Mastro's Steakhouse - Thousand Oaks

It is really hard to find a man who is okay with me eating more steak than him. Good thing I'm marrying him next August.

Okay, fine. So maybe it's not a sexist thing. It's not unnatural for a woman to eat a 24-ounce Porterhouse in one sitting; it's unnatural for ANYONE to eat a 24-ounce porterhouse in one sitting. But this porterhouse is perfect, a steak the way a steak should be, the god of all cuts. It sizzles seductively on a hot plate, cooking just the tiniest bit while you eat to end at a barely medium rare.

It would have been way more acceptable if I'd had just the steak. But I had two rolls of their freshly baked bread on top of those creamier-than-cream, breath- busting Garlic Mashed Potatoes and brightly bitter, palate-cleansing Roasted Brussels Sprouts.

It takes a confident man to eat his 22-oz Ribeye while I put away that porterhouse. Size matters when it comes to meat, and every morsel of that toe-the-line-between-marble-and-gristle cut is too good to be true. Every bite floats in your mouth and barely touches your tongue before melting and spreading the gooey fat across every nook and cranny inside your mouth.

The taste of meat may linger sweetly but not nearly as sweetly as the special occasion Chocolate Layer Cake. Each layer is rich and moist, brushed with citrus vodka and Frangelico to keep it light with the subtlest bite. It must be laced with crack because it's addictive no matter how much steak you've had.

So my ability to consume steak may be just the tiniest bit disturbing. But give me some credit - No one in their right mind would let a steak sit in a take-home box, and anyone who throws a good steak away is dead to me. And honestly, so is anyone who can't appreciate the quality of the steak at Mastro's.