Once in a blue moon, I eat steak in NorCal. This certainly never happens in Berkeley (I wonder why…) – the only times I get to enjoy a nicely cooked slab of meat are when I’m at places like El Cerrito, Emeryville, or SF.
On Saturday, in celebration of finishing school and finals, my roommates and I decided to drive to SF to meet up with some friends and find a good place to eat.
Originally, we wanted to eat at The Cheesecake Factory, but the wait was about an hour and forty-five minutes, and we were all pretty hungry, so we decided to explore restaurants near Union Square.
Anna suggested a steakhouse that she had tried a while back. We said why not and headed over to Tad’s Steakhouse.
Happy that we did. I don’t know too many places that serve a nicely-portioned cut of steak, salad, garlic bread, and baked potato for under $14. Just don’t go too crazy on the condiments (~$1 extra each), and you’ll have yourself a real steak dinner on a budget.
The steak wasn’t bad, definitely worth the money. You can’t expect too much, but it was cooked right (medium), was tender and juicy, and tasted pretty good. The salad, garlic bread, and baked potato complemented the steak very well.
The restaurant itself has an old-school feel to it (it’s been around since the 50s). You order your food at the counter and pick up a beeper. Once your beeper goes off, you pick up your food at the counter. A self-serve steakhouse is an interesting concept.
The deal was so good that I decided to splurge an extra $2 for a slice of red velvet cake. What a dinner.
If I’m ever in one of my steak moods and stuck in Berkeley, I would BART/bus over to Tad’s in a heartbeat.
Red meat at randomtidbitsofthought.wordpress.com.
