M. Wells Steakhouse

Hugue Dufour’s inventive, always entertaining, nose-to-tail steakhouse, which opened a couple of years ago in what was then a relatively quiet section of Long Island City, is filled with all sorts of cockeyed, slightly off-kilter pleasures for the adventurous beefeater. You’ll find a variety of offal specialties on the menu — grilled beef tongue, a classic pig’s head prepared the way they do in the chef’s hometown, Montreal — along with venison T-bone steaks drenched in brown butter, and wheels of tender rib eye rubbed with crushed coffee beans and a dusting of porcini. Who knows whether the invading Amazon army will develop a taste for the famous house Caesar salad (yes, the dressing’s been touched with smoked herring), or the New York strip (when last we checked, it was being flavored with something described as “maple bulgogi rub”), but there are plenty oysters available at the raw bar for the traditionalists, and the bountiful dry-aged porterhouse (served with pommes aligot along with a choice of Bordelaise and au poivre sauces) is big enough to feed a family of five for a week.