Dal Rae not the Del Rey

Dal Rae Restaurant Categories: Steakhouses, American (Traditional) 10/1/2013 1 check-in here It was recently my eight year wedding anniversary and my wife declared that she was not having any Thai food. There she was barking orders at me to shower and put on something other than exercise clothes and take her to The Lobster. "How's about the Dal Rae?", I said. She likes the Dal Rae. The Dal Rae would be fine. I told her we would go after traffic died down a little, and got there at around 8. The Del Rae evoked memories of Continental restaurants that a few decades ago were a dime a dozen but have all but disappeared from the landscape and replaced with multiple fast food outlets and pretentious nouvelle turds. You are going to remember things from way, way out of the past such as dim lighting, cold salad forks, a relish tray on ice, and a captain walking around inquiring about how your special dinner is going. The only thing missing was the piano player. The menu is also a throwback to the past as well. Caviar, Sand Dabs, Rack of Lamb, Chateaubriand for two, Steak Dianne, and all those other old warhorses are all still served here. Lobster Thermidor and Cherries Jubilee on a menu these days are almost as rare as unshaven bush. Relish tray superb. Cold water. No strange looks when I said I was not having alcohol for dinner. Garlic cheese bread, another throwback to the 1950's was artery clogging nirvana. The iceberg wedge with blue cheese dressing served here makes you wonder who decided to get cute and put bacon and other monstrosities on this great salad. It is just lettuce, perfectly crispy and chilled with flawless blue cheese dressing on a cold plate. With a cold fork. Freshly cracked black pepper. My wife, the vegetarian, ordered the pepper steak and asked me if I wanted a taste. For a brief moment, I was back in 1981 at the Chinatown Velvet Turtle sitting there across from my dad high on Quaaludes with my Dutch Boy haircut, braces, and checkered Vans eating the best pepper steak ever! The garlic mashed potatoes had way too much garlic. It was a very good steak. This is the place to go if you want to be romantic. It was as if somebody flipped a switch in my wife's brain that suddenly made her think I was a real Don Juan for taking her here. I ordered Halibut ala Ben with a parmesan crust, lemon butter sauce, and caramelized onions on top. It was a great big portion of very fresh fish cooked perfectly. The baked potato that came with the halibut was really good, and the waitresses opened the potato and mixed it with butter, salt, sour cream, and chives at the table. And it came with asparagus, too. Even if you are of above-average weight and girth, it is a lot of food. Where the fuck is Pico Rivera? It is a lower-middle class community between the 5 and the 605 in a land where men once had jobs in the aerospace industry and dignity, and where you could still get away with drinking three martinis for lunch and driving back to work drunk in your Buick Electra without any consequences.