0 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Terrible) Awarded to Red Robin Gourmet Burgers for their Prime Rib Dip Sandwich in Redmond, WA on this 5th day of October, 2011 - A terrible and expensive prime rib dip.

Setting the scene

The faithful Red Robin sign

I found myself at Red Robin: I was going to meet a friend there for beers but he missed his bus and couldn’t make it so I was left sitting solo.  It was dinner time and since I have this very big responsibility to review French dips for you (man it is stressful!! ; )), and Red Robin has one on their menu (Prime Rib, Provolone, Grilled Onions, on French baguette), I figured I’d have and review it.
I thought to myself as I ordered that I might have sworn off the Red Robin Dip before for it not being good but I figured I needed to have it again and get the knowledge of this French dip out to my peeps.  So here it goes: the Red Robin Prime Rib Dip!

Menu and Ordering

I like Red Robin’s menu and burgers.  Their steak fries are good and I really like to dip my fries into “Buzz Sauce”, which is the stuff they brine/cook their hot wings in: zesty and delicious, garlicky.

Looks like a pretty tasty unit!

Plate

It has very small bread, very little au jus, and the meat is gray!

No, really, it is GRAY!!!

The dip came with coleslaw that tasted okay and I ordered a salad (Bleu Cheese) instead of the steak fries (figured I’d save on some calories).  The salad was pretty good overall: good croutons, larger than normal (in a good way) cabbage bits, and reasonable hearty carrot shards.  My first impression of the plate, though, was that ‘the meat and jus are GRAY!’

Skewer method

Fancy toothpick with yellow frills.

Bread

The bread was soft, not crunchy, and very small.  It was a French baguette but very soft and even greasy from the onions. 

Meat

There was plenty of medium-done, gray prime rib on it, and a limited amount of visible fat.  It had a good beefy flavor and was semi--probably overly--salty.  The portion of meat was rather large compared to bun size.

Non-meat toppings

This sandwich had greasy grilled onions on it that were pretty flavorful and also provolone cheese that I didn’t really notice except that it seemed unnecessary to me: even more unnecessary fat/grease.

Au jus

The amount of gray au jus that arrived was very small but I was kind of happy in the end that there wasn’t more because it had no flavor.  It could have been ‘authentic’ (pan drippings) but overall it was flavorless and watery.

Portion

The bread portion of the sandwich was about the (quite small) size of the Arby’s bread and this disappointed me for a $14 sandwich.  The meat and other toppings were plentiful although flowing out of the small bun, which created a sloppy mess.

Overall dip

The sandwich portion was greasy and okay.  The beef had good—yet salty—flavor.  The non-meat toppings were greasy, which leached into the small bun.  The au jus ruined the sandwich.  It was bad—and like the meat—gray.

Other (fun?) stuff while there

This is fun

And nice that they have these options

I sat next to a guy named Paul who tested Nintendo games professionally and liked dipping his burger into his milk shake.

Summary

This expensive and fancy-sounding dip is greasy and has a grayish-colored, very light-in-flavor au jus for dipping.  The bun is the size of the $3.99 Arby’s dip but for $10 more.   

	Score (0-5)	Comments
Bread	2	Soft, not enough, got greasy.
Meat	1	Gray, medium, lots, beefy, salty.
Au Jus	0	Gray, very little provided, flavorless.
Overall	0	Greasy, Arby's-sized bread, flavorless au jus.

Reason to go back: Fun-ish ambiance, very good steak fries, and dip the fries into the Buzz Sauce if you like spicy!