3 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Good) Awarded to Mt. Baker Ski Area for their French Dip Sandwich in Glacier, WA on this 28th day of March, 2012 - Smoked Brisket Sandwich

Meat: 5.  Great, smokey taste, excellent.
Non-Meat Toppings: 5.  Good crispy onions.
Au Jus: 5.  Nice, dark, hot, ample.
Bread: 2.  WTH!  Pretzel bread, not absorbent, circular so you can't dip effectively.  Fail.
Overall Sandwich: 3.

Fix the bun, Baker!!!!  (and I love your mountain)

4 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Great) Awarded to The Pumphouse for their Burger Dip Sandwich in Bellevue, WA on this 28th day of March, 2012 - Always a solid, consistent product in Bellevue.

Le menu.

El Burger dip.  $9.99.  Au Jus.  No cheese.

My view from my bar seat.  That's a Mack & Jack's African Amber on the right.  And yes, it was great.

There it is, served, in classic style from Pump House with a good simple salad and fries.  Fancy toothpicks
ketchup in a tin, good croutons.  Hot, dark au jus.

Here's the burger.  It's good.  Cooked medium well.

A view of the somewhat overly toasted french roll.  It's still good.

Here's the tail-end of my dip.  Just the perfect amount of sandwich to jus.

I really like putting Malt Vinegar on my fries.

Even the salad gets a fancy toothpick.  Bonus points for that!!!

Mack & Jack's African Amber.  It's great.

I really like burger dips.  I might even say that I typically like them better than a roast beef dip....it just depends on the quality of the meat.  The Pump House makes a really solid burger dip.  It's not as good as the Burger Dip from Kidd Valley, but it's still good.

I found the sandwich to be really juicy with good beef.  It is medium-small in size but Jessica thinks that it looks like it has a lot of meat.  It's $10.  There's no cheese or other topings with it so in that way it's a classic.  The au jus was hot and good.  The buns were buttered, which added soemthing.  The au jus was the perfect amount.

Overall, I give this Burger dip a 4.  It has a good beefy flavor and is salty but the au jus is not overly salty.  This meal really hit the spot for me during lunchtime.

The salad has really great lettuce.  The bleu cheese dressing is good and simple, neither thick nor runny.  The overall meal could be a 5:  It's a simple, perfect balanced lunch with the fries and salad.

About the experience in total, I would say that the Pump House is operationally excellent and perfectly consistent in their delivery. This wins big points in my book.

The Kidd Valley burger dip beats the Pump House dip because the Swiss cheese and garlic butter are great.   If you take the meal overall, this is a better meal.

Lemon in water in wide cup is real good.

4 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Great) Awarded to Grand Cru Mixologie Lounge for their French Dip Sandwich in Bellevue, WA on this 5th day of March, 2012 - Meh.

The cover of the menu.  This place is in downtown Bellevue; pretty cute, kind of tucked away in a slower part of Bellevue downtown...

Here's looking out from our SW corner seat at the night street.

There's the French Dip on the menu.  $10.  I got a salad with strawberries for an extra $2.  Odd that there is ABSOLUTELY NO description of what the French Dip is, but it turns out that it's prime rib with provolone on French bread, pressed in the panini press.

Their happy hour menu is pretty good and the place seemed pretty popular on Foursquare.

They have "Wine Flights" which are pretty fun.  I got the White Sampler and enjoyed it.  Jessica had the Bubble Up! and enjoyed it.  We were using a coupon we had received from Restaurant.com.

The view from our table.  It's nice inside, kind of fancy, clean.  The patrons seemed "cool" and happy.  The waitress, Krystal, was very helpful and nice.

There's the French Dip.  You can see the cheese, grill marks, "fancy toothpicks", herbed au jus (think of The Keg), and the nice-looking salad with gourmet greens and strawberries on top.  I am basically pleased with the dip although it is about the size of the Arby's French dip, which is smallish.

A closer (and blurry) look at the sandwich.  Sorry for the bad pic.  You can see the grilled bread and melted cheese.  The meat was a bit too salty but it was good.

The herbed jus, which was very good.  It has oil-sheen to it, which is good and a very nice, delicate flavor.

THE REVIEW


Bread -  Good, semi-soft but not too soft bread, grilled with panini marks.  4 of 5.
Meat - Thin, cold-cut style salty prime rib, not too much of it.  3 of 5.
Non-Meat Toppings - Provolone cheese that didn't add or subtract.  3 of 5.
Au Jus - 5 of 5.  Really good jus, herby, nice.
Overall - 4 of 5.  Nice sandwich, good, too small.  Too salty of prime rib and too thin-cut, reminding me of deli meat.