Portland, according to Wikipedia, has a higher number of strip clubs per capita than does Las Vegas. We’ve found some dreadful food at strip clubs, but we’ve also found some really decent food. Perhaps nowhere is the strip-club food more decent than it is in Portland, and perhaps nowhere in Portland is it more decent than it is at the Acropolis Club.

The trick is being able to go for the $10 steak without bleeding $20 bills the whole time, because if you go far enough, you could end up spending as much as you would for a brilliant Porterhouse…and a good bottle of wine…at a more serious steakhouse. Unless, of course, you consider that the formula for measuring the value of your steak includes boobies.

The great thing about the Acropolis, though, is that there’s no pressure to bleed bills. The entertainers will actually back off and let you enjoy your ridiculously inexpensive meal. In other words, it is entirely possible to have your steak…and eat it, too.

That isn’t to say you won’t be able to see gyrating flesh from wherever you sit, and it’s commonly felt that the quality of that flesh at Acropolis is at least as high as that of the flesh on your plate. Then again, it is pitch black in there, a lighting that is notoriously flattering. But the mouth doesn’t lie—this is pretty good meat (the steak, that is—even if it doesn’t actually come from the owner’s cattle ranch, as has been sometimes misreported). Sandwiches like French dips and Reubens are huge and cheap, and everything comes with onion rings, fries, baked potato, or salad. There’s even a salad bar if your desire for flesh doesn’t run to the palate. Breakfast is also good, greasy and filling.

The club’s dimmer-than-dim lighting isn’t the only great equalizer here. A magnificent collection of 51 beer taps yield just short of a pint each, for $4. $4 for everything. PBR? $4. MGD? $4. Rogue Dead Guy? $4. Rainier? $4. It’s surreal, and pretty exciting if you like a bargain.

Dinner and a show? El Gaucho would do well to amp up those tableside antics to justify their sky-high prices. Maybe they could hire these gals to toss the Caesar to “She’s Only Seventeen.” Then they’d really have something.