Steak and spinach

Los Angeles, September 6, 2018—

WE FLEW DOWN this afternoon for a conference we take in almost every year, and there's no place to eat but the airport hotel we're staying in. It's going to be like this through Sunday lunch, so might as well make the best of it.

There are three "restaurants" here. Two are primarily soup-salad-and-sandwich places, and one of those features bigscreen televisions in each dining area. So we opted, being hungry and wanting a little calm and quiet, for the third alternative, billed as a steak house.

We ordered almost identically: a flatiron steak, rare for me, medium rare for the Contessa, a glass of red wine, a bottle of sparkling water, and a side of spinach. Oh, and dessert: "butter cake" with Bourbon ice cream for her, crème brulée for me.

You can judge the meal by the photo, of my dessert. Everything seems made to a formula and probably fairly early in the day. The beef tasted good and was correctly grilled, but lacked spark. I liked the spinach.

That crème brulée — a very heavy one, made well ahead of time, even burned ahead of time, served with a halved strawberry and lots of blueberries under a cage of spun sugar. There was nothing light or delicate here. Once I'd eaten the blueberries and rejected the strawberries and the cage, I was left with an egg dish more appropriate to breakfast. Oh well.

     🍷Malbec, Dona Paula (Argentina)

•JW's Steakhouse, Los Angeles Airport Marriott Hotel, Los Angeles; 📞+1 (310) 641-5700

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