Where the password is steak, steak and more steak

What a kick, I think, every time I walk into Arroyo Chop House in Pasadena -- an Arts and Crafts steakhouse for a city proud of its architecture. Discreet dark wood paneling wraps the rooms up like a mink stole, speaking of old money, unostentatious taste and tradition. Wines are stored in handsome wood cabinets. The lights overhead are shielded with amber glass shades and the chairs are wide-body comfortable.

No one ever seems to come to Arroyo Chop House alone. It’s a group red-meat fest. The doors open on the excited voices of business colleagues or friends intent on getting a real steak dinner. There may be a slight wait for a table. No matter, someone has found a chair and set himself up in the foyer to make cell phone calls, all the while swirling a big Bordeaux glass of red and taking an occasional sip. At the bar, the after-work crowd is rowdy, standing three deep, munching on onion rings and knocking back potent drinks.

Arroyo Chop House is next door to Parkway Grill, Pasadena’s long-running Spago imitation. Both are owned by the Smith brothers and both are indelibly popular. But the steakhouse, if anything, is even more crowded than Parkway Grill. Voices boom from large tables. I hear someone giddy from Bordeaux and beef announce he’ll buy dinner next time -- in London.

Nobody gets this excited eating salads, that’s for sure. The merest whiff of beef sizzling on the grill must drill straight through to the primitive part of the brain. Romance flies out the window. Man’s strongest urge is dinner. Right here. Now. Steak. Under its spell, everyone feels generous and expansive, happily sociable knowing a steak is on the way. And after a few drinks, almost any steak would do.

That must be what the powers that be at Arroyo Chop House are counting on, because this is one steakhouse where the genre doesn’t deliver. Though the chef has been there since the beginning, I’m convinced the restaurant -- and the meat -- was better when it first opened six years ago. During several recent visits, one mediocre meal confirmed the next. And after the last one, we all went home a little hungry.

Why do I always feel I’m being hustled here? It starts with the water. One night we ordered a bottle of flat water, and the server came back to the table with two bottles and proceeded to try to empty the first bottle before she got all the way around the table for five. If we hadn’t stopped her, our water tab could have been $13 before we’d even taken a sip.

The question always is whether you want sourdough or garlic bread off the menu, or half and half. In other words, you pay extra for garlic bread, but somehow the realization that you also pay extra for the half-and-half option gets lost in the transaction. I don’t mind, really. This garlic bread -- while it has the hallmark chopped garlic, melted butter and nubbles of cheese -- is a lot better than the original, because the bread is a substantial sourdough, not the usual squishy stuff.

Steakhouse first courses don’t often shine, but these seem to be lower wattage than most. The best is beefsteak tomato cut in thick slices and topped with marinated red onion and either a vinaigrette with crumbled blue cheese or a creamy blue cheese dressing that puts Bob’s Big Boy to shame. Shrimp in the shrimp cocktail taste as if they’d been cooked the day before, and “crispy shrimp� cloaked in a greasy batter are not much improved by a garlic sauce. Seared scallops wrapped in pancetta sit forlornly in a sea of sticky Marsala sauce. This kitchen has a lot to learn about making food both appetizing and appetizing looking.

Who doesn’t love onion rings? These, however, are some of the worst I’ve ever encountered. They’re big as doughnuts, encased in an oil-sodden batter that’s not quite cooked through at the center. Though the tall pyramid of onion rings remains uneaten, no one on the wait staff thinks to ask if anything is wrong. Nobody seems to care. It’s one of the worst aspects of corporate restaurant culture.

The menu touts the beef as being exclusively USDA prime, aged for six weeks and hand-cut daily. And while that all sounds very admirable, I can only conclude after tasting Arroyo Chop House steaks that there is prime, and then there is prime. In other words, not all prime is the same. The rib-eye, center-cut, like all the steaks, is less marbled than most, and oddly limp, as if it had been tenderized. The New York, the real steak lovers’ cut, isn’t as flavorful and dense as the best are.

Skimpy porterhouse

And the night I ordered the porterhouse for two, we thought at first they’d made a mistake and sent out the normal porterhouse. This didn’t look anywhere near 2 1/2 pounds. Maybe they have some special technique of turning a hefty cut into the incredible shrinking steak. At $57, you’d think you’d get something, well, more magnificent. (And I have -- at other steakhouses.) This steak tasted more steamed than grilled and was altogether an unexceptional piece of meat.

The prime rib next to me was bigger than the steak for two. Partly, it looked so large because they’d left a huge chunk of fat attached, and it was also almost three fingers high. Once you get past the fat, the prime rib would be a better choice than any of the steaks. Oddly, the veal chop is the best cut in the house, thick and juicy, with a mild, delicate flavor.

Sides could use some tweaking too. The shoestrings are half-crisp, half-limp; some of the paler ones at the center of the pile clumped together. Au gratin potatoes taste like boiled sliced potatoes with a gratin of commercial yellow cheese. Creamed spinach is OK, though, and so are the “mountain� mushrooms, a mix of white button, brown and oyster mushrooms sauteed in butter and a splash of wine.

Wines are stacked all over the room, on little ledges between the upholstered booths, anywhere they can fit. And I have to say, people are drinking. Reds, mostly, but also some whites and the occasional bottle of champagne. And while the wine list could do a better job of offering some more interesting alternatives to big-ticket California Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux, the restaurant does offer good stemware, including a generously sized glass for serious reds.

When your waiter takes your order, you’ll be asked if you’d like to order a souffle, since it takes 40 minutes. Say yes. If you’re as unlucky as my table was on our last meal at Arroyo Chop House, you’ll be glad you did. That boozy Grand Marnier souffle turned out to be the best dish that night, the only one we really enjoyed.

When the souffle outshines the prime beef, something is seriously out of whack.

*

Arroyo Chop House

Rating: Satisfactory

Location: 536 S. Arroyo Parkway, Pasadena; (626) 577-7463

Ambience: Clubby Arts and Crafts steakhouse with several dining rooms, a lively bar and a pianist playing standards

Service: Impersonal

Price: Appetizers, $4 to $10; main courses, $19 to $36; sides, $5 to $9; desserts, $6 to $10.50

Best dishes: Garlic bread, sliced beefsteak tomato, veal chop, prime rib, Grand Marnier souffle

Wine list: Heavy on California Cabernets and Bordeaux, but with few interesting alternatives. Corkage $15

Best table: One of the semicircular booths along the back wall

Details: Open Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 10:30 p.m.

Rating is based on food, service and ambience, with price taken into account in relation to quality. ****: Outstanding on every level. ***: Excellent. **: Very good. *: Good. No star: Poor to satisfactory.