Alley Fat

Fish is only slightly less riveting. A coarse crescent of baked halibut is posted on a plate near a ribbon of vegetables: zucchini, onion, bell pepper, mushrooms, that sort of thing. The fish is Parmesan-crusted and seasoned with paprika, scallions and citrus lime juice. This injects a forward bite into what is otherwise a mild fish.

But the Grill hooks its rep on meat, on chops such as the treacherously priced beef rib chop ($39.75). Australian lamb chops don't go that high. Five or so chops are propped vertically on the plate in a puddle of brackish mint sauce near a dab of spinach mashed potatoes. Rather than tight and silky with tightly focused meat flavors, the chops are loose and fatty with just a little bit of raciness to break through the lackluster texture of the meat.

Charbroiled rib eye was even more disappointing, especially given that the beef is 28-day-aged prime from Midwestern corn-fed cattle. A pool of red juices collects in a divot on the rib eye's surface, which is broiler-scorched into a craggy black crust. The large steak is rich but loose, sinewy and very fatty — not marble fatty, but fatty with pronounced pockets of milky-yellow globules.

Salads are astounding, though. Endive salad—with racy red radicchio, romaine, gorgonzola and spicy pecans splashed in an invigorating vinaigrette—is essentially a leafy aperitif. Rich, thick slices of tomato tango with Bermuda onion hoops and Maytag blue cheese in the tomato onion salad.

Sure, this is little more than a burly American grill with furred-chest brutishness tamed by cummerbund manners. The only requirement for its enjoyment is a high-cholesterol billfold.

Yet sometimes it stumbles. Instead of a silken puree, the Grill's chilled gazpacho is just a bowl of thin tomato bleed with bits of avocado, cucumber and tomato—essentially a wet salad. Then again, what self-respecting chop and prime rib shop dabbles in gazpacho?

13270 Dallas Parkway, Suite 155, 214-459-1601. Open 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Sunday. $$$-$$$$