I went out to lunch today with some coworkers at a place called The Dock which is really near our office in Fremont. I typically work out of our Kirkland office but find myself in Seattle at least weekly where I can get to know the crew over there. The purpose of our lunch out today was to welcome two new hires to the company: Mimi from Austin, TX and Todd from Vancouver BC. We made nice chit-chat with them and welcomed them hartily to the company. We got to learn about each of their commutes, more about their stays and training plans, and Todd's history as a long-haul trucker turned data boss. (He's driven in all 50 states except Hawaii and all Canadian provinces.) Internally, I felt happy to see that new people are getting added to our group and I would therefore not be "the new guy" for too much longer.
The Dock is a neighborhood bar and grill in Fremont that's really close to our offices there. I'd been twice before (it's impossible to resist going there, since it's so close and the food is reliably good). Our boss Peter today referred to it as our cafeteria, jokingly. There were five in our party and we arrived before 11 so there was no crowd. I had to run to the restroom when we arrived and I was pleased that it smelled like bleach and/or Clorox, a sign of cleanly freshness.
We were greeted by a friendly waitress and promptly offered cold ice waters. Another quick point of note is that A1 Steak Sauce lives on the table, which pleases me, innately.
When it came time to order I said I'd have "the French dip" (I wanted to be all nonchalant about it but was immediately called out by Mike who knows of my blog and hobby doing this). I intentionally didn't call it the Prime Rib dip since that sounded pretty highfalutin for a company lunch even though it is just a sandwich. Mike made me share about my hobby with the rest of the table and encouraged me to take pictures, too. I was embarrassed of my hobby but that was fine.
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| Here's The Dock from the outside. I lifted this picture off of Google Images. My apologies, Internet and its citizens. |
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| More internet robbery, their logo. |
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| Thank you, The Dock website for this graphic. |
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| So here's there dips on the menu. Note they have two. I ordered the Prime Rib French but only said out loud that I would like the French Dip since that seemed safer than getting something too "all high and mighty". Note the thinly sliced herb roasted prime rib (I'm not sure that they cut it fresh, though so the meat gets a 4 of 5). Aged Swiss was nice. And French baguette. They weren't messing around with the bread, it was great. |
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| Here it is served. Note i had already added A1 Steaksauce for my fries and I was excited about that. The sandwich itself is a very generous portion with delicious and beautiful bread. Jus comes in the standard jus cup. Fries were plentiful. Everything looked really good. I was immediately impressed. Perhaps not as fancy or as refined as a Ruth's Chris dip but this thing was looking pretty good, especially from the bread. |
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| A closer shot of the sandwich proper. |
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| And an even closer shot of the sandwiches innerds. They're looking prettty good. Not too much cheese. The cheese was a really nice compliment and the bread was nicely toasted and buttered as it should be. |
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| Here's the jus. I let it get a bit cold since I started with my fries but it was good at a 3 of 5. |
Overall this dip scores a 5 of 5 for the quality of its bread which is toasted and buttered, good meat, fancy cheese and a good jus. Nothing wrong with this dip. Hopefully it is a staple in the diets of the Fremontians.
- Bread 5 of 5
- Meat 4 of 5 (could have been sliced there and offered medium rare as is done at Wedgwood Broiler)
- Non-Meat Toppings 5 of 5 (they didn't go overboard here and offered a fancy, fine cheese that complimented the sandwich)
- Sandwich itself 5 of 5 (not blow your socks off delicious but really solid; what a French dip should be with good bread, buttery, good meat and a nice, edible sandwich)
- Jus 4 of 5 (wasn't overly blown out but was plenty good)
- Portion 5 of 5 (really nice portion. Big but not huge, definitely a meal)
- Overall 5 of 5 (really good execution and special kudos for good cheese and care in their bread and meat. Consider fancying up your meat just a little bit more and giving your customers an option of how done do they want it but I can see how that could get trick and wasteful perhaps.)
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