RESTAURANT REVIEW: Sonny's beef over the moon

Our beef with Sonny Williams' Steak Room has never been with its beef. It's the way the kitchen accents it that we've had issues.

But since it opened in 1999, Sonny's kitchen has been encrusting its steaks with a proprietary spice mixture called "Sonny Style."

They won't serve them any other way, whether you're ordering the 12-ounce filet ($48.95), 10-ounce filet ($45.95), 6-ounce filet ($38.95), Rib-eye ($48.95), Bone-in Cowboy Rib-eye ($51.95), New York Strip ($48.95) or Porterhouse ($54.95).

If you don't like "Sonny Style," you can pay a little extra for one of the three-B "finishes" -- bordelaise, bearnaise or blackened, $3.75; you can pay a lot extra for Oscar, topped with asparagus and hollandaise, $10.95; you can load it up (or cover it up) with a commercial steak sauce -- we saw a waitress deliver some A-1. You can order something else from the menu, which includes seafood, chicken and meat dishes that aren't steaks. Or you can go eat steak somewhere else.

Our objection to "Sonny Style," based on various visits over the years, is that the kitchen has been laying on the spice mixture with a trowel. However, we're glad to say that, based on the steak we tried recently, "Sonny Style" spicing is no longer oppressive. In fact, it fitted our filet nearly perfectly.

The now-venerable restaurant, which recently came back under the control of founder Andy Agar, has done well in the Museum Center on President Clinton Avenue at the heart of the River Market District, even before there was a River Market District. Post-recent-remodel "rich wood and beveled glass" floor-to-ceiling partitions that can segregate various areas into party rooms that can accommodate groups of 10-55 fit well into the existing decor, which relies on rich-looking wood, dark maroon curtains and ornate ornamental screens. A somewhat scraggly bamboo plant incongruously occupies one corner.

Seating is at white-clothed tables with nicely padded, metal-frame chairs; a new, red-tufted leather "celebrity booth," overlooked by dozens of celebrity photos (most prominently featuring Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe) provides intimacy for a party of up to six. The soundtrack, when somebody isn't playing the piano (which, by the way, could use tuning), at the bar is along the lines of Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald singing standards.

For the most part, however, the lighting, accomplished through pin spots, is pretty dim, and not evenly parcelled out -- some tables sit directly under spotlights; at those that don't, you may have difficulty reading the menu. Windows that might leak some additional light are blocked off by screens or shutters or both. (Want more light? Ask for a table in the bar area, where the windows overlook President Clinton Avenue.)

Particularly irksome: the fire alarm, which consisted of a flash, a clicking sound and a klaxon-buzz, repeatedly fired off early on our second visit. Apparently this is not uncommon. Our waitress explained that, situated as it is in an old building, it happens when there's any kind of maintenance or construction -- in her words, "when they're doing something in the building." The flashes were distracting enough; the sound, not conducive to relaxed, leisurely dining.

We found most of the appetizers intriguing, but discomfitingly pricey -- we hope, for example, that for $19.95, the Spinach, Crab, & Artichoke Dip is big enough to serve at least two. In any case, we had a hard time not getting the French Onion Soup au Gratin ($8), which was, in our vast experience of French onion soups, quite possibly the cheesiest version we have ever consumed. There may, in fact, have been more melted Swiss (not the traditional but more expensive Gruyere) on the top of the crock than the mild beef-stock-based broth inside.

On a subsequent visit we enjoyed the tomato and buffalo mozzarella with sweet basil vinaigrette ($8.25), listed under the salads, two slices of a large, fresh tomato and two thicker slices of fresh buffalo mozzarella, framing a pile of spiky mixed greens, all topped with a basil vinaigrette dressing that, had it been a bit thicker, would have been well on the road to becoming a pesto.

The center of the entree menu is, of course, the steaks, Angus beef that chef Bryan Masters ages for 35-41 days. Steaks come with a chef's-choice vegetable (on both our visits the chef chose sauteed green beans with red bell peppers and bacon -- $5.50 a la carte, in case the chef chooses something else for you) and choice of starch -- potatoes (garlic herb mashed, loaded baked or au gratin) or wild rice with walnuts. Want to gussy your steak up a bit? Add three scallops or three shrimp for $10.50 or a lobster tail for $21.95.

Our 6-ounce filet came out almost perfectly medium-rare and quite tender, and, as we mentioned, the "Sonny Style" spicing was delicate enough to allow the flavor of the steak to come through it. We also enjoyed the rice and walnuts; we liked the flavor of the green-bean saute but a little of it went a long way, and, unfortunately, there was a lot of it.

The same green-bean side came with our three delicious, second-visit, grilled balsamic-glazed lamb chops ($38.25), that were, typical of lamb chops, roughly 20-25 percent fat. They came out medium-rare, just the way we ordered them, and had been kept moist by the balsamic glaze, which gave the lamb more of an accent than a flavor. The large, ovoid dollop of goat cheese with embedded caramelized onions that topped each chop, judiciously applied, did change the flavor dynamic with a nice zing. Since we used it judiciously, however, we had a lot of it left over, which we not-so-judiciously but very effectively applied to the dregs of our loaded baked potato.

We can also recommend the Beef Tips and Shrimp ($34.95), stir-fried with vegetables in a flavorful honey-soy glaze. Unlike many restaurants, where "beef tips" is a synonym for "tough, low-grade meat," these tips were sirloin, and extraordinarily tender. We felt that the kitchen skimped a bit on the shrimp -- we only got four.

Service was quite good (water and tea glasses were refilled any time the levels got very far down below the rim), though we had to cure our second-visit waitress of using the first-person plural -- "How are 'we' doing?" "Are 'we' ready to order?" Ick.

The restaurant maintains some of its longtime amenities, like the piano bar and complimentary valet parking -- not a bad thing in the River Market, where parking spaces are frequently in short supply -- and added a new one: free (well, restaurant-paid) Uber rides home for customers who feel they've imbibed a few too many cocktails.

Weekend on 05/05/2016