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| Not my car. |
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| The nice menu with The Brazilian Cowboy. |
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| The view from our table. |
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| Another view. |
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| This was a special. Roast Beef Dip. au jus and fries (I got a salad instead) $15 |
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| The menu and ice water. |
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| Beer tastes good. |
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| Tasty cheesy, buttery, garlic bread as a free starter. |
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| The plate: pretty big sized sandwich (I'd guess 8" long), au jus that looked a bit "low" yet was enough, and a side Caesar salad. Note the overflowing roast beef!!! |
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| Very nicely toasted. Fancy-looking bread, lots of roast beef. No other flash and flair makes it what I would call a "Gourmet Classic". |
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| Dark au jus with visible fat in it. |
Restaurant - El Gaucho, Bellevue, WA
Restaurant Type - Fancy steakhouse
Meal - Lunch on a Thursday
Background - My buddy Ben D. recommended this dip so I went to get it!
Restaurant smell - Good and smokey, meat smelling like a nice steakhouse
Ambiance - Nice, formal, lunchtime, good music playing (first Jazz, then switched to Sinatra-style crooning)
Water delivery speed - Had some nice tasty ice water pretty much as soon as we sat
Table settings - very nice linens, well kept, fancy
Waiter and service - Very friendly and helpful. He recommended a beer and listed a lot of beverage choices and ultimately sold me on the beer. Well done, sir! Also, my date was wanting tea and he brought out all of the tea options so she could assess and choose.
Beer - Good but could have been slightly colder. It was a "Christmas Ale" from Jolly Roger. Was sweet and full bodied but good and drinkable.
Free appetizers - They started us with free and very tasty cheesy garlic bread that was really good.
Meat - 4 of 5. Really good, very tender roast beef that kind of melted in your mouth. Flavor wasn't to die for and was served medium. Very good overall.
Meat quantity - 5 of 5. lots!!
Bread - 4 of 5. Very nice looking, homemade-style bread that was well toasted.
Bread texture - Very good. Crunchy on the toasting yet soft and absorbent.
Sandwich - No flash or flair on this basic dip besides its very nice, tender meat and it's toasted homestyle bread
Sandwich size - This was quite large. I'd guess like an 8" sandwich overflowing with beef.
Other nice things - The served us three (small but really good, buttery, crispy) chocolate chip walnut cookies for free for dessert.
Salad and things - I ordered a Caesar that was pretty good but nothing to write home about. Jessica did not love her side salad or her onion-fig-jam flatbread.
Au jus - 4 of 5. Nice, dark, semi-sweet with visible fat in the au jus. I feel like people should heat the ramekin so the au jus stays hot for a long time!
Au jus amount - looked like not enough but turned out being just fine: I ate a lot of the first half without it because it was pretty good and then got into it.
Overall - 4 of 5. This is a very good "Gourmet Classic" dip in the sense that it is a basic dip (no cheese, onions, etc.) yet has fancier-than-average roast beef and nice homemade-looking bread that was really well toasted.
Great review! Is there a way to see data on how this ranked against all other reviews? :)
ReplyDeleteHey, Ben. I've been trying to borrow Business Intelligence resources at work for this project but for some reason they only want to work on Microsoft business. I say this *IS CRITICAL* MSFT business... : ) ...I think in time I'll get there. I'm trying to let the "model" settle down. The consistent theme is that I rate bread, meat, au jus, and overall...but I'm starting to add other things...
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