American Cut

After a very very long delayed opening, another steakhouse graces the Buckhead Army ranks. It wants to be an Officer and a Gentleman in their dreams... But in reality it's more like Sgt. Bilko and Tropic Thunder. So, they teamed up with hot NYC chef, Marc Forgione, to devise a meatcentric menu that will set them apart from the other steakhouses that are only a skip, hop and jump away. Imagine that, another steakhouse in Buckhead... But this ain't no ordinary steakhouse. It wants to cater towards the millennial crowd and their parents' money. The inside is swanky and they obviously spent a goddamn fortune on the mid century art deco style interior... Not that anyone of these pussy ass millennials will even know what the fuck that is. Good luck making it all back with the food and drinks... You never go full retard. Speaking of which... Let's start from the bottom and work our way up to the top of this Donkey Kong-esque multi-level steakhouse.
First thing I see is the bar downstairs with a nice selection of party liquors, good start so far. Then I look at the cocktail menu... Snooze. It really almost put me to sleep reading that list... It was awful. I was still in a daze when the Latina bartender with a cute FUPA underneath her vest rushed me to order so I got nervous and got the gimmicky smoked Old Fashioned... Yeah, yeah, what a douche, I know. Then I looked around the joint while I was waiting for her to light a piece of wood on fire and cupped it with the cocktail glass... It was so fucking cheesy but I kinda digged it. So, I'm scanning the space for an exit strategy just in case and I'm noticing the crowd in here... Jesus Henry Christ, Buckhead hasn't changed a fucking bit. Why are there so many goddamn yentas and ginzos in here... It was like Bensonhurst in the 80's. It's the friggin end of February and everyone's got a tan, in shape and clean clothes on. Holy shit... It's the Jersey Shore all up in this GTL piece! Then more and more people come through the door and I swear it had to be an ex-porn star convention. There were so many aging hookers dressed in sleazy outfits that Frederick's of Hollywood would even laugh at and their overweight pimps were dripping sweat from their meatheads because their shirt was 2 sizes too small. Who needs Dragon Con when you got Jenna Jameson in an Adele fat body suit trying to score a free drink from a roided up juicehead with a hand full of gaudy rings on... You just can't make this shit up.
I need a fucking drink, yo... Where's that drink my little honey badger bartender with the Mexican muffin top...

Plank Smoked Old Fashioned. Yes, this was such an outdated gimmick cocktail but shit, it had whiskey in it right? Fuck yeah... And a giant ass block of ice in there. It smelled smokey but that's where it ends, the drink itself was average and the pouch sucked that down in 3 gulps, what a rip off. Next...

Barrel Aged Negroni. Well, I'm just a sucka again with this other classic cocktail. It wasn't half bad but it tasted watered down. A good negroni should be bold and strong, this was kinda weak. Ok, I had enough of their average cocktails... Let's adjourn to the upstairs and eat some manmeat... Well, excluding the hookers at the bar downstairs, they looked like they had their hands and mouth full already.

These "everything" biscuits were pretty good and the butter spread made it all the more better. The reflection off the table lead me to look up from stuffing my fat snout with these glutenous balls.

I liked these giant lights but do they really need to have them all bunched up in a row? The dining room is just as swanky as the downstairs, the theme goes throughout the entire space.

Bone Marrow. From this angle, it's not a bad looking piece of bone... It's quite girthy, long and strong. But you can't see the marrow hidden under all that filler shit on top... Let's face it, the marrow is the real money shot coming from this boner. Let's take a look from the other side...

From this angle you can't even tell what the fuck that is... It kinda looked like a goddamn terrarium with a bunch of succulents and air plants. This fucking better not be a vegan dish, bitch. Scraped off the herb and voila! There was the marrow. The channel of gooey collagen was executed spot on and it scooped out of the tunnel of love with ease... But the thick ass bread chunks not so much, it was a bit tough to cut them into smaller slices. Look, no one is gonna slather that gorgeous marrow on a piece of bread that was modeled after an iceberg. But overall, this was a pretty decent dish... Do the paying customers a favor and slice the bread to semi normal bite size pieces.

Pastrami Bone In Ribeye, 30 day dry aged, 20 oz. I heard that the pastrami ribeye was just too overpowering with the pastrami seasonings and this was the only ribeye on the menu... Which everyone knows that the ribeye is the best cut anywhere. But they will also do a plain old ribeye without all that shit... Fuck it, I'm game. Ordered it mid-rare like usual and this is what came out... What in holy god's heavenly name is this fucking thing? Did they find this scrap of torn up meat in the middle of a coyote group feeding behind the dumpster at King + Duke? Look at how ugly that presentation is... Jesus, I'm still having flashbacks of this gladiator carnage. The outside was well charred, maybe a bit too over charred. But the inside was pretty much spot on at mid rare temp. It wasn't as tender as it looked or hoped for but at that price point you would expect pretty close to perfection with this supposedly "30 day dry aged" ribeye. And I wasn't impressed with this at all... But after looking over at the next table's good looking order of the Tomahawk Chop, it only confirmed that... I been took! I been hoodwinked! Bamboozled! Led astray! Run amok! ...With my measly piece of the servant's cut.

Potato Puree "Robuchon". That are some bold words to use... You sure y'all wanna name them after Joel Robuchon's ridiculously creamy taters? You better use like a 10:1 butter to tater ratio then because anything else is just not a Robuchon tater puree. This looked creamy at first but when you start whipping it around it was pretty dense, almost a gummy texture. It was so thick that only half of it came off the spoon, you had to get a giant scoop of it just get some on the plate. The taste was just ok, it sat heavy on your tongue and mouth and it wasn't as buttery and velvety as the real Robuchon version.

Brussels Sprouts. You can't fuck up brussels sprouts, right? You damn right you can't and this version was pretty good, nicely roasted and charred and I think they may have flashed fried to finish. Not bad at all.

Sunchoke Spinach. When this came out all I could think of was asking for a few cubes of cottage cheese and a side of basmati rice to complete the dish. C'mon, bro, you never send out a dish half complete. But as it stands as a creamy sunchoke spinach with fontina, it wasn't half bad. It seemed like the cook who executes the green veggies on the line has got his shit together in this kitchen... As for the rest of the line, they might have been on a cig break.

Booze list. If you don't know what booze cost retail or wholesale, you're gonna get fucked in the drive thru here. The pricing is all over the place and none of it reflects reality... Blanton's and Buffalo Trace were the same price and Old Rip Van Winkle 10 yr was cheaper than them but they were out of the one bottle on stock, so they were substituting WL Wellers at the same price point, not that Wellers is bad (it's good for what it is) but charging the same price is just ridunkulous. Server goes back to the bar and asked for the real pricing and comes back with a lower price tag, imagine the millennial suckaz that doesn't question this price list. Their poor parents are paying up for average whiskey and don't even know they're getting fucked up the ass. At least take the bottle home as a trophy.

So, after that very mediocre meal, I went upstairs to the Regent Cocktail Club to see how the trust fund babies were living these days... Jesus Christ, they are blowing through their family's savings faster than Hunter Biden with the drinks, drugs and hookers... Downstairs. The Buckhead army is still alive and well with the same uniforms (Polo shirt, khakis and boat shoes for the dudebros and the open back short dresses with built in side boob vents and open toe shoes for the bimbras). The Buckhead crowd are like crocodiles, they have not changed in millions of years.
Even after a couple of months of full service, the place still lacks finesse in the kitchen and service execution, especially, with who's behind it. Not that anyone down here knows who the fuck Marc Forgione is, nor care, their clientele comes here for one thing- to look good, show off their money and hook up. I know they want to run a classy joint but hiring a celebrity chef to open the place and never show up again has never worked in the past in this town... Anyone remember Craft and Craftbar? Maybe American Cut can pretend to reneg on the lease like Tom Colicchio, too, in six months. But they can always turn it into an event space for future adult conventions since there's no lack of hookers in this part of town.

The Shops Buckhead Atlanta
3035 Peachtree Rd NE #140
Atlanta, GA 30305
http://www.americancutsteakhouse.com/