Mackenzie’s Prime

I don’t know about you, but what I want from a steakhouse is a very crisp salad with good blue cheese or a traditional Caesar, some great potatoes and a perfectly cut and cooked steak.
This is not a meal I want often — partly for health and weight reasons — so when it’s time for a steak, I want it to be great.
That’s how we ended up at Mackenzie’s Prime in the old CC’s City Broiler location on 10th Street downtown. We’ve always liked sitting out on the covered patio with the fans spinning overhead. It’s a perfect vantage point for watching people go by on the sidewalk. Unfortunately, the heat was too intense, and we had to sit indoors in Mackenzie’s small but comfortable dining room, which doesn’t seem to have changed much since its CC days.
It was a pretty busy night for the wait staff but not quite busy enough to justify our waiter’s slightly frenetic style — not quite in sync with our “let the weekend begin” frame of mind. But he was attentive as he explained the specials to us and took our drink orders from a fairly extensive wine list, which offers quite a few wines by the glass.
We decided to start with the beer-battered lobster fingers ($11.98), billed as pieces of lobster meat served with a lemon-caper butter sauce. The dish we were served arrived with a dipping sauce of what appeared to be (and tasted like) a thin sour cream sauce with dill.
We peered into the bowl and called our waiter over. He explained that the sauce was a “beurre blanc.” It might have been a variation on the classic French sauce, but it certainly wasn’t lemon-caper butter. The lobster itself was reasonably crisp on the outside and fresh-tasting, though slightly greasy.
On to our dinner salads: a Caesar ($2.98) and the “Steakhouse Wedge” ($3.98). We like our Caesar to have more than a passing acquaintance with anchovy, so Mackenzie’s version didn’t satisfy our craving. The “Wedge,” meanwhile, was perfect: crunchy sections of iceberg lettuce, sweet cherry tomatoes, blue cheese and bacon. Both salads come with Mackenzie’s thinly sliced “pickled” red onions. They’re crunchy and sweet without the usual bad onion aftertaste.
Our entrees arrived a few minutes later: the 14-ounce R.B.’s ribeye ($24.98) and the red snapper ($16.98), which our waiter recommended as the freshest fish that night. He could not have been more correct: The snapper was fresh, perfectly prepared and seasoned with restraint. A piece of fish that great needs only to be spared overcooking (and sometimes in a busy kitchen, that isn’t easy). The baby green beans were crisp cooked and piled high on the plate.
The ribeye wasn’t quite as impressive. This cut of meat should be marbled and tender. The steak we were served was unusually chewy and lacking the depth of flavor we expected. So we had plenty of room for the twice-baked potato and a slice of cheesecake for dessert.
And so our steakhouse craving was only partly satisfied. Next time, we’d both go for the fish at Mackenzie’s.
3 of 5 stars
Mackenzie’s Prime
131 S. 10th St. | (573) 514-4755