Plaza III

Plaza III
4749 Pennsylvania Ave Kansas City, MO 64112
(816) 753-0000
http://www.plazaiiisteakhouse.com/
Map

Not Recommended

How can I put this gently…despite receiving multiple awards: 2006 Wine Spectator Award of Excellence, 2006 Tom Horan's America's Top 10 Club, 2006 Ingram's 2004 Best Overall Restaurant I found the experience to be so underwhelming…so pedestrian…so unimpressive that I can’t understand how this restaurant received any accolades at all.

The meal opened with a tureen of crudites (celery, carrots and radishes served on a bed of ice) that was attractive but no thought was given to the fact that I needed to use a knife to cut the veggies just to make them small enough to eat. The dip that was serves along side was a weak, thin ranch dressing that was boring, to say the least. The bread board was fine; though the bread was bland (I think the baker forgot to add salt).

I ordered a cup of seafood bisque as an appetizer. The waiter delivered a sub-par bisque with a grainy texture and no real seafood flavor to speak of.

For my entrée I ordered the Steak au Fromage, a 10 ounce New York strip steak with blue cheese butter on top. Despite the websites claim that their beef is aged in a "...temperature-controlled, specially-designed Beef Locker for 21-28 days to develop natural tenderness and exceptional flavor" the waiter told us that the meat was “Wet aged for three weeks”. There is a tremendous difference between wet and dry aging. Dry aging tenderizes the meat while concentrating flavor. The process takes special care and is very time consuming and expensive, requiring extra effort, storage and high-quality beef. Wet aging will break down the meat and tenderize it to a degree, but offers little else. In wet aging, the beef sits in a “cry-o-vac” package, marinating in its own blood and inter-cellular fluids. Not very appetizing.

The steak was cooked to the correct temperature (I had ordered it medium-rare) and the blue cheese butter on top melted away leaving a thin blue cheese essence behind. The steak would have been better off accompanied by a simple slice of good quality Gorgonzola. To add insult to the injury of the $40.00 price for the steak was the $8.00 price for the insipid side of Lyonnaise potatoes. Apparently the chef (like the baker) had never heard of salt...or pepper. The entire presentation of my entrée was careless and detracted from the experience. The over-large plate emphasized the fact that I just paid forty bucks for this entree. The steak had a 2 ounce ice cream scoop of blue cheese butter and a lump of curly-leafed parsley tossed unimaginatively on the plate. Had the kitchen at least had the decency to put Italian parsley or arugula or another culinary herb on the plate I could have eaten it with the steak to add a little interest.

I passed on the dessert menu and then grudging paid $80.00 dollars (including tip) for what should have been a $40.00 meal. I have no issue paying top dollar for quality food that is prepared with attention to detail. Plaza III is obviously cashing in on the steak house craze that is running around the country but in no way, shape of form does it deliver.