Chopper Fooey

When there isn't live Texas rock booming through Chophouse's 18,000 square feet (the space was formerly Rock Bottom Brewery), the venue is barren. On two of our visits, we were accompanied only by the bartenders, a manager, a server and the chef. Still, service was slow and sporadic. Silverware is difficult to obtain. Napkins are scarce. Salt and pepper shakers are randomly deployed.

Paintings of rock icons fill the walls, from Frank Zappa and Jim Morrison (From the cesspools of excitement, Where Jim Morrison once stood, as Zappa once referenced the Doors' dim-bulb poet front man), to Guns n' Roses' Slash and Jimi Hendrix plus some Rolling Stones lips. Beer signs not only light up, they rotate.

There's even a Hendrix salad. Caesar salad is a loose collection of romaine with an avalanche of croutons in Italian dressing. No Parmesan anywhere. Cheese sticks are a loose shuffling of fried mozzarella stalks on a barren white plate surrounding a ramekin of marinara. Not even a sprig of parsley or a Harley grommet for frills. It's the typical frozen food service breaded cheese, although this went awry between freezer and fryer. The sticks were hot but hard.

Yet somehow steaks emerge as diamonds in this culinary landfill. Softail fillet isn't livery—a huge accomplishment. It's dense, silky, lush and potently seasoned. Rib eye is tender and sweetly rich with free-flowing juices and a subtle bite of cracked pepper on the finish. But the sides are abysmal. Broccoli florets with the rib eye were cold, yellow, mushy and distressingly sour, while the asparagus spears with the fillet are thick, hard and woody.

A barely toasted BLT is jammed with bacon—so much so that we couldn't find the LT part of the sandwich without unloading all of the crisp, smoky strips.

We finish with a fine cheesecake in strawberry sauce, completely sidestepping the tres leches cake our server recommended. But with a restaurant creed like "biker-friendly inside and out," it's hard to know who you can trust with dessert.

4050 Belt Line Road, Addison, 972-385-1200. Open 3:30 p.m.-2 a.m. daily. $$-$$$.