SAN RAMON, CALIFORNIA – When you visit a popular, upscale steak place like LB Steak in San Ramon, California, you expect to enjoy the steak.
And I did. But when I tested out the restaurant recently, it was actually another, totally unexpected dish that turned out to be the star of the show.
LB Steak is a fancy steak restaurant with an expansive, lounge-like (and subtly cow-themed) interior, a lavish bar, a big wine list, and a convenient location on the lower level of City Center Bishop Ranch, right next to the upcoming Palmetto Superfoods and across from the former Dumpling Time.
I’ve eaten there several times before, and even celebrated a birthday in their large private room. But this July, I visited to try out their prix fixe menu before City Center’s Smooth Jazz Series.
The annual series pairs food from LB Steak and several other City Center restaurants with a world-class jazz performance (City Center hosted me for the meal and concert so I could try it out–thanks guys!)
LB Steak’s prix fixe menu consisted of four courses–an appetizer, salad, entree and dessert.
I immediately decided to pair my meal with an Old Fashioned–the preferred cocktail of Don Draper from the TV series Madmen, for those keeping score.
LB Steak specializes in the bourbon-forward drink, which feels like the perfect thing to sip while sitting in leather-wrapped booths amid dramatic light and eating a big hunk of red meat.
LB Steak offers several variations of the drink, from a vanilla bean version to a version infused with the flavors of Wagyu beef.
I went with a more classic drink with a slight twist: a barrel aged rye old fashioned. It was delicious–perfectly mixed and strong enough to sip throughout the meal. In a bit of fun culinary wizardry, the drink came with an ice cube with LB Steak’s cow logo somehow frozen into the ice itself.
We also tried the Pink Himalayan Margarita, which is essentially a classic margarita with the normal ingredients swapped out for more interesting ones. Instead of table salt, the glass is rimmed with pink Himalayan sea salt, and the drink is infused with a yuzu and lime flavor.
Served with a sprig of thyme, it was also delicious, and much sweeter than the very spirit forward Old Fashioned.
The first dish on the prix fixe menu was a Dungeness crab cake. I lived in Maryland for seven years, so it’s hard to impress me with a crabcake.
But the thing that stood out most about this one wasn’t the crabcake itself, but rather a delicious fennel slaw served alongside it.
Fennel grows throughout California, sprouting exuberant from along craggy cliffs on Highway 1 and anywhere else it can get a foothold (I have a massive fennel plant in my backyard garden).
The green plant has an underground white bulb that’s delicious and has a subtle licorice flavor.
LB Steak uses the fennel bulb to great effect, turned it into essentially a classic cole slaw, albeit one with a totally different texture and that nice, subtle hint of licorice-like anise. They could easily have used simple shredded lettuce, but the choice of fennel bulbs really made the slaw stand out.
And that acted a bit like a teaser for the dish that would turn out to be my unexpected favorite of the evening: the San Ramon Farmer’s Market salad.
The Farmer’s Market Salad is basically a caprese salad–a classic dish often served at Italian restaurants. But instead of the typical mozzarella and sliced tomato, LB Steak’s version uses creamier burrata cheese and cherry tomatoes from the San Ramon Farmer’s Market, which City Center hosts each Saturday.
A caprese salad is a very simple dish, yet this one was phenomenal. The colorful cherry tomatoes had an intense, concentrated flavor that no store-bought slicer tomato could possibly match. One tomato on my plate was so dark and deeply colored that it looked like a grape or a slice of plum.
LB Steak pairs these with a powerfully creamy burrata, which makes the dish feel satisfying and filling despite its small size. They top the salad with a drizzle of good olive oil and a bit of aged balsamic vinegar, adding a touch of sweetness to complement the natural acidity of the tomatoes.
The freshness of the tomatoes is a testament to LB Steak’s ability to make use of the local resources surrounding it. Rather than treating the Farmer’s Market as competition, LB Steak has clearly decided to use it as a source of excellent local produce.
Overall, the Farmer’s Market Salad was perfectly balanced, incredibly fresh and beautifully executed. It would turn out to be my favorite dish of the evening (though the dessert gave it a run for its money–more below).
After the salad came from the entree. Given that LB Steak literally has “steak” in its name, it should come as no particular surprise that they featured tasty red meat as the main dish!
In this case, the prix fixe included a solid piece of Wagyu short rib. It was nicely prepared–fork tender, marbled with the flavorful fat for which Wagyu beef is known, and clearly stewed over multiple hours.
We asked the server to make an unconventional wine pairing–a white wine to go with the steak and dessert. She came through with a sauvignon blanc that worked ideally with the meat.
The short rib came paired with a Brentwood creamed corn dish that made a perfect, starchy and sweet base to complement the stew-like short rib.
While many restaurants would probably go with something safe and crowd pleasing like a creme brulee or a chocolate cake, LB Steak instead finished the meal with an affogato–an Italian pairing of homemade hazelnut gelato and hot expresso.
The affogato was served in a ceramic mug with a biscotti, a nice presentation.
The gelato was delicious–creamier and more solid that a traditional gelato, with a Nutella-like flavor that held up to the hot coffee, even as the gelato subtly melted into it.
The sweet, cold gelato and the bitterness and heat of the espresso made a perfect pairing. After the wine, red meat and bourbon, I also appreciated a little pick-me-up at the end of the meal, which left me caffeinated and ready to dance at the jazz series, which began right the meal (the prix fixe included VIP seats and the concert was great, but that’s a topic for my next review!)
Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the meal at LB Steak. And specifically, I enjoyed it in different ways that I expected.
Any steakhouse should make an excellent steak–that’s table stakes (or table “steaks?” Sorry.)
Whether that’s a classic filet mignon or the Wagyu short rib I tried, it’s expected that steakhouses are good at making, well, steak. And LB Steak certainly is.
But it’s rarer to find a steakhouse that can both make an excellent steak, and simultaneously excel at making all the other dishes that surround and complement it.
That’s what stood out most about the experience at LB Steak–the thought and care the restaurant clearly puts into its non-steak offerings.
That begins with the cocktails–classics clearly chosen to complement the leather-and-polished-wood vibe, yet taken in creative new directions (vanilla old fashioned, anyone?)
It continues with the sides (that delicious fennel slaw and Brentwood corn) and carries through to the desserts. And it’s especially telling that my favorite dish at the steakhouse (the Farmer’s Market salad) turned out to be a vegetarian one, even though I’m an avowed red-meat fanatic!
That takes the experience of eating at LB Steak from “this is tasty steak” to “that was a fantastic overall meal.” Again, that’s especially rare for a steakhouse, and made LB stand out.
I’d definitely recommend coming here before next year’s Smooth Jazz Series. But LB Steak also feels like a great place for a celebratory meal–a birthday, anniversary or (channeling your inner Don Draper) a big promotion or team win if you work in one of the nearby Bishop Ranch offices.
The classy environment feels very celebratory, and the large restaurant has plenty of space to accommodate bigger parties, as well as tucked-away nooks for smaller groups.
I’ll definitely be back to LB Steak. And I’m as surprised as you are to say that, on my next visit, I’ll be starting with the salad menu!
LB Steak: 6000 Bollinger Canyon Rd Suite #1614, https://www.lbsteakbishopranch.com/
