Dry steak??

I went to Stockyard Restaurant in Brighton off of I90 the other week with some friends. I didn't pick it, but I always see it when I'm on the Pike, so I thought why not? I wasn't quite pleased with the experience.

The restaurant itself has a sort of charm to it. The interior was very woody and gives you a sense that it was around a while. Who knows, it might've been. We sat in the main dining room and there was a this huge bar in the middle. Very open. It took a while for us to get served. There was this larger set waiter that kept flying from table to table, and I was hoping he wouldn't be serving us. I was wrong. After managing to flag him down, he hastily took our order and rushed off. Our first impression of him was that he was either new or a very bad waiter. We mostly agreed on the latter.

I ordered a "Land and Sea" - 8-oz sirloin and three stuffed shrimp. As usual, I got my steak medium rare. We also ordered an appetizer sampler. The sampler was decent, but fatty appetizers tend to be good. Fat makes food tasty. Entrees came a bit later. My steak looked good, but I was very surprised to find that my steak was not seasoned at all. I'm used to places where the kitchen has seasoned the steak enough so that it complements the natural flavors. I very rarely use any other sauces/condiments on my steak, but this steak tasted like unseasoned beef. Salt and pepper kinda helped, but I maintained my no sauce on my steak rule (I probably should've given in to some A1). The steak was cooked right; warm red center. However, it was dry. I was stunned. How can a medium-rare steak be dry? That goes against all laws of nature for steak!! I know it was a sirloin, but come on, it was blood red! To top it off, one side of my steak had this tough chewy fat running along it. Great. On a good note, the broiled stuff shrimp was good. Again, fat makes things tasty. I had a baked potato, too, but you can't get that wrong. One of my friend's had this steak covered in this mushroom sauce. He liked his steak fine, but the sauce probably covered any deficiencies in the steak.

After dinner, we passed on dessert and got the check. The waiter deemed our party of six as large and added an 18% gratuity on the bill. When I got my credit slip, there was a line for "additional tip". I laughed at that. For what I paid, I could've went to Texas Roadhouse for a dependable tasty steak. It's a "No" to Stockyard.