Iowa Chop House — Restaurant in Iowa City

Little history lesson: This used to be the chef's table, a frankly bewildering fine french restaurant/all you can eat sushi restaurant.They (Or more likely their non 'sushi grade' sushi) gave me a little food poisoning once. Or at least I assume it was them.

Later as Xie, (And I assume, the exact same place, because they were still french with sushi) they got on TV on an imitation 'kitchen nightmares' show that focused on asian restaurants. That's where I learned that the owner of Xie was also the owner of one of the better Chinese restaurants in town.

Before that it was the chef's table, it was the prairie kitchen, a local kitchen supply store that sold a great many exotic salts, and cooking impliments.

Now it's the Iowa Chophouse.

Now that your history lesson is out of the way, here's what I observed. Their drinks are overpriced, and served in dinky cups, especially the 'iowa cornhole'. Don't bother with the booze.

Their steaks are good, but you pay extra for every side, every glaze, every sauce, every seasoning. They use good, fresh, meat and it shows in the taste, so those sauces and seasonings are not necessary anyway.

If you buy your steak without any sauces the price will be about 16 or so dollars, pretty reasonable. Even with one sauce it jumps to 19, and if you start throwing more stuff on, it gets pricey really, really, fast.

And don't bother with their booze. The selection is good, but the price is stupid, and the serving size is 'too small'. Then again, that is frankly my opinion on the alcohol selection of practically every bar and restaurant in Iowa City.

They are, in fact, wheelchair accessible, but I don't think their...

Not my favorite but an ok restaurant in the area. At the beginning they did not have many options but they have been adding to the menu making it more appealing to a broader audience.

They have a lot of space and can easily accommodate groups, even in private room. They let us occupy all the tables we had reserved even though half our party did not show up. I did not like that they sent me a text saying I had to go to yelp to confirm my reservation. I do not use that site but still downloaded their app to confirm and they still called me hours later to confirm again.

Steaks are good, even with the salad, but kind of expensive considering they are not awesome and come sad and lonely on the plate while sides have an extra charge. Burgers and sandwiches are fine, fries too. Mac&cheese looks interesting with the skillet and crumbs on top but then it is just like kraft or velveeta. Even our kids, who love pasta with anything, disliked this. The beef appetizer is worth trying, full of flavor! As for sweets, creme brulee is good and they burn it right on the table so it is also a bit of a show. Now tiramisu is completely wrong, it has cake instead of ladyfingers and tastes A LOT like cinnamon when it should not have any cinnamon at all.

Finally, they bring the bill while some are still eating but then they take forever to pick it up. Also, I paid in cash once and was given the change in $1 bills, ten of them. Please pay your waiters a decent salary so that they do not need to use these tactics for...

This experience was disappointing at best, my husband had been here previously for a takeout order and had a very mediocre meal. Upon my insistence, we went back again to give the place another shot. We ordered the bison meatballs, the kale and artichoke dip, the rib eye, green beans on the side, a garden salad, the salmon with rice pilaf and a tiramisu. The only thing worth mentioning is the green beans, although they were a bit on the salty side.

The rib eye wasn’t evenly cooked, meat was average and my husband had to keep spitting out the cartilage because it was too chewy, it was overly salted and it has no business being in a steakhouse. The salmon was over cooked and incredibly dry, the rice pilaf was more like a wild rice risotto and it would’ve been average had the salmon been cooked the right way.

The appetizers were good, although the meatballs were smothered in way too much sugar laden barbecue sauce and the ‘crostini’ for the dip was just grilled slabs of french bread.

DO NOT GET THE TIRAMISU, I don’t know what that is, but it’s rip off and wasn’t edible. We informed the waiter that something was off about it, he took it back to the kitchen and avoided coming back to our table for the night. Up until that point, the service had been really good.

We spent over $100 and there wasn’t a single thing about the meal worth talking about.

This place is overrated, save your money and go elsewhere, there are much better options in...