Bourbon Steak

Bourbon Steak
 
Ranked #4 of 86 Restaurants in Aventura
 
19999 West Country Club Drive
Turnberry Isle Miami
Aventura, FL 33180 
786-279-6600
 
 
Yesterday (June 12, 2015) I went to the Bourbon Steak House (Miami).  I asked the manager if I could take a tour of the kitchen and I said I was a food critic (I was not lying), and he ever so kindly said yes.  So after the food, which was superb, I took a tour of the kitchen. 
Now, back to the food. The meat that my dad and I shared was a 32 oz. porterhouse. I loved the soft and juicy filet mignon that was the highlight of the trip (not including the dessert.)  The dessert was a warm, sweet and gushy. (I had the molten cake (Lava cake) and I loved every single bite of it.)  For an appetizer I had the ahi tuna.  It was the best ahi tuna ever!!  I also had some oysters.  They are expensive, but delicious.  I had a lot of ahi tuna in my time and it was the best ever!!
Then my dad and I took a tour of the kitchen.   I will cover four main points: 1. Service from a kid’s point of view. 2. The food quality. 3. Speed. 4 The atmosphere.
Now to cover service from a kid’s point of view. The service was slow, but it was good. Let me tell you a story: when I spilled a bit of my apple juice, I used a napkin to wipe it up. While I was trying to get the napkin back into my lap, I held it into the air to put it back.  Suddenly, a waiter took it and gave me a new one. The lesson is that the Bourbon Steak house’s service is so good you don’t even have time to reposition a napkin before you get a new one.  Did I mention they sell cigars? But the service was just okay because they forgot my desert.  You NEVER forget a kid’s dessert! They later very apologetically gave me an extra complimentary one dessert (Lava Cake).  So they got 3 out of 5 stars for service.
Now on to the food quality. The filet mignon is so soft it almost melts in your mouth. The New York strip is a bit fatty and rough, but after the filet mignon, who can blame it?  The food was great, the freshest oysters that I had.  I had the West coast, but you should get 3 West and 3 East coast oysters. I tried them both and they were heavenly.  For the food quality I give them 5 out of 5 stars. 
Now I will review the speed of cooking. From a kid’s point of view, the food was coming out at the speed of a turtle pulling itself from one end of the room to the other, but the food quality made up for it. So overall, the Bourbon Steak averages 3.7 stars out of 5 stars on my scale.
Finally the atmosphere was very good.  They got the lighting and walls of alcohol down to a science. The bottles at the bar stretch to the ceiling, also two of their walls are covered with glass cases, holding bottles of wine.  The ceiling was 30 feet tall, so imagine all the alcohol.  Also, all the staff was very well dressed.  Most of the staff were dressed in white with striped ties, while the small remainder were wearing black jackets and ties.  They get 5 out of 5 stars for atmosphere. 
The total stars add up to 4.175 stars out of 5. The thing that killed it was the speed and the service. Let me leave you with this: NEVER LEAVE A KID WITHOUT A DESSERT.
1 Chef Gabriel is showing me the way they grill their steaks on a wood-burning grill.  They use oak wood and charcoal.  They cook the steaks for 8 minutes.  There is always a cook standing at the grill, flipping the steaks. 
   
 2 This steak is being grilled after it came out of butter poacher.  It spent twenty minutes in there.  A butter poacher is what the restaurant uses to make their steaks softer and add flavor to it.  They put butter and different herbs into the butter poacher, and they poach the steaks.  After that, they put salt and pepper and put the steak on the grill.
   
 3 These steaks cost $200 each.  They are Japanese steaks and they taste like butter (Chef Gabriel told me this).  My shocked expression is clearly shown on this page.
   
 4 Chef Gabriel is showing me a heirloom tomato.  It is a very tasty tomato that is weirdly shaped and weirdly colored, but they are sweet and filling.  You usually eat them plain or with mozzarella cheese (made from buffalo milk).
   
 5 Chef Gabriel also explained different jobs to me.  He said that there are multiple stations: the steaming station, the pastry station, the dish station, the grilling station, the poaching station, the salt and pepper station, and more.
   
 6 Chef Gabriel is not happy in this picture.
   
 7 Chef Gabriel is showing me the pastry room.   It is kept at 47 degrees.  He says that the pastry people like to be very organized.  Because of the corner, you cannot see the quail eggs at the bottom.  Bad corner, bad!
   
8 This is Chef Gabriel.  He gave me his business card, and then he was posing with me.  He took CIA classes in New York (Culinary Institute of America).  Chef Gabriel was very nice to open up his kitchen to me and to give me the time to take a tour.
   
9 This is ahi tuna.  It has salted lime next to it.  The sauce is soy sauce, and when you dip it into soy sauce and put some lime juice on it, the tuna tastes like all tunas should: a bit rubbery, but it gives off a very deep taste, saltish and meaty.
   
10 One of the waiters is serving our porterhouse.  It came on a bone, and it was cut off the bone before our very eyes.  One half of the porterhouse was filet mignon, and the other half was New York strip.  The filet mignon was very soft and juicy, while the New York strip was rougher and fattier.  The steak was medium rare, but it was not evenly cooked throughout the whole steak.  
   
11 Our waiter is laying out the New York strip on the right side of the plate while the filet mignon goes on the left side.  I noticed the expensive French skillet the waiter was holding, and the fancy striped tie.  
   
12 The whole point of life is steak.  Grilled asparagus also would not hurt.  And the baked potato has chives, butter, cream, and bacon.  And on the side there were roasted mini peppers.  The best steak ever!
   
13 I am waiting for my dessert to come, which was 10 minutes late.  Never leave a kid without a dessert (I was three minutes away from talking to the manager).  But when the lava cake came, it was hot enough to burn you, chocolaty, gushy and sticky.
   
14 This is the chocolate lava cake with caramel and crushed Oreo’s on the side.  There is a candle in it to celebrate my father’s birthday.  Happy birthday, Alex!