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By CHRIS SHERMAN, Times Food CriticA French restaurant chain offers buffalo - and crepes and quiche. Menu tweaks are promised as this concept, somewhat lost in translation, needs focus.
PINELLAS PARK - Something is eerily different about the Buffalo Steakhouse. Oh, I've seen plenty of roadside restaurants with Wild West themes and steakhouses with bordello red interiors. Okay, the cigar-store Indian on the roof and life-size buffaloes are new.
It's not just that Buffalo Steakhouse serves its namesake, the ancient lean beef-in-the-rough that's new again. That is rare and welcome.
Something else had me uneasy. The first was a food-knowledgeable waiter who also pointed out a good wine at a bargain price. The menu had other strange notes: Crepes, quiche (for real he-men), goat cheese, Bearnaise, potatoes gratin, espresso . . .
My suspicions grew with dessert: chocolate mousse, creme brulee, sorbet with vodka, and caramel flan "the way our grandmothers made it."
Just a Wyoming minute, pardner. Log Cabin Granny didn't make no flan. And that building on the place mat, well there's a cowpoke with a gun on the widow's walk, and behind him hills with trees. We don't have them neither, not on U.S. 19.
"That's probably one of our locations in Europe," said the smart waiter. One of almost 280. Yes sirree, Disneyesque Victorian Buffalo Grills in red and white are as familiar on European roadways as castles. They peddle steak and wings on autoroutes where La Belle France hankers for a taste of cowboy America. Now Buffalo's former top exec has come West to explore new territory.
Step inside and it's so red you'll forgive Bern's; a herd of Naugas died to outfit this place. Booths are built from swinging doors with brass luggage racks over the benches as in Stagecoach. (The French idea of Westerns is closer to dime novels and tinhorn toys than Deadwood's cowboy noir.)
This culture clash is a double reverse, cowboy theme and chain format gone to France and boomeranged back. How they landed on the emptiest stretch of U.S. 19 is a puzzlement.
The food is a Franco-American hybrid, accent on the latter, more meat 'n' taters than steak et frites. The fact is the mashed potatoes are a good, lumpy replica of All-American home cooking. But potatoes au gratin lacks crunch and flavor, only thin milk and yellow cheese. Fries are decent but only that; I hoped for double crisp from true French fryers.
The kitchen does have Gallic techniques, like that cute garnish of a buffalo cutout from flaky pate choux and well-rendered double consomme that bulks up buffalo soup and the French onion.
The meat of the menu is beef, but bison makes a better bite. Touted as low-fat, low-cholesterol and the embodiment of a free-ranging New Age, buffalo tasted fresh and juicy especially when cooked rare with a charred crust. That showed in both a chopped steak and a New York strip. Have them with Bearnaise or mustard-caper sauce.
Beef, the red meat of modern times, wasn't as exciting. Prime rib was indeed cut to order, thick and juicy, but it is the usual modern short cut, done on the grill, not cut from the crusty haunch by a rotisseur.
Trimmings include a roast tomato with bread crumbs, a wonderful, simple touch when hot, but it was cold twice. Bread was consistently dreary white stuff, embarrassing on both sides of the Atlantic. Broccoli met expectations: It was recognizably green.
Chicken wings may be exotic on French autoroutes, but not in Pinellas Park, so I looked toward France. Quiche could be a great sample with five minutes more in a hotter oven; creamy custard with spinach and walnuts needed a fresh and crisp crust. Seafood crepes were like enchiladas, buried in cream sauce and molten cheese.
Best choice was goat cheese toast with three slices of warm, tart cheese the size of Texas on a bit of mixed spring greens.
Dessert did better by French staples: Creme brulee had Continental crunch; lemon sorbet with vodka was a bracer smarter than most noveltinis. Flan? Well, it would make bonne mere proud.
She'd give a scolding on service and wine. Though some servers showed grace and knowledge, others were ornery and without charm or even cowboy shtick. They sabotaged one meal by moving furniture around like it was a mess hall. And the wine list is tiny; the Estancia pinot noir that a waiter touted at $4.75 at lunch was two bucks more at dinner.
Buffalo Steakhouse is not yet set in its saddle. Owners are tweaking the menu to add more bison. Other changes are needed too. Yet the problem isn't so much riding Western, the restaurant can master that. I'd like to find more French derring-do, at least frites, at the chuckwagon.
-- Chris Sherman dines anonymously and unannounced. The St. Petersburg Times pays for all expenses. A restaurant's advertising has nothing to do with selection for a review or the assessment of its quality. Sherman can be reached at 727 893-8585 or sherman@sptimes.com
BUFFALO STEAKHOUSE10525 U.S. 19 N, Pinellas Park
(727) 299-9171
280 locations in Europe (as Buffalo Grill)
Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. daily
Reservations: Recommended for large parties
Details: Credit cards accepted, full bar available, children's play area
Prices: Lunch, $6.49 to $9.49; dinner entrees, $9.49 to $18.99