St. John discovers beef's Holy Grail'

By By Robert St. John / good columnist
Nov. 19, 2003
Robert St. John is the executive chef/owner of the Purple Parrot Caf and Crescent City Grill in Hattiesburg and Meridian. He can be reached at www.nsrg.com.
I have been on a quest to find, eat, and write about the most expensive restaurant entre in the state of Mississippi.
My quest ended at the Beau Rivage Hotel and Casino in Biloxi.
Casinos have brought many changes to Mississippi, some good, some bad. A few of the good things that have come from the Glitter Gulch invasion are more restaurants (once again, some good and some bad).
The Beau Rivage in Biloxi has a lot of the good. My wife and I often dine at Noodles restaurant, the Beau Rivage's Chinese restaurant concept and one of the finest Chinese restaurants in the state.
We recently discovered Anna Mae, the Beau Rivage's Japanese concept and one of the best Japanese restaurants in the state. Now we have discovered The Port House, home to the most expensive, single entre in Mississippi.
When the Beau Rivage opened a few years ago, my wife and I visited Coral, their fine-dining concept. We weren't impressed.
I am not sure when the restaurant changed from Coral to The Port House, but it was an extremely smart move on the part of the Beau Rivage management team. The Port House restaurant is, by my ranking, one of the top five restaurants in the state of Mississippi.
Hidden location
The Port House is tucked away in the back corner of the gambling floor. To reach it, you must pass row upon row of Scotch and nicotine-fueled, blue-haired octogenarians endlessly feeding nickel slot machines.
They are fringe members of the greatest generation, the generation that survived the Great Depression, the generation that told us to be frugal and save our money, the generation that is now spending recklessly on gambling junkets out of St. Pete and searching for line-'em-up-at-the-food-trough buffets and one-armed bandit jackpots.
I, however, was in search of the state's most expensive entre.
The walls of The Port House dining room are made entirely of glass and house some of the most stunning salt-water aquariums to be seen. The effect of being completely surrounded by water and tropical fish is calming and relaxing, which is exactly the type atmosphere one needs when he is about to spend $150 on a single entre.
The state's most expensive entre is a combination of a 14-ounce cut of Kobe beef and an Australian lobster tail. Kobe beef is the world's finest beef and the Holy Grail of restaurant entrees. It is like butter. It can literally be cut with a fork.
Japenese origin
Kobe beef, Japanese in origin, comes from Wagyu cattle. The steers are fed beer to stimulate their appetite, rubbed with sake and massaged daily. The results yield the finest and most intense marbling of any cut of beef available and the price tag to go with it.
I don't know about you, but if I'm coming back as a cow, I want to be a Wagyu. As bovine living goes, these guys have it made. That is, of course, until it's time to go to the Japanese slaughter house. But we all have to die sometime, and as a devout carnivore, I'm glad it was their time and not mine.
I have never felt as worldly as I did sitting in The Port House dining room, eating Japanese beef and Australian lobster cooked by an Irish chef while my wife was drinking French wine in a Las Vegas-conceived restaurant located on the Mississippi Gulf Coast
It should be noted that there are many other entrees on The Port House's menu, all of which are much less expensive than the Kobe beef-Australian lobster combination. There are also other, less expensive, Kobe beef selections on the menu, but I wanted the Grail.
Was the $150 entre worth it? It's all about priorities. Given the opportunity to choose between $150 worth of Kenny G and Yanni compact discs or a Kobe beef dinner, I'm tucking my napkin in my lap and settling in for a well-marbled steak.
If I'm offered two, $75, front-row tickets to a hip-hop concert or a Kobe beef dinner, then hand me the butter knife.
A golfer doesn't think twice about shelling out expensive greens fees for the chance to play at Pebble Beach or Augusta. A hunter might travel to Montana and fork over more than $150 in hunting-license fees just for the chance of bagging a big buck.
I would imagine NASCAR fans spend in the neighborhood of $150 for good seats, stadium food and a T-shirt at one of those mega-speedway racetracks. Well, I don't play golf, deer hunt or watch NASCAR. I eat. And to a fanatical eater, Kobe beef is like sitting behind home plate during the seventh game of the World Series.
Next week Kobe Beef Part II: The Cow Strikes Back.