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| The menu at Ruth's Chris Stakehouse in downtown Bellevue, WA on May 17, 2012. My birthday! I was there with my friend Chris Wirkkala on business matters: eating a French dip (one of my favorite things) for my birthday. I had been looking forward to enjoying this expensive French dip for some time. |
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| There it is: the Prime French Dip: Toasted French bread with au jus and creamy horseradish sauce. $15. This was for lunch. They also gave me REAL horseradish, which made the experience even more enjoyable. |
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| I told them that it was my birthday, so the very kind waitress, NY, brought cute little table-confetti for me. Awwwwwwww. How nice of them.... |
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| This is what I look like as a blurry version of myself on my 35th birthday. Wow. 35. I don't look too old and wrinkly, I don't believe. : ) |
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| Here is the dip served, au jus and a side Caesar salad. As you can see from the picture, the portion is quite nice. The beef is thinly sliced; I was able to select medium-rare, which is my preference. The salad was pretty good. I had a Heineken with it. The bun is nicely toasted and they do nearly give you a bowl of au jus (see Adam's recommendation) with it, which is nice. |
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| A close-up of the jus. It was steaming and has its very own doily. Chris and I joked about how we should mark points off for it being made of paper rather than hand-knit or something absurd like that... |
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| Here's the horseradish a plenty...On the left is the real-deal, which I (toward the end of my meal) added to my au jus, based on the recommendation of our very kind waiter, Erich. Erich and I got to talk about our names being similar and he said that he was getting "the last laugh" having a more unique name than mine although growing up with that strange spelling was hard, he said. The creamy horseradish was good and very light tasting. I like the *punch* of the real thing although it is nice to have both as options. |
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| The salad close-up. Grape tomatoes, okay croutons, light Caesar dressing, pretty good lettuce, totally fair portion, nicely thin-sliced Parmesan cheese. I don't recall being offered pepper. |
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| A close-up of the meat and bread. You can see that it's pretty rare but don't let that scare you: it was good. Nicely toasted, quality bread. |
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| Thin-sliced yet plentiful meat. It was a good, big portion, firing on all cylinders. |
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| Awwwwwwwwwwww. Thanks, people. That was really nice of you....and delicious. |
Overall
This was a great meal and dining experience. We had great service. The music and ambiance were nice. It was a nice sunny day out. The French dip was good and exactly what I wanted on my birthday. After the dinner and dessert I enjoyed a good coffee with plentiful refills.
- Dip : 5 of 5
- Au jus
: 4 of 5
- Meat
: 4 of 5
- Bread
: 5
of 5
This dip is not as good as
the Jak's dip and is not as fancy as
The Keg dip but the service was really great and the overall dining experience and quality of food is quite high. The portion is very large as well.
Other
- Salad 4 of 5
- Not being offered pepper -1
- Horseradish options +1
- Real horseradish +1
- Salad options +1
- *Bowl* of jus +1
- Big size +1
- Great birthday treatment and friendly staff +2
