Meat: it's not just for whittling edible figurines. Today's Groupon ensures you'll have meals covered by a comforting blanket of sizzling, medium-rare perfection. For $35, you get $70 worth of fine chophouse steaks, salads, soups, drinks, and more from The Vintage Steakhouse. This deal does not apply toward happy hour. Steeped in Old-World-meets-West ambience, The Vintage strikes a seductive date-night pose in San Juan Capistrano with a warm, wood-ceilinged dining room.

The Vintage is more than just a meat house, it's a meat home—a place where meats of all cuts and sizes can discover who they really are. Charbroiled over a smoky, mesquite-fired grill; inspired by a long list of fine wines ($20–$400 a bottle) and cocktails (well starts at $5.95); or befriended by seasonal vegetables sourced locally, these meats truly become delicious.

The menu features tastes suitable for a wide range of human palates. Retired-Yakuza-hit-men-turned-surf-bums can relax with an appetizer of house-smoked trout with dill aioli, capers, and diced red onion (vintage 2003, $10) and martinis ($11). A soon-to-be-starlet-on-an-all-meat-cleanse-diet can slice into a rack of lamb with thyme-garlic demi-glaze (1986, $29) and the house specialty 16-ounce rib-eye steak ($32.95) while tipping back a Metro cocktail with vodka, cranberry juice, and crème de cassis ($5.75). An honorable-man-caught-in-the-middle-of-something-he-doesn't-understand chooses the top-sirloin salad with blue cheese, fresh tomatoes, and creamy, pugnacious horseradish dressing (2005, $15). A gingerbread man once ordered the six-spice ahi-tuna entree (1999, $24), but, driven mad by the unbelievable flavor, wandered into the desert and later returned only to order the white-chocolate mousse with blackberries ($7) and peanut-butter crème brûlée ($7.50).

In addition to lunch and its prime-cut dinner, The Vintage also serves breakfast—from "just eggs" any style (two, $6.85) to benedicts, pancakes, and meat cakes made distinctive by their coupling with a selection of breakfast cocktails based on St. Germain elderberry liqueur, such as the St. Rita with tequila blanco and fresh-squeezed lime.

Reviews

Gayot says:

• The Vintage Steakhouse in the San Juan Capistrano train depot captures the old-school glamour of the golden age of railroad travel. Diners can board a restored 1927 Pullman Car to enjoy signature dishes like the horseradish sirloin salad, mesquite grilled rib-eye steak, and a starter of Gulf prawns sautéed with pernod, basil, garlic, tomatoes and Sauvignon Blanc.

Yelpers give The Vintage Steakhouse 4.5 stars, OpenTable users hover over four, and TripAdvisors give it 3.5 owl eyes:

• The Vintage Steakhouse is the perfect place to celebrate a special occasion or to just enjoy a romantic night out in a fun setting...There's even a patio out front for open-air dining, but sitting inside one of the old Pullmans adds a certain old-time charm to dining on the perfect mesquite grilled steaks, hearty appetizers, generous soups and salads, Napa wines and rich side dishes...great desserts too, all served impeccably by the knowledgeable and helpful waiters. – OpenTable user
• The artichoke heart appetizer was delicious...I went with their staple, the Hanger Steak for my meal. I have never had such a tender melt-in-your-mouth steak before! The sweet potato fries, also, I have never had better. – Heather C., Yelp
• The ambience is beautiful and the sounds of live jazz bounces off the wood floors...My boyfriend got the bavette steak...which he thoroughly enjoyed…we went with the Peanut Butter Creme Brulee...Can we say "MMMMMM"?? - dd Y., Yelp

Hi, Steaks!

Whether you're staking a claim on a rich vein of Steak-umms® or apologizing for the mistake of staking out a stakeholder of Stakey's Pumpkin Farm, who you suspected was a vampire in need of staking, steaks are a part of our daily life as well as our vocabulary. Now you can learn the vocabulary of steaks with our handy ordering guide:

Medium-Rare: This indicates that you want your steak to be made from an animal that is rare, but not too rare, such as the leopard shark or the gaur.

Rare: This tells your server that you don't want to eat steaks too frequently, preferring to save them for special occasions, such as the birth of your first son, Amiga, or finally telling your boss where he can shove his beautiful head of silver hair.

Medium-Cool: This lets the chef know that you want to eat your steak while viewing Haskell Wexler's seminal vérité-style docu-drama Medium Cool, in which he incorporates both scripted and documentary footage to tell the story of the 1968 Democratic National Convention and subsequent election of President Zappa.

Put Wings on It!: This indicates that you wish for your steak to be brought to you quickly, or alternatively, that you are ordering the chicken.