You come from Nebraska, you grow up with beef. Steak for Christmas, filets for birthdays, hamburgers on the grill once a week. You come to St Petersburg, and after a few months you start craving a big ol' slab of meat -- on the hoof, maybe still mooing.
Having gone for almost a year without a beef fix, I decided to go to the Montreal Steak House in search of red meat.
The Montreal Steak House has a sort of identity crisis -- it's not quite sure if it wants to be a country-western bar or a steak house. As my date and I agreed, steak houses are usually dark and smoky, while the Montreal is light with wood panelling. A TV showed western films and Johnny Cash sang "Ghost Riders in the Sky" over the stereo, not too loud.
No confusion on the focus, though: you obviously go there for a big piece of cow. The menu (English, Russian and French -- or maybe Quebecois) offers a few salads and appetizers, but we paged immediately to the main dishes and reveled in the glory of steak.
According to the menu, the meat is flown directly from Canada, where presumably the cows are fed on the wide Canadian plains (except for the Texas steak, which the menu says is fed in Texas). While this luxury hikes up the prices, it's worth it if you've got the money.
For appetizers, my date ordered a Caeser salad ($6.15) while I chose the green salad ($4.40) and we decided to share a shrimp cocktail with salsa ($13.50).
The appetizer menu also offers sauteed calf's liver ($8), smoked salmon ($15.75) and breaded mushrooms ($7.75). There are a few soups to be had as well, including the Quebec split pea soup ($4.50) and French onion ($6.50).
The green salad was your average collection of tossed veggies, but my date scored with his Caeser salad -- tasty dressing, real bacon, Parmesan cheese and walnuts, and the lettuce was crisp.
The shrimp cocktail was neither stellar nor disappointing, although the salsa wasn't quite as salsa-y as we would have liked.
We were also served a basket of hot soft white rolls with balls of garlic butter, which was a nice touch.
The moment of truth had arrived. After considering the senator's filet mignon ($23.35), my date ordered the Texas-fed Texas steak ($21.25) and I chose the Quebec steak ($19.99). The Texas steak came with a pepper sauce, and the Quebec steak came with a pepper-and-onion sauce. All steaks come with fries, and can be ordered in smaller sizes for less.
Not to be limited to cow parts, the Montreal also offers sturgeon ($19) and salmon ($16; $19 for "royal" size) steaks.
The steaks were slightly smaller (10 oz) and thinner than the ones we were used to stateside, but we agreed they were a good cure for the beef homesickness one might get here. They were well-cooked and tasty and the fries, while not traditional steak fries, were also good.
Having had our week's worth of protein and iron, we decided to go for dessert as well. The dessert menu offers Grand Canadian ice cream ($5.75), apple cinnamon pie ($7.25) and Niagara Falls Black Forest torte ($5.60).
My chocolate ice cream was great, almost frozen chocolate pudding, while my date was pleased with his apple pie, which was served with vanilla ice cream. We finished up with coffee ($1.80).
The service is stoic but not unfriendly and the interior is pleasant, if not a traditional steak house. I cannot say if the decor is authentically Quebecois, having never been there, but there were certainly a lot of Quebec flags and Quebec souvenirs.
The Montreal Steak House is definitely a keeper, especially for those who miss a side of beef now and then and are able to pay for it.