BPR vs. HPR

So Saturday was my bday dinner at Broadway Prime Rib. This place was supposedly started by a couple of ex-staff/chefs from the famous House of Prime Rib (HPR) in San Francisco. Not sure if this is an urban legend but apparently many years ago HPR sued Broadway Prime for copying them. I did a Google search and could find no such info on this but it's not hard to believe. The menu is almost identical down to the names of the cuts of meats. The smallest cut at BPH is the City Cut, which is called the Peninsula Cut at Broadway Prime (the restaurant is located in the Bay Area's Peninsula in Burlingame). Both offer seconds if you can finish the Select or larger cut. At HPR you can also get thirds but not at Broadway Prime. Other points of comparison:

Size of cut: HPR wins hands down. Broadway Prime has smaller servings but both I found equally tasty and both offer seconds with the medium or large cut.
Salad: I liked Broadway's better because they didn't dump a bottle of MSG into it.
Yorkshire Pudding: Much tastier at Broadway Prime. The HPR one was a bit bland.
Bread: HPR served their sourdough nice and warm and soft. Broadway's was OK but not warm
Cream spinach: HPR wins on this too. The Broadway Prime spinach tasted weird and was not hot enough.
Mashed potatoes: Tie.

Overall, the meat was about the same but you trade good yorkshire pudding for mediocre bread and spinach at Broadway Prime. But you also trade decor(HPR) for convenience (Broadway). In the future, I'd still prefer Broadway Prime because it's close to home, plenty of parking (vs 1/2 hour haul plus 15min+ parking or valet and typically additional 45 min wait with reservations at HPR) and comparable food. In future I'd skip the creamed spinach in favour of the cream corn, get extra yorkshire pudding (that's free) and order the larger select cut (or eat some of Simon's second cut like I did).

To everyone who made it out. Thanks so much for coming, I had a great time. Sorry it was tough to get me hammered after all the food.