the Steak Exchange was pretty good. Since I haven't seen any reviews on it anywhere --save City Weekend's snippet, which suggested the bill should come to Y400 per couple; ha!-- I'd like to tell you about it.

During the course of our evening, we visited all 3 of the Financial Street hotels (RC, Westin, and Intercon). We both agreed that the Intercon was the nicest. Its bar was especially cool, in spite of the fact that the band was not (a moot point because the neighborhood remains a ghost town).

To get to the Steak Exchange, you need to walk through Monsoon, a blah buffet restaurant that I think your mag reviewed recently. Our thoughts on Monsoon were that it wouldn't warrant a trip from across town under any circumstances because there's plenty of that over here in the CBD.

The Steak Exchange features high ceilings and an enormous glass wine rack (a picture might be more telling). They gave us a table by the window with a view of West 2nd Ring (something we don't see every day and don't need to).

The menu was pretty simple: 1) steaks ranging in price from y350 to y498; 2) turkey and salmon "steaks" for y180; 3) sides and salads for a bargain y18 a pop; 4) desserts for y88; and 5) a decent wine list.

We did it up; I ordered a fillet with pepper sauce. My boss had a rib eye with red wine sauce. And, we ordered a bunch of side dishes (ceasar salad, mashed potatoes, baked potato, asparagus, spinach, broccoli, etc etc), just for the sake of research. As a special touch, they brought us an array of fancy mustards to compliment our steaks.

What can I say, even if somewhat uninspired, the food was good,... the closest thing to Morton's/Ruth's Chris that I've ever experienced in China (Steak Exchange: Morrel's :: Capone's: Annie's). In fact, I'd have no problem whatsoever bringing my dad there, who is a bit of steak snob.