Audio By Carbonatix
As someone who grew up going to steakhouses with floors littered with peanut shells and decorated with old license plates, I appreciate the simplicity and straightforwardness of a place like Dunston’s Steakhouse. The steaks are prime, the walls are unfinished, and the atmosphere is like a fancier Golden Corral, complete with a watery-looking yet entirely tempting salad bar.
The drinks, though, are much more refined than you might think. There are old school entries, like a classic Mai Tai made with orgeat syrup, pineapple juice and fresh rum. Orgeat syrup! Even the cheesier cocktails, like the coconut rum-and-moscato based Oceanside Coconut, are straightforward without a bunch of sweet syrups or other bartender’s shortcuts. From my first glance at the menu, though, I knew I was going to be having a Paloma.
A Paloma, made with tequila, fresh grapefruit juice, and soda water, is sort of what margaritas would be if they were actually classy. It’s a simple, not too sweet mixture that is at once refreshing and a little complicated on the tongue. At Dunston’s, the Paloma is mixed with El Jimador blanco tequila, a perfectly sippable spirit that goes beautifully with a big ass rib eye steak and a salad topped with about eighteen ounces of ranch dressing.
When my cocktail came out in a Lakewood Brewing Company beer glass, I couldn’t help but snicker. That’s cute and all, but when you’re charging me $9 for a cocktail, you’re not allowed to serve it in a glass that was specifically designed for another type of booze. But the cocktail snob within was quickly quieted once I tried the Paloma in front of me — it had been mixed remarkably well.
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Whether or not the grapefruit juice was freshly squeezed, it didn’t have the metallic taste that is telltale of juice that has spent most of its life in a can. Swapping lemon-lime soda for club soda is certainly not in keeping with the original recipe, but it gives it a familiar taste, similar to a classed-up version of the fruity punches that I used to love drinking in college, minus all those Kool-Aid packets and Everclear.
With all of the fancy bartender techniques and interesting new ingredients that currently dominate the cocktail scene, it is occasionally wonderful to find a drink that you know that you can perfectly replicate at home, even if you’re pouring it into a Dallas Cowboys souvenir cup and topping it off with a half-flat bottle of Sprite. It is near impossible to fuck up a Paloma, especially if you a have a few fresh grapefruits laying around at home.
To find the perfect Paloma at a place like Dunston’s is a sweet kind of serendipity. To sip that cocktail out of a random beer glass at a place with such classic kitsch is kind of perfect. It serves as a good reminder that you don’t have to pay $15 for a well-made cocktail, and you don’t have to drink it in a place that makes you feel like a street rat.
