Just B Rant: The New Love in My Life: 4 Charles Prime Rib

Hang on... it's a restaurant, not a man. But the dessert did make me feel things.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Shout out to Four Charles Prime, besides REO's original location,
which is in Harlem, which is the most impossible reservation. Frankly,
you can't count that because it is not a reservation.
Someone has to own a table, so it doesn't count.
It's the hardest seat at a restaurant. The hardest public
dining establishment to dine at in the country is REOs,

(00:35):
because you can't dine at unless you own a table.
So let's put that to the side. Second, I would
say probably in the world used to be French laundry.
I would say in the world maybe, but certainly in
New York, Four Charles Prime is the hardest seat to get.
It is nine tables. Last night we sat at the
largest nicest table because all the tables seem to be

(00:56):
two tops or four tops. If you've ever seen or
heard of the waiverly In in New York was like
a famous iconic place where there's Minetta Tavern. There are
these club like leather booth cozy, dark, moody places in
New York, a little speakeasy ish, a little gangs of
New york Ish, and the po at the Palm D'antana's
in La used to be like a bigger, more commercial

(01:17):
version of that, like but these are like these cozy
little places like the Cozy Cauldron. Let's call it okay.
And so for Charles Prime, I've been wanting to go
to because it's a thing you've seen on social media.
They poke the egg and the egg goes on the burger,
and it seems like there's pomp and circumstance and it's
a whole thing. And so in my mind, I'm thinking
there has to be a level of pretension. Like when

(01:37):
you go to Polo Club, which is the second hardest reservation.
It's as hard, but there are more seats, So by
definition of it's an easier resolution because there's more, there's
more real estate, so Polo is more like it's slightly fancy.
They have a burger and they have a rubin, but
it's slightly fancy and it's got a level of Upper

(02:00):
East Side even though it's midtown like pretension. But I
like it. I like it meaning it's like it's special
and everyone's nice, but like you feel like you've arrived
at something that is sort of elite, not snobby, not snobby,
but it's not. It's it's what's the word aspirational. It's
not really that accessible attainable once you sit down, it is,

(02:21):
but it's aspirational, but like you sit down and you're like, wow,
this is something, we're at something. Okay. So that's what
Polo is, which I love and I love the girls
there and the people there and it's amazing. Okay. So
that's Polo and the and it's a different similar types
of like published type of food. For Charles. Prime is
an interesting thing because it's the most coveted reservation to

(02:42):
show up and outside there's like a stoop and people
are actually sitting on it because it was a spring day.
But there's something very New York about it, very gangs
of New York, very the New York that I grew
up in. Like a stoop is iconic. Okay, So people
are sitting on a stoop and there was like these
wrought iron windows and like charming townhouses you could be
in like London, like Nodding Hill or something. Okay, you

(03:05):
could be in London. And then there's and there's a
little table right outside. I don't know if you can
eat at it, but that's so cute right outside, like
it looks almost like it's like a set, just a table,
a two top, right outside the window of this little, dark, cozy,
cavernous townhouse. And like people were there each time that
I when I walked in and walked out, just two
people sitting there. I don't know if they were having drinks.

(03:26):
That's part of the bar. You can't really eat on
the street, I don't know. Then you see this guy
and I hear his accent. I hear his British accent.
I don't know if it was Cockney or if it
was just straight up British because I didn't speak enough.
But you hear this British accent. And he's wearing a
tweed cap, which is again very like Peaky Blinders, Peaky Blinders,
Gangs of New York, very like Irish. And so he's

(03:48):
outside and he's like cast. I don't know if he
wears that hat every day, but like he's been cast
for this role, you know. So he's like this handsome
man outside, very charming, engaging, and again there's a little
bit of like you on the list, Do you not?
Because by definition, there's a nine table place that's the
hottest place in the United States of America, if not
the globe to get a reservation barring like some micheling

(04:08):
crazy like wild thing Elbouli in Spain, which is like
a hard reservation, but I actually think this is probably
harder or as hard. So now you pass this guy
and you walk in and there are these handsome bartenders
around this like craft cocktail looking bar to the left.
So Horause used to have like a little bar cart

(04:29):
that came to your room, and it just it feels
like moody, sultry, and like you just picture that they're
gonna have like you know, burnt rosemary that they're rimming
a glass with and like bitters and like you know,
like just candied oranges and ginger. It just looks like that. Okay,
So you have these handsome guys to the bar and
they're like the bar boys, but they're men. And then

(04:49):
you sit down in this cozy booth with of course
the like big menu that's like got the script and
it's the base script and like you know, you're picturing
you're there. You're moody, right, and these little little like
four top booze and two tops and it's a small place.
You're in a living room, but you're private somehow you're
in a living room that's small. I mean, I don't
think it's a thousand feet. No, that a thirteen hundred

(05:11):
feet I no, I think it might be eight hundred
feet right the dining room maybe maybe six fifty eight hundred.
It's small and Edwin the server comes over. He's dressed
impeccably in like the vest and the shirt coming out.
He's dressed immaculately, and you soon realize it's not a uniform,
like they're all just sort of dressed, but there's like
a code like I guess you have to wear like

(05:31):
a black sort of vest suit or something. I don't know.
But he's got like a gorgeous yellow pocket square and
tie and like he's he's just but he's friendly and approachable.
And this is where it gets interesting. There's nothing stuffy
about this coveted reservation. It's like a chill, relaxed vibe.
It's giving this version the New York like pub fair,

(05:55):
Italian meat steakhouse like REOs, because you get to Raos
and it's super chill, you know, like it's hard to
get there, but you get there, you sit down, it's
super chill. This is slightly more formula because there is
like there is a process to it all, which I'll
get into. But it's chill and it's warm, and it's engaging.
It's approachable and like once you're sitting down, you're like, oh, yeah,

(06:15):
I belong here. I'm good, I feel comfortable. I don't
feel like, ooh, you're here now you need to feel
a certain way. And it's pretentious. So the service is immaculate, Okay,
the people are nice. So now you get to the food,

(06:38):
and there's this salad that's baby Romain and it's just
people talk about it on social media and it's avocado
and it's a basic salad. It's basically like just a basic, nice, fresh,
crispy lemone with a mustard dressing on the side if
you want it. Salad like just very fresh and straightforward.
And a lot of these places that have these coveted
reservations are fresh and straightforward. It's not like, you know,

(06:58):
foam beat moose Like, it's not like pretentious where they're
over ambitious. It's just a good, straightforward. Then we get
into the shrimp scampy, which is sizzling, think like escargo sizzling,
but like shrimp, you know, with a big chunky, crispy
pieces of bread, and that too is very good, but
very straightforward, but like delicious and buttery and amazing. The
star of the universe is the carbonara because not unlike

(07:21):
the Palm chain, which is known as a steakhouse, the
Palm is an Italian restaurant. They have steak with chicken,
parmesan and a lot of Italian dishes. This is a
steakhouse with a heavy Italian influence, so there's carbonara on
the menu, but it is better than any carbonara in Italy,
in any place in Italy that I've ever been, it's
this like I think it's Buccatini. It's at the thick

(07:44):
round pasta that is chewy al dente squares of bacon.
I like it more like a sort of like thin
where it melts in, almost panchatta. But people love the
cube bacon and it's the sickest dish ever. I would
just for my personal taste, give it a quarter of
a point half a point off, because I like a
bacon that like melts in almost the way it does

(08:04):
in like a vodka with onions, you know how, It's
like there, but you wouldn't know it's there. But you
taste it. The carbonara is sickening like this carbonara is
as good as carbones, spicy RIGATONI pasta like that. That's
what you need to understand. It's insane. Then we get
and I'm gonna give the shrimp like a good solid
eight and a half. And I'm gonna give this this
carbonar like a nine and a half. And then we

(08:25):
get to the burger, which is pomp and circumstance and
a process and the oozing of the egg and the whatever.
It melts. It's a double smash burger, but it melts
like a regular burger. It just melts. Now, I love it.
I will not give it the raining title that red
hook has, and I cannot explain why it is Davoon.
It's just a little more melty where the red hook

(08:45):
is like an actual like some version of a traditional
classic burger. The sag Harbor Tavern burger is the same
as the red hook the Billy makes. But this melts.
This is extraordinary. I mean that's we were splitting hairs.
We're talking nine versus a nine and a half. I mean,
it is a melting, gorgeous, stunning specimen of a burger.
The star is the French dip. It's the kushed of

(09:07):
the French bread. The inside is like melting and chewy
like of the bread and then the meat melts. But
it's that jew that Sausu're dipping it in that has
like a depth of flavor, like it's like got a
depth of like some version of a wine reduction, like
some spice. I don't know what's in there, but it's
like deep. It goes deep. It's got layers like that

(09:28):
is a very serious sauce. It's dipped in, Okay, very
serious prime. We did get the end cut, but you
can see what the normal part of the prime rib
is because there's a pink part that's not the end cut.
The end cut is like the briskety, chewy like flavory, salty,
pistrami ish corn beefish like briskety end. But so that
was good. Ironically, it's for Charles. Prime was good. We're

(09:50):
gonna call that like an eight, but not like a ten.
And the filet good. These are the things it's known for.
But like, it's good. It's solid, but I would not
say that that's their star. The broccoli, the charred broccoli.
It's like who cares it's gonna be broccoli, but it
like melted and was lemon and lemony, and it like
look like it was gonna be like just hard and
for the flavorless it like hits. It's like tender and devoon.

(10:12):
Green beans are we're actually a fail like I want
and I would like to be honest, so I can't
just praise green beans wear a fail. I feel like
we have more things. Oh, chicken under the brick. I'm
gonna give it a solid eight. I need to tell
them this and this I'm saying emphatical. This is not
an opinion. This is a fact. It comes covered in
a sauce that has gorgeous like garlic, and the sauce

(10:32):
is delicious. I was literally mushing my baked potato. And
the sauce sauce needs to be served on the side
because Poyo al matone, which is under a brick, by definition,
it's flat and crispy. That's the attraction to it. You're
like taking an entire chicken and making it so it's
all crisp. So to have the sauce on top doesn't
make any sense because it's like sad crisp. We need crisp, crisp,

(10:54):
and maybe a drizzle of the sauce or the sauce
is like underneath, and then this is placed on top.
But we cannot the top us to be crisp beer,
and that I'm gonna give a good like eight because
the flavor is there. But here, oh God, dear God,
the dessert, there's nothing to say to describe. They admit
that the coconut cake is from Veniros, which means that
I now have done a review of Veniros, which is unbelievable,

(11:17):
because the coconut cake is extraordinary. It's a cream cheese frosting.
I can tell. It's not one of those with like
the burnt coconut toasted coconut, which I don't like the toasted.
It's like a melty, gorgeous, gorgeous coconut cake. I have
to compare it to Savannahs and Edgar's and Ina Gardens
and the one at Christmas that Tom Cruise gives out.

(11:39):
But it's it's it was excellent. They have a lemon
merangue pie that is like mile high, like the merangue
is like four miles four miles high. It is such
a good cake. I mean such a good pie. It's
out of control. The chocolate cream pie. The chocolate cream
pie is like a dense, chocolate rich moose in an

(12:02):
Oreo cookie crust. They do crust swell whoever the crust supervisors.
I'd like the cs to get raised. The crust supervisor
at four Charles deserves a fucking a wax figure made
of them. And Madame Tussau is okay because the lemon
meringue pie has a crust as a kushture of the

(12:24):
gram Cracker. There's nothing that's sobbed out about it. And
the chocolate cream pie is Oreo and the crust is
like a wall of crispness. Okay if you don't it's
and it's a rich, chocolate rich sickest Like that was
a start half. I mean the Sunday half Uch Sunday
hack and you go wrong. I don't know about the
ice cream that was there was something else. There was

(12:45):
one more thing that we got that was insane. The lemon.
I feel like I'm missing some. The dessert is davuon d'voon.
I could almost give like tens on the dessert, like
I'm gonna get the desserts there's a ten for the chocolate.
The rest is like nine and a half. Like it
was like sickening, Like the dessert is disgusting, Like I can't.

(13:06):
I was like, this is a discuss. I can't. I want,
like I don't have it now. I'm aa taste everything,
eat nothing I get in, I get out where I'm
like fixated and I'm trying to be a supermodel. I
have something coming up in a couple of weeks. I'm
like sitting at the table, like I know you're talking
to me five other humans at this Mother's Day dinner,
but I really don't give a shit because I just wan.
I'm thinking about my relationship with that cake over there
and is there still more? And is there not? And

(13:27):
can I take it home? And am I gonna have
it tomorrow? Can I sell myself? It's a muffin? And
can I say it's for breakfast? And what do I do?
And how do I have it next year? And like
next week? And like I have to leave it, And
I was like thinking about my relationship to this cake,
this pie. I was like, what am I gonna do?
Like I don't we have to leave each other now
and it's over soon and I just want to go
back and say I want to hug one more time,
but then I'll get upset and I won't be able

(13:48):
to get out. And it was it was psychotic. The
chocolate cake and I need to, like I literally said
at the table, I want to take all you know
how like they have like a turd duck in or
like they mix all the shit together and they take
like a cheesecake and they put like one flavor of
each cheesecake in one round thing, so it's like a
I just wanted to I was like, how do I
get all these desserts in like a little tupperware. There's
four compartments, big toperware, and like put them put each

(14:11):
part and like bring everybody together and go to a
hotel room and touch myself. Like how do we make
that happen? I want to go to a hotel room
with all the four Charles Prime rib desserts and touch myself.
Is that weird and awkward and a fetish? I don't know,
but I will not be putting into my dating profile,
or maybe I will. Anyway, the meal was it was
just it was just a lovely experience and the people

(14:32):
were nice and I loved it, but I'm not like,
oh my god, I have to wrap a rubber band
around my arm. I have to be back there tomorrow.
I did it. It was amazing. I can't wait to
go back live for it. And Edwin is my friend.
That's what I got. Thank you. Posters want to go

(15:02):
to beat Off the Stern