Okemos restaurant good for special occasion

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Walking into Gilbert and Blake’s, I was immediately struck by the restaurant’s exterior elegance. It felt like stepping into a ritzy cottage up north, rather than a restaurant in Okemos.

Inside, my first panoramic glance of Gilbert and Blake’s Seafood and Steak Grille, 3554 Okemos Road, in Okemos, emphasized its large and comfortable roominess.

There was a private dining room on my left that featured its own fireplace and as I turned, I saw the long oval bar with tall chairs wrapping around it.

Another turn of my head showed the main fireplace with short tables and cushy chairs at its side, inviting customers to relax with a cocktail.

Lastly, I turned toward the open dining room — spacious, but still cozy — filled with white cloth-draped tables.

This all happened before the hostess could seat my guest and me at our table.

By looking at the menu alone, there’s a nonscientific yet surprisingly consistent way to tell just how fine a restaurant that you’re dining at is: Look at how the prices of the food are written.

If a restaurant consistently uses varying amounts of cents at the end of prices might be trying to appeal to one looking for a bargain. However, when the restaurant never uses cents and the cost is simply numerals, guests know that they’re paying a lot and expect to be rewarded for it. This is how Gilbert and Blake’s write their prices.

The search for an appetizer began and we decided on the spinach and artichoke dip (the house specialty) and gator bites. Yep, that’s alligator.

The spinach and artichoke dip came with long, thin crackers hearty enough to withstand the scooping motion into the dip, which was very nice and very cheesy with plenty of spinach and thick tomato chunks on top.

The gator bites were underwhelming. They tasted a bit like frog legs, calamari or chicken (possibly a combination of the three). I thought of the chewy little fried bites like jalapeño poppers or popcorn shrimp.

The highlight of this dish was the spicy Cajun remoulade sauce which I continued to use throughout the rest of my meal.

As for entrees, my guest decided on the kasu Chilean sea bass and I chose a New York sirloin strip. We figured the place advertises itself as having “Savory Seafood. Sizzling Steaks,” so we complied.

This is where our meal took an ever-so-shallow downhill turn.

There was no question our meal took a while to arrive, and I would have to wait a little longer as my medium rare steak came out to me still mooing.

I normally enjoy a red steak (even a very red steak), but this came out to me looking strictly seared.

The inside was a dark red and barely warm to the touch. Our server very promptly took my steak back to bring it up to a true medium rare.

In the end, the steak was pretty good — but I asked for A1 steak sauce, if that says anything.

My guest’s sea bass was spectacular. With a ginger soy sauce on top, the delicate fish had the slightest sweetness and was well worth savoring. Both dishes were accompanied by mixed vegetables and a choice of potato.

For dessert, we ordered the chocolate lava cake. This small piece of cake packed a huge chocolate punch when we got to the middle, as hot dark chocolate oozed over our forks.

With a cup of coffee and a little scoop of ice cream, this was a superb way to end dinner.

Overall, my experience at Gilbert and Blake’s was very nice. I loved the ambience, decorations and mood of the place.

The food was good, but I think patrons would be wise to go the way of fish instead of steak.

One could take a date here for a special occasion — but be expecting to pay, at the very least, $30 per person.

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