For those who forget their history -- don't worry, we're all condemned at this point to repeating it -- Rome was just an anno Domini teenager when excessive feasts were all the rage, with the average banquet involving five or six courses of seafood, including oysters, mussels and lobster; venison and gazelle meat, pheasant and a few other feathered friends, such as duck and peacock; maybe a 200-pound pig stuffed with quails; a dozen kinds of fruit; several pounds of asparagus per person; four or five types of savory pies; a few veggie casseroles; forty or fifty desserts, and many barrels of wine and other alcohol.
Because it was hard for the average glutton to take a bite of everything in sight, Emperor Claudius eventually came up with the idea of having special rooms set off to the sides of the banquet halls. He and other overfed feasters would retire to these vomitoriums, where slaves would tickle their throats, causing them to throw up so that they were soon ready to start stuffing themselves all over again.
Excessive? Sure, but conspicuous overconsumption was the order of the day. Of course, not all of Rome ate this way. According to most historians, a majority of Romans at the time lived on bread, olives, some fish, meat on special occasions and whatever vegetables they could trade for at the markets. Later in the century, a wheat shortage almost caused Rome to fall early: Those who weren't affluent enough to indulge in food orgies relied on their daily bread.
Two thousand years later, conspicuous overconsumption is once again the rage, and while today we can consume many things besides food -- Sony PlayStation 2, anyone? -- big restaurant meals remain one of our favorite binges. Big restaurant meals at places like Morton's of Chicago, for example.
Throughout history, food consumption has been one of the best gauges of a country's economy. Until recently, Morton's was a special-occasion place, a fancy steakhouse where businessmen with large expense accounts took their out-of-town clients, or couples celebrated their anniversaries, or the Broncos celebrated their big win.
But nowadays Morton's is for nearly everyone, because nearly everyone has money. And Denver has so much money that it's one of just eight cities in the country that has not one, but two Morton's. The Morton's concept was only four years old when the first Denver restaurant opened sixteen years ago in the Tivoli; that outlet moved to its current spot across from Union Station in 1995. The second Morton's, which opened last spring, is conveniently located in the Denver Tech Center, so not only can corporate types wine and dine their colleagues without having to shuttle to the original Morton's downtown, but all manner of suburbanites can experience Morton's signature Tableside Menu Presentation when Mom and Dad are simply too tired to set the table themselves.
According to the Morton's Restaurant Group's Web site (at mortons.com), the company "plans to maintain its pattern of steady, disciplined growth by following its proven formula for success." In other words, it's going to continue to open franchises that offer reasonably good food in unreasonably large portions at truly unreasonable prices (with a wine list to match), brought to your table with almost painfully precious service.
I've never been a big fan of that service style, and nothing about my visit to Denver's newest Morton's changed my mind. When I first walked through the front door, the place was so dimly lit that I had to squint to find the host's podium. Because I was the first in my party to arrive, I was not so much asked if I wanted to wait in the bar as verbally nudged there, and about twelve seconds after I sat down and ordered a glass of champagne, the rest of the group arrived. But an obliging server was only too happy to carry my flute to our table, which sat at the edge of the 120-seat dining room. Although this Morton's is slightly smaller than the one in LoDo, it features the same creamy glow, the same unobtrusive decor that melts into the background as the evening progresses, and the same contented pig that sits in the middle of each table with a light fixture growing out of its midsection. And, of course, it also has aisles wide enough for the patented menu show-and-tell.
To call this presentation archaic and silly would be to dismiss its importance in the overall scheme of things, namely, the training of future thespians and politicians who are able to say, with a completely straight face, things like, "This is a four-pound lobster, which we'll split down the middle and bake for you," while holding a live crustacean that's trying to sign "Help me!" with its flailing legs. Our server -- part of a team that includes the order-taker and a variety of backup plate carriers -- also held up a tomato to show what, exactly, would be coming if we ordered a sliced beefsteak salad, and very helpfully placed a red onion on top of the tomato to signify that red onions would come on top of the tomato in the salad. In addition, he showcased a dizzying succession of steak slabs wrapped so tightly in clear plastic wrap that they looked like fat, red-faced bank robbers wearing pantyhose over their heads.
The Bluepoint oysters clearly had been on display too long. They were nearly room temperature and limp -- as opposed to well-plumped from sucking in ice water while still alive -- and utterly devoid of the fresh, sea-breezy, briny flavor that marks a good oyster. Other sea creatures fared better. The shrimp Alexander featured impeccably grilled crustaceans, even if they arrived swimming in a bland white butter sauce that needed more shallots. And the broiled sea scallops wrapped in bacon proved a perfect presentation: succulent, soft-centered scallops surrounded by crispy bacon, with an accompanying apricot chutney that offered just the right sweet note to cut the richness of the bacon.
The sautéed wild mushrooms benefited from another simple preparation; all wild mushrooms really need to be rich and flavorful is their unadorned selves. We soaked up any leftover juices with slices from the large, spongy loaf of onion bread that's another Morton's signature item. And we forked our way through an average Caesar salad -- impeccably fresh romaine, plenty of parmesan and dressing with a decent balance of garlic and anchovy -- as well as a decent Morton's salad, mixed greens dressed in a balsamic vinaigrette that wasn't too sweet or too tart.
All of that was just so much filler, however, compared to why we'd really come to Morton's: to eat meat. At Morton's, the beef is prime, and some would argue it's the prime of the prime, culled from the head of the herd at what most connoisseurs consider to be the country's top producer, Allen Bros. in Chicago. There's always been some controversy as to whether prime is really tastier than lower grades of beef, because it has less fat, and that normally means less flavor. But a good steer, genetically superior and properly fed, will have an even marbling of fat that sort of melts into the meat as it cooks, and that even marbling in its animals -- and knowing where, when and how to cut them -- is what has made Allen its reputation.
Morton's further enhances the beef by dry-aging it at 34 to 38 degrees for two and a half to three weeks, then cooking it at around 1,200 degrees for maximum searing-in of the juices. And there's no question that the quality of the meat, combined with the kitchen's ministrations, results in great steaks. Although not the greatest steaks I've ever tasted, both the 20-ounce New York strip and the 16-ounce ribeye were juicy, tender and well-grilled, with what the experts call a "well-rounded mouthfeel" and a deep, fleshy flavor. Even the 14-ounce double filet mignon, which can often have a luxurious texture but zero taste because of its extra leanness, was delicious, cooked a perfect rare, as Morton's is careful to explain when you order. (Rare is cold and red in the center, medium rare is warm and red in the center, medium is warm with a pink center and slight surface char, and medium well is hot in the center with a pinkish brown color and a heavier surface char. Don't even think of ruining a thirty-dollar piece of meat by ordering it well done.)
The size of those steaks ensured that we'd be taking home doggie bags, because vomitoriums are way out of style in these bulimia-aware days. The only member of our party who managed to clean his plate was the one who'd ordered the quartet of domestic rib lamb chops, each an inch thick, with just enough fat around the edges to keep the mildly flavored meat moist.
Even after all of our starters, we still wanted something to go with the meat, and the hashbrown potatoes turned out to be just the thing: a large, skillet-shaped pattie of grated potatoes that had been browned to an almost mythic golden hue, with the exterior faintly greasy and the insides mashed-potato soft. Our vegetable sides were a disappointment, though. The asparagus, six woody-tasting spears nearly as big around as bananas, came with a hollandaise sauce that tasted as though it had come straight from a packet (the filet mignon's bearnaise sauce was also oddly lacking in egg-yolk richness). And the new creamed spinach dish -- added, no doubt, because every other steakhouse in town serves it -- not only was nothing special, it was too salty. Perhaps the kitchen had done some historic research of its own and discovered that in the first century, black pepper was equal in worth to gold and silver in Rome.
That salt lick had us hankering for something sweet. When we'd first ordered, we'd complied with our server's stern warning that we had to commit to the Godiva hot chocolate cake and the upside-down apple pie ahead of time because they were prepared to order and time-consuming, but now, when we wanted to add two more dessert choices, we waited in vain for a member of our personal team to stop by. So much for attentive service.
The bill did arrive promptly, however. And although our meal was exactly the overload of service and food I'd anticipated, the total still left me feeling a little queasy. Over the past year, Morton's prices have risen between $4 and $5 per entree -- but its quality has not risen accordingly. And I have a beef with that.
