I spent my last #dineLA meal at Alexander’s Steakhouse in Pasadena, CA. This Japanese steakhouse fuses Japanese cuisine and steak into an American-style of fine-dining. Alexander’s Steakhouse specializes in the “best of the best” steaks including corn-fed Certified Angus beef, 28-day dry-aged steak and imported a5 grade wagyu beef as its utmost of Japanese steaks.
The executive chef at Alexander’s Steakhouse is Matt Bata, who learned the culinary secrets and usage of San Francisco’s fine ingredients with executive Marc Zimmerman. His hopes with the Pasadena location is to utilize the ingredients from local farms to create exquisite dishes of art to eat! Below is a specialized dineLA 6-course menu featuring the most finest steaks from Japan: the a5 wagyu beef.
Before the first course, we received compliments from the chef: an amuse bouche of watermelon and cantaloupe and foam. This was very light, refreshing, and sweet.
For the first course, we have the uni tamago with egg salad and crispy potato. The uni is fresh from Santa Barbara and the layer of potato had the texture of dense dough, kind of like flan.
And the hamachi shots with dashi, avocado and ponzu. They come in two shots and tasted very cool and light. It was almost like a fun hamachi sashimi salad to eat, with the crispy “crouton” pebbles sprinkled on top.
For the second course, we had the tartar of beef served with marrow cream, smoked carrott and bleu cheese. This tasted almost like a crispy wonton chip with beef and tartar sauce.
And the dry-aged tataki with argan oil and pickled ramp chimichurri. The tataki was served in 3 thin yet tender slices and was complimented with the slight tart taste from the pickled chimichurri.
For the third course, we had the brentwood corn chawanmushi with roasted corn and black garlic. The texture of this warm soup was amazing, very gelatinous and lightly sweet yet with a hint of salt.
And the brentwood farms corn soup with cotija, marrow mayo and chili. This soup hit home because of its comforting familiarity to corn chowder soup. The popcorns added a little element of fun to the dish and the chili a dash of spice.
As a break from the courses, we get complimentary bread, which included squid ink bread, rolled cheese bread and basic buttered bread.
Served with the bread was straw salted butter, honey butter with wagyu fat in the bone marrow bone (the waiter was graciously kind enough to give me the bone to take home! I can’t wait to use it on my own charcuterie boards at home) and and tenderloin fat with pieces of wagyu.
Course four included the salad course. This first one was the little gem and romaine with anchovy miso dressing, furikake and fennel. This is a Japanese spin off of a Caesar salad.
And the heirloom tomato with basil, makhani and brioche.
To complement with our entree round, here are some sauteed green beans with crispy caramelized onion toppings.
And this mashed potatoes was AMAZING! Notice the layer of fatty butter oil on the rim. Topped with some sweet seasoning, this savory mashed potatoes was just BOMB.
The long awaited entree course is their a5 japanese miyazaki wagyu with bordelaise sauce. The Japanese wagyu served here is a5 grade and represents the finest and most delicate beef in the entire world. Its delicate marbling serves a mouthwatering and savory tenderness that is unspeakable in flavor and texture.
In addition, we also ordered a serving of foie gras to complement our beef.
Both was extremely tender, soft, juicy, moist and packed with savory and buttery flavors all around!
Our palate cleanser before dessert round was a compressed watermelon with mint foam and cucumber granita. The watermelon was extremely hard and dense, almost like frozen watermelon.
Dessert round was a spin off of mango sticky rice in my opinion: corn ice cream, coconut rice pudding and corn cake.
Yay for also bringing us a bouquet of cotton candy!
Additional chocolates to end our meal was dark chocolate candy, an earl grey tea cream macaron with fruity lemon and passion fruit candy.
And it is no nice place unless they gave us some cranberry almond biscotti bread to take home with us!
Finally, I love the extra detail of giving us a numbered tag to bring to the front desk to get our packaged leftovers! This is what I would call an extra attention and consideration to detail: people tend to forget their leftovers at the table, or it just clutters the table as you finish the rest of your dine.
Overall, my experience at Alexander’s Steakhouse exceeded my expectations in regards to food, service and the whole experience altogether. Never would I have imagined the American steak fine-dining laced with Japanese ingredients to be so tastefully and artistically executed. This was such an enjoyable meal for me and definitely has put Alexander’s Steakhouse near the top of my favorite steakhouses.
