Steak Out

The corn chips may be history, but servers still bring out a miniature loaf of bread and a ramekin of honey-flavored butter. Bob also claimed these for himself, but it didn't matter because I knew I'd be overwhelmed by my dinner: a sumptuous grilled elk chop prepared "Oscar style," with a mound of lump crab meat in one corner, a stack of asparagus in the other, and a modest puddle of béarnaise under the juicy chop.

I made the mistake of ordering a deflated and puny twice-baked potato instead of the oversized baked spud that came along with Bob's succulent mesquite-grilled strip. After loading up the salt-baked potato with butter, sour cream, chives and bacon, he slathered his Kansas City strip with béarnaise and devoured every bite. The steak, he insisted, was as fine as any in those snobbier Plaza steak joints. Patrick might have agreed, but he was too engrossed in gnawing every morsel of meat clinging to the bones of his rack of lamb. "This is the most perfectly prepared lamb I've ever had," he said. And he marveled over his spinach, flash-sautéed with garlic cloves.

After dinner, the siren call of the penny slots nearly lured Patrick away, but Bob wanted to stay for dessert. He considered the pear en croute but decided on The Range's version of the "Chocolate Bag," hoping that it would be like the signature dessert at McCormick & Schmick's. It was not, alas. Yes, it was a dark-chocolate sack filled with white-chocolate mousse, but it was about one-third smaller. Bob finished it in three bites.

Patrick and I took a more leisurely approach to nibbling on The Range's bread pudding, two paperback-sized wedges of the baked bread custard, dripping with caramel-rum sauce. It was an interesting presentation, but it didn't taste remarkable.

But desserts aren't supposed to be too fabulous at a casino restaurant — diners aren't supposed to dawdle over coffee and pastry when they could be shoving coins into a slot machine.

It's a shrewd plot. Like an employer who waits until your first day to tell you that you'll spend your days posing as a dominatrix.