This review took place in December 2018 and is based on a visit to the restaurant without the restaurant's knowledge. For more on BK's review policy, click here.

If location is everything, we’re not sure why the owners of Steakhouse Co. opened what looks like a legitimate restaurant in the middle of Bangkok’s dying go-go bar district, Patpong —for decades, Silom’s seediest area. Steakhouse Co., with its exposed brick walls, scarlet cushions and dark-wood furniture, sticks out like a sore thumb and is the fanciest thing on the soi by a mile.

You can certainly get some quality boozing done here thanks to a decent selection of whiskies (like Ardbeg 10, B310/glass, and Yamazaki, B490/glass), a wine cellar filled with Italian labels (house reds and whites from B295) and 41 different beers by the bottle and on tap (B125-270). They obviously went to great lengths to import a range of options, but we were disappointed to find Singha is the only Thai beer here—these days bars can do a lot better.

Fancy beef is where Steakhouse Co. is at its best. The restaurant’s selection of premium meats (displayed in a dry-aging fridge at the back) stacks up well against its Silom competitors—think USDA Prime striploin (250g, B1,075) and Australian Black Angus sirloin (400g, B2,075) aged up to a powerful 120 days. We can hardly complain about the perfectly seared, well-rested piece of Argentinian striploin (400g, B1,275) we had recently—fantastically tender and juicy, but a smidge under-seasoned.

Other than this, the kitchen won’t wow you with panache. The tragic baked potato our steak came with, still wrapped in tinfoil like a backyard barbecue, is not worth talking about. The gambas garlic shrimp starter (B350) is springy, overcooked and pretty bland for something marinated in garlic and chili. Other dishes, like the creamy burrata bowl (with oven-dried tomatoes, mixed olives and drizzle of vinaigrette, B320) come well prepared but seem ill-conceived—a baseball-sized pile of cheese vs. a spoonful of veg?

In an ideal world, we like what Steakhouse Co. is trying to do. Patpong is a dump, and the streets would be better served with cool restaurants and venues. Sadly, it’s still sexpat central and that’s largely the crowd at Steakhouse Co: old men with very young counterparts, or groups of tourists looking to get a meal before heading to Bada Bing for a lap dance from a girl named “GiGi,”—really, how could we expect any different? With better options like The Meatchop a few minutes away, we don’t see many serious foodies going here.