Snappinig Steaks

When step-dad No. 2 wanted to show my mama a real good time, he’d loop up his heaviest, most garish Willie Nelson-style belt buckle, slip into his favorite suede boots, grab his gussied-up gal and aim the ’82 Buick Regal south on Balboa Boulevard, not stopping until they reached the Sherman Room, half a block west on Sherman Way, where Reseda meets Van Nuys. It was totally classy.

I mean that. There’s something romantic about hunkering down in one of the Sherman Room’s comfy green banquettes with a big slab o’ meat and a few Budweisers delivered by a saucy waitress who insists on calling you “hon.” It was once considered a great date, but alas, somewhere between my teenage and adult years, steak mutated from a snazzy meal into a dirty little secret. And I felt I had to be discreet about my occasional visits to the Sherman Room. But it was always worth the guilt.

The Sherman Room serves as a safe house for those of us who still have carnivorous urges. It’s stood stubbornly in the same unassuming location since 1955, giving no quarter to culinary trends and fads. Even the green-skirted waitresses (matching the banquettes beautifully) never seem to change. You’d be hard-pressed to find any of them with less than a decade of service. In fact, Sally (or “Grandma” to the customers who know and love her) has been dishing out the bovine for an astonishing 35 years.

You don’t go to the Sherman Room for the ambience, although its Naugahyde-and-Formica aesthetic does possess a charm mature swingers can appreciate. And if the beef-centric menu doesn’t scare away vegetarians, the decor certainly will. After you get beyond the bronze door handle in the shape of a ram, you’ll find lots of English gaming and hunting prints throughout the dining room and lounge.

Unlike, say, the Sizzler, which began as a steak house and became a schizophrenic trough when times got tough, the Sherman Room kept its menu Zen-like in its reliable simplicity. Once you sit down, the only questions are what cut of meat to order--filet mignon, New York or sirloin--and how to have it cooked. Sure, you can get a teriyaki-doused chicken breast, deep-fried shrimp or even ground sirloin smothered in mushroom gravy, but what’s the point? The steak’s the thing.

Each cut of beef is presented the same way--sizzling on a hot metal platter atop a wood plank. You can hear its snap and sizzle from the next room. Every steak comes with soup (the lentil has a pleasantly smoky flavor) or a nondescript salad consisting of iceberg lettuce with far too much dressing, although the house concoction, called garlic blue, is, in moderation, a pleasantly tarted-up alternative to conventional blue cheese.

Main courses include a substantial piece of meat, augmented by a foil-wrapped baked potato with golf-ball sized dollops of butter and sour cream and chives (on request) and a pair of puffy, rectangular slices of garlic bread that may be light on garlic flavor but nevertheless handy to sop up stray steak drippings.

Among the steaks, the New York is godhead. Cooked medium, the Sherman’s version achieves the perfect balance of darkly charred exterior and delightfully pink inside. They even make a clove-heavy elixir of a steak sauce--an A-1 alternative for those who like to dip now and again.

Nothing tops off a hearty, rich meal better than a similar dessert. The most over-the-top offering is Sherman’s homemade version of mud pie--coffee ice cream, fudge and whipped cream with an Oreo crust--a mess of gooey decadence.

Go ahead. Have a cow, man.

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Where to Go

The Sherman Room, 16916 Sherman Way, Van Nuys. (818) 881-9363. Hours: Monday-Friday 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5 p.m.-10 p.m., Saturday 5 p.m.-10 p.m., Sunday 4 p.m.-9 p.m. Full bar. Cash only. Dinner for two $30 to $45. 21 and older only.

What to Get

New York steak, filet mignon, top sirloin, mud pie.