Shaw's Steakhouse & Tavern

THIS PLACE IS GONE!  (FIRE)

“Seize the moment.  Remember all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.”

Erma Bombeck

SHAWS STEAKHOUSE & TAVERN

714 South Broadway

Santa Maria, CA 93454

805-925-5862

No Website

Well, we intended to take a road trip this weekend, and the Sunset Magazine showed up with an article on Central Coast Barbecue, so we decided to make Santa Maria our base for the weekend.  Driving up here from the LA area used to be a pleasure trip.  Now it seems that bumper to bumper traffic is normal on 101 from Thousand Oaks to Santa Barbara.  The first seventy-five miles of the trip was a chore.  After Santa Barbara is was as we remembered it.   Still, we didn’t get to Santa Maria and get checked into our hotel until dinner time.

After that trip we were a bit peckish.  After driving around town looking at likely places we settled on Shaw’s Steakhouse and Tavern.  It’s rather unprepossessing from the outside since it was probably some sort of warehouse many years ago.  Inside you quickly realize that it’s just short of what would be considered a fine dining restaurant.  The interior is converted warehouse with lots of wood and has photos of old food establishments, retail and wholesale on the walls.  There are no windows and the interior probably could use a bit of an update. 

The staff is courteous and fast and you can watch the meat being grilled through a glass wall.  Make no mistake, this is Santa Maria style barbecue, seasoned meat grilled over a red oak fire, not the long, slow smoking that is barbecue in other places.  No traditional barbeque sauces basting the meat.  It makes for quite a show.

Of course, since this is a steak house, the menu does not have the combo plates that allow us to get our usual sampling of the que, and since there was just the two of us we couldn’t order several plates and share Chinese food style.  We settled for two dinners.  Sharon ordered the Beef Ribs and I ordered the Tri-tip.  All the dinners come with a relish plate, house made mild salsa, piquinto beans, and choice of soup (French Onion this night), or salad (House Green or Caesar), and baked potato, French fries, or steamed rice.  Our server, Holly, had excellent timing so that the salads and the main course arrived promptly but we had enough time to ourselves to have a relaxed dinner.   After our main courses Holly began to recite the dessert selections, but Sharon stopped her at the Cherry Bread Pudding with Grand Marnier sauce.

Beef Ribs

The meat here is served dry, just the way we like it, so that you can enjoy its real taste.  The ribs done over the open, red oak, flame are not as moist as those done in a smoker.  They were chewy, but not tough, and had a big beefy flavor.  Central Coast barbecue is done simply and the dry rub, apparently just salt, black pepper and a bit of garlic or garlic salt, made a tasty char on the outside.  If you want sauce you can use the house made salsa which is a mild salsa cruda.  These are great ribs.

Tri-tip

Tri-tip is the quintessential Central Coast meat.  Here it is done in true Santa Maria style, simply with a minimal rub over an open red oak fire.  This serving was done properly with the whole piece grilled over the red oak and properly sliced in the thick slices that should retain the juices.  In this instance there wasn’t that much juice.  My problem is that I’ve been spoiled by having experienced it done slowly in a smoker so the meat is tender and juicy.  Done in true Central Coast style I find it to be a bit dry.  Maybe I am just spoiled, but this one was tasty but tough.

Beans

These are the locally grown piquinto beans in a thin sauce.  They are not over cooked and the sauce is subtle but very interesting.   It is not sweet but has a savory combination of what tastes like a light beef and tomato stock, a bit of cayenne, and bit of meat that seemed to be beef, not the usual pork or bacon.   While it looks to be thin and anemic when placed before you it turns out to have a very appealing flavor.

Salads

Sharon said that she hoped that we would get good salads in farm country.  They were fresh and crisp with homemade croutons.  Sharon was not disappointed.

Potato

A good, loaded, baked potato with shredded cheddar cheese and crispy bacon.  This is something that a restaurant of this caliber doesn’t screw up and they did not.  Believe me; I have seen it done at some other places.

Rice

The steamed rice was a bit lumpy as though it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be fluffy rice or sticky rice.  Strange!

Garlic Toast

The garlic toast was done on what seems to be fresh Italian style bread.  It is buttery, but not soggy, not over garlicky, and has a sufficient amount of Parmesan cheese and toasted crispy with a nice crunch when bit into.   This is much better than most garlic toast servings.

Cherry Bread Pudding with Grand Marnier Sauce

At the end of the day what do you do with the left over bread that you have not made into garlic toast?  You make a totally evil dessert.  A bread pudding made with cherry pie filling and drizzled with a sauce made with Grand Marnier definitely qualifies as evil.  Sharon is a connoisseur of bread pudding and she found this to be one of the better ones.

OK, Shaw’s is not a usual barbecue place.  It is an old fashioned steak house, somewhat up market for the area, with a menu that you would expect at a steak house, but with meat done Central Coast barbecue style.  The que was about an eight, good but not outstanding.  As a steak house I would rate the place an eight and a half.