I can count on Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn to produce certain sensations at every meal.

There is the insistent smell of broiled dry-aged steak that hits me the minute I open the door and sometimes sooner, while I’m still outside on the South Williamsburg sidewalk, producing a raised pulse, a quickening of the senses and a restlessness familiar to anyone who has seen a tiger that has just heard the approach of the lunch bucket.

There is the hiss of butter and melted tallow as they slide down the hot platter, past the sliced porterhouse or rib steak and their charred bones, to make a pool at one end. The server will spoon some of this sizzling fat over the meat he has just plated, generally with some line like “Here are your vitamins.”

There is the thunk of a bowl filled with schlag landing on a bare wood table when dessert is served, and soon after, the softer tap-tap-tap of waxy chocolate coins in gold foil dropped one at a time on top of the check.

And after I’ve paid, there is the unshakable sense that I’ve been scammed.

The last sensation was not part of the Peter Luger experience when I started eating there, in the 1990s. I was acutely aware of the cost back then because I would settle the tab by counting out $20 bills; cash was the only way to pay unless you had a Peter Luger credit card. At the end of the night my wallet would be empty. Because a Peter Luger steak made me feel alive in a way that few other things did, I considered this a fair trade, although I could afford it only once a year or so.