Some of my most memorable experiences in the United States happened when I wasn’t traveling at all.
When I worked at an accounting firm in the U.S., I occasionally had to travel to client sites for audit work. These trips took me to places I probably would never have visited as a tourist.
One of those places was Andalusia, Alabama.
It wasn’t New York, Los Angeles, or one of the American cities that most international travelers would immediately recognize. I was there for work, spending most of my days at a client’s office with my audit team.
After a long day, however, we still had to figure out the most important question of the evening:
What are we going to eat?
One night, that question took us to Big Mike’s Steakhouse in downtown Andalusia.
And years later, it is still one of the meals I remember most clearly from my time working in America.
A Steakhouse in a Small Alabama Town
My first impression of Big Mike’s wasn’t that of a polished steakhouse in a major American city.
The building had an old brick exterior, a simple vertical BIG MIKE’S STEAKHOUSE sign, and a parking lot filled with cars.
It felt local.
And that was probably what I liked about it.
When international travelers think about eating steak in the United States, famous restaurants in New York, Chicago, or Texas might come to mind first. But working in the U.S. gave me a chance to experience another side of the country — the restaurants people actually visit in smaller towns.
Big Mike’s fits that story surprisingly well.
The restaurant originally started in Thomasville, Alabama. According to its own story, the founders wanted people living in smaller communities to be able to enjoy a quality steak without having to drive for hours to a larger city.
Andalusia later became the second Big Mike’s location.
That background made sense when I thought about my visit.
This wasn’t a restaurant trying to recreate a Manhattan steakhouse in rural Alabama. It felt much more like a steakhouse that belonged exactly where it was.
Dinner After a Day of Audit Work
One thing I remember clearly about business trips in the U.S. is the transition from work to dinner.
During the day, there wasn’t much sightseeing.
We were there to work.
Most of the day was spent reviewing documents, asking questions, working through audit procedures, and sitting in front of laptops.
Then, at some point in the evening, we would finally close our computers and leave the client’s office.
Dinner felt like the moment when the workday actually ended.
At Big Mike’s, bread arrived at the table before the main dishes.
The restaurant currently serves Bavarian bread with cinnamon butter alongside its steaks.
It doesn’t look particularly remarkable in the photo. It’s simply a small loaf of dark bread on a wooden board.
But looking at this picture now brings back a very specific memory: sitting around a table with coworkers after spending the entire day working at a client site.
That’s something I came to appreciate about business travel.
You may not have time to visit famous attractions, but you still experience a place through small moments like these.
Something I Didn’t Usually Eat in Korea
Before the steaks arrived, we ordered something that immediately felt unfamiliar to me.
Fried crab claws.
The current Big Mike’s menu lists Crab Claws among its appetizers, made with Gulf Coast crab claws.
Coming from Korea, I was obviously familiar with eating crab.
But the way crab is commonly served in Korea can be quite different. Soy-marinated crab, steamed crab, and spicy crab dishes were much more familiar to me than a basket full of small fried crab claws.
So when this arrived at our table, it was one of those small food experiences that reminded me that I was in the American South.
We squeezed some lemon over them and shared them around the table.
They were crispy, easy to eat, and exactly the kind of food that works well when several people are having dinner together.
It wasn’t something I had planned to try in Alabama.
Then again, I hadn’t exactly planned to visit Andalusia either.
That was one of the interesting parts of working in the United States. Work sometimes brought me to places — and foods — I would never have deliberately searched for on a vacation.
The Steak I Still Remember
Then came the reason I still remember this restaurant.
The steak.
I don’t remember the exact cut I ordered that evening, so I’m not going to pretend that I do.
What I do remember is that it was really good.
The steak was thick, properly grilled, and served with butter melting over the top. On the side was a loaded baked potato covered with cheese, bacon, sour cream, and chives.
It was not a subtle meal.
It was a very American steak dinner.
And I loved it.
Big Mike’s says its steaks are Certified Angus Beef, aged for 28 days, hand-cut, and cooked over a wood-fired grill before being finished with garlic herb butter.
I didn’t know any of that when I walked into the restaurant.
There was no research beforehand and no list of famous restaurants I wanted to check off.
My coworkers and I simply needed somewhere to have dinner after work.
Maybe that’s part of why I remember it so fondly.
I’ve eaten steak many times in the United States, including in much larger cities. But when I think about the best steaks I had while living there, this dinner in a small Alabama town still comes to mind.
Business Travel Showed Me a Different America
When I think about my time living and working in the United States, I don’t only remember the office or the city where I lived.
Audit work sometimes required traveling directly to where the client was located.
That meant visiting places I probably wouldn’t have chosen for a vacation.
Andalusia was one of them.
There wasn’t an itinerary.
I didn’t spend the day visiting landmarks.
I went to work in the morning, spent the day with the audit team, went out for dinner, and returned to do it again the next day.
At the time, I didn’t think of any of this as travel.
It was simply work.
Looking back, I see it a little differently.
Those trips gave me a glimpse of parts of America that are easy to miss when traveling only through major destinations.
For someone visiting the U.S. from Korea, America can easily become a collection of famous places: Times Square, the Las Vegas Strip, Hollywood, the Golden Gate Bridge, or perhaps the national parks.
But most Americans don’t live their everyday lives in tourist attractions.
They live in towns like Andalusia.
They finish work, get in their cars, meet friends or family, and go to local restaurants for dinner.
A steakhouse packed with people on an ordinary evening can sometimes tell you something about a place that a famous landmark cannot.
Why This Dinner Stayed With Me
There is one reason I wanted to include this story on MASIL.
Travel doesn’t always have to begin with a vacation.
Another business trip took me much farther away, to Budapest, where a few hours outside work gave me a completely different kind of travel memory.
Sometimes you end up somewhere because of work, family, a delayed flight, or something completely unrelated to traveling.
And then a small experience becomes the thing you remember years later.
For me, Andalusia is connected to exactly that kind of memory.
I don’t remember every audit procedure I performed during that business trip.
I don’t remember every document we reviewed.
But I remember leaving work with my coworkers, walking into this old brick steakhouse, sharing fried crab claws, and eating a steak that was much better than I expected.
It was an ordinary evening during a business trip.
But somehow, it became one of my memories of America.
And if I ever find myself traveling through Alabama again, there’s a good chance I’ll make a stop in Andalusia.
Mostly because I want that steak again.
