Tad's
Tad's. The King Of Steaks. A New York institution to be sure. That book I was reading the other day mentioned that there used to be several in the Times Square area alone. Now as far as I know there's only one, right off the corner of 47th and 7th avenue hard between a Sbarro's and Lace, a Gentleman's Club.
In other words, a few storefronts from the sleazy past that are still hanging on, hiding and hoping that the puritans are distracted by the monstrous M&M store across the street.
Tad's is a unique eating establishment. Google it and stuff like this comes up "Tad's is like Steak for Dummies, its downright awful. I'd rather order a Double Whopper from Burger King, take it out of the bun, plop it on my plate, ..." or "Tad's Steaks is a good reason to become a vegetarian." Criticizing the food at Tad's is, however, missing the point. Tad's is a living museum, a memory of a time when New York eateries could make a go of it catering to the working class without serving fast-food level dreck.
I have a longstanding relationship with the place. Back in college Tad's was actually a treat, a splurge, a place where you actually spent close to ten bucks for a meal (in the late 1980s) but what a meal! A big hung of freshly flame-grilled protein that probably used to be part of a cow, mashed potatoes smothered in gravy that likely game from a 50 pound bucket, the famous garlic bread toasted but yet still as flaccid as a piece of overcooked pasta lightly brushed with a yellow oily substance that they labelled "butter" and may have been at one time during the 1950s...yes friends, this was the lap of luxury. We used to go to one down on Union Square, long gone thanks to the DOH folks who figured out that the weird scratching we always heard in the drop ceilings came from scurrying rats. A college buddy of mine and I started a memorable day in the summer of 1989 at Tad's with lunch, followed by a Looney Toons film festival at Cinema Village and then a subway to the Port Authority to catch the bus to Giants Stadium to see the Who. His day ended with food poisoning, I must be made of stronger stuff because I was unaffected.
My buddy never set foot in a Tad's again. I still do. Yes, me, Mr. Ethically-raised-locavore-whenever-possible-keep -the-food-chain-short. Eats at Tad's. Occasionally. Why? Not for the food obviously. Mainly because it's the only place I can go and sit down and spread out with a newspaper for lunch that's not a bar knowing not a soul from my office would even look twice at the place so I have no worry of being disturbed. Why else? Well, let me take you through the Tad's on 47th experience.
You walk in the front door and on your left is a fire spewing grill tended by a gentleman of either Hispanic or West Indian descent. There is a stack of faded and scratched red plastic trays bearing the Tad's logo and a nightclub-like rope setup that defines the line if there is one. When it's your turn the grill guy will say something like "Nessplees" or "Si?" and having perused the various tantalizing combo options you will order by number. If you're me you don't go for the steak these days, instead typically taking the rotisserie chicken that slowly rotates opposite the grill in view of the front window to tempt passersby, though few are probably tempted by the ancient plastic spattered with countless generations of yellow chicken fat. So you order and grill guy expertly takes a chicken, carves it in half and throws it for a quick final sear on the grill with a paint brush full of barbecue sauce splashed across it.
A sign in front of you asks "Arroz con su bisteck?" on the left and "Rice with your steak?" on the right. You pick the mashed instead with the gravy by the vat added in a perfectly round depression formed by the back of Grill Guy's ladle. Garlic bread? Of course, and with the obligatory brush stroke of "butter" please, though I will say that what Tad's calls butter is better than what movie theaters call butter. Grill Guy hands you the plate and you put in on your tray and slide to the right. You will pass shelves filled with cling-wrapped puddings, jellos and cakes of indeterminate age and an ice tray filled with overpriced sports drinks, fruit juices, Aquafina, Bud and Presidente cerveza. Normally I go for a fruit juice or you also have the option of ordering a plastic cup filled with ice and a little soda if someone remembers to come down the line to the soda fountain. Got your drink? Now it's time for the salad station which is actually a sad little bin of lettuce and sliced radishes with six different dressings in deep metal containers with ladles. The sign says "tomatos 50 c extra" so most of us take a pass. Move again to the right and you're at the vintage 1979 computerized register hooked up to one of those automatic change dispensers that hasn't worked in a bout 10 years so it's open and the cashier gives you your change by hand from the parallel stacks of coins.
Now, to the dining room!
Surveying the red and brown faded room you notice the free water tap with glasses and curse yourself if you just dropped a buck seventy five on the Aquafina. Your choice lies between tables with rickety wooden chairs or booths of ancient cracked red vinyl. I usually pick a table with a view of the cashier so in between reading I can observe my fellow patrons. The mix at Tad's is local blue collar types, working class families who have come to take their kids on an outing to the Disneyland that is Times Square making the kids split a steak combo to save a few bucks on lunch, perplexed tourists who are perhaps drawn in by the festive balloons that Tad's always has near the front door. Bad top 40 or a Spanish station creeps out from the dish washing area (Tad's uses real dishes, silverware, and reusable plastic cups). The chicken breast is bone dry so you soak it in the Heinz 57 sauce that's on each table but the dark meat is usually edible on it's own. The salad sinks under an indifferently placed blob of dressing, the garlic bread gets mushier from the gravy running off of the potatoes.
And you read the paper, and watch the people, and for a while the world is an interesting place again.
In other words, a few storefronts from the sleazy past that are still hanging on, hiding and hoping that the puritans are distracted by the monstrous M&M store across the street.
Tad's is a unique eating establishment. Google it and stuff like this comes up "Tad's is like Steak for Dummies, its downright awful. I'd rather order a Double Whopper from Burger King, take it out of the bun, plop it on my plate, ..." or "Tad's Steaks is a good reason to become a vegetarian." Criticizing the food at Tad's is, however, missing the point. Tad's is a living museum, a memory of a time when New York eateries could make a go of it catering to the working class without serving fast-food level dreck.
I have a longstanding relationship with the place. Back in college Tad's was actually a treat, a splurge, a place where you actually spent close to ten bucks for a meal (in the late 1980s) but what a meal! A big hung of freshly flame-grilled protein that probably used to be part of a cow, mashed potatoes smothered in gravy that likely game from a 50 pound bucket, the famous garlic bread toasted but yet still as flaccid as a piece of overcooked pasta lightly brushed with a yellow oily substance that they labelled "butter" and may have been at one time during the 1950s...yes friends, this was the lap of luxury. We used to go to one down on Union Square, long gone thanks to the DOH folks who figured out that the weird scratching we always heard in the drop ceilings came from scurrying rats. A college buddy of mine and I started a memorable day in the summer of 1989 at Tad's with lunch, followed by a Looney Toons film festival at Cinema Village and then a subway to the Port Authority to catch the bus to Giants Stadium to see the Who. His day ended with food poisoning, I must be made of stronger stuff because I was unaffected.
My buddy never set foot in a Tad's again. I still do. Yes, me, Mr. Ethically-raised-locavore-whenever-possible-keep -the-food-chain-short. Eats at Tad's. Occasionally. Why? Not for the food obviously. Mainly because it's the only place I can go and sit down and spread out with a newspaper for lunch that's not a bar knowing not a soul from my office would even look twice at the place so I have no worry of being disturbed. Why else? Well, let me take you through the Tad's on 47th experience.
You walk in the front door and on your left is a fire spewing grill tended by a gentleman of either Hispanic or West Indian descent. There is a stack of faded and scratched red plastic trays bearing the Tad's logo and a nightclub-like rope setup that defines the line if there is one. When it's your turn the grill guy will say something like "Nessplees" or "Si?" and having perused the various tantalizing combo options you will order by number. If you're me you don't go for the steak these days, instead typically taking the rotisserie chicken that slowly rotates opposite the grill in view of the front window to tempt passersby, though few are probably tempted by the ancient plastic spattered with countless generations of yellow chicken fat. So you order and grill guy expertly takes a chicken, carves it in half and throws it for a quick final sear on the grill with a paint brush full of barbecue sauce splashed across it.
A sign in front of you asks "Arroz con su bisteck?" on the left and "Rice with your steak?" on the right. You pick the mashed instead with the gravy by the vat added in a perfectly round depression formed by the back of Grill Guy's ladle. Garlic bread? Of course, and with the obligatory brush stroke of "butter" please, though I will say that what Tad's calls butter is better than what movie theaters call butter. Grill Guy hands you the plate and you put in on your tray and slide to the right. You will pass shelves filled with cling-wrapped puddings, jellos and cakes of indeterminate age and an ice tray filled with overpriced sports drinks, fruit juices, Aquafina, Bud and Presidente cerveza. Normally I go for a fruit juice or you also have the option of ordering a plastic cup filled with ice and a little soda if someone remembers to come down the line to the soda fountain. Got your drink? Now it's time for the salad station which is actually a sad little bin of lettuce and sliced radishes with six different dressings in deep metal containers with ladles. The sign says "tomatos 50 c extra" so most of us take a pass. Move again to the right and you're at the vintage 1979 computerized register hooked up to one of those automatic change dispensers that hasn't worked in a bout 10 years so it's open and the cashier gives you your change by hand from the parallel stacks of coins.
Now, to the dining room!
Surveying the red and brown faded room you notice the free water tap with glasses and curse yourself if you just dropped a buck seventy five on the Aquafina. Your choice lies between tables with rickety wooden chairs or booths of ancient cracked red vinyl. I usually pick a table with a view of the cashier so in between reading I can observe my fellow patrons. The mix at Tad's is local blue collar types, working class families who have come to take their kids on an outing to the Disneyland that is Times Square making the kids split a steak combo to save a few bucks on lunch, perplexed tourists who are perhaps drawn in by the festive balloons that Tad's always has near the front door. Bad top 40 or a Spanish station creeps out from the dish washing area (Tad's uses real dishes, silverware, and reusable plastic cups). The chicken breast is bone dry so you soak it in the Heinz 57 sauce that's on each table but the dark meat is usually edible on it's own. The salad sinks under an indifferently placed blob of dressing, the garlic bread gets mushier from the gravy running off of the potatoes.
And you read the paper, and watch the people, and for a while the world is an interesting place again.
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