Shuttling his brood around Northern California, the elder Mr. Hanks found work in a variety of steak joints and what his famous son now categorizes as "union dinner houses."

Later, a short drive takes us up to West Hollywood, where we're told you can find a beautiful aged ribeye at Boa, the city's hippest new steak joint.

So how did this fancified steak joint, with leather banquettes, buffalo and ram heads and old paintings bought at auction become so popular?

Not that every steak joint in Las Vegas cuts corners.

When he came, fish houses and steak joints were the beginning and the end of dining out here.

Chapter 32 He insisted on taking her to a steak joint on West 46th Street.

Each Morton's has a full-time food and beverage controller who arrives at 6 A.M. and leaves 12 hours later after tracking the movement of every meat-and-potato item in the steak joint.

I stopped at a steak joint on Los Feliz and wolfed a king-size porterhouse, spinach and hash browns, then cruised Hollywood Boulevard and the Strip.

If nothing else, Manny's offers a vast improvement over traditional street-side steak joints in Philadelphia.

The restaurant inside was furnished like a true steak joint, all mahogany and brass and green leather booths and hanging pewter tankards.