toppings, which can include chili, avocado, and bacon), but there is also the Econo-burger ($5.50), a relatively svelte quarter-pound of ground beef, topped with choice of cheese, served on a proper hamburger bun (no foofy focaccia here) and with a side of gorgeously crisp-tender, golden, adequately salted fries.