4 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Great) Awarded to Ram Restaurant & Brewery for their French Dip Sandwich in Issaquah, WA on this 21st day of May, 2016 - Piled high with tasty beef.

It was Saturday night and Jessica had worked all day while I worked on preparations for her special-needs horse to arrive at our new rental farm location in Preston, WA.  I was ready to get away from the house so we agreed to meet out.  First we thought Thai food, then we agreed that The Ram sounded like more fun.  So I drove out to meet her and when I got there (after taking a long time to park and parking far, far away) she was sitting at the bar.  Looking quite good, I might say.  Anyways, I sat down and we chatted.  I was feeling a bit under the weather (perhaps a cold brewing, uh oh?) so only drank water although many people seemed to rave about the Amber.  Jessica ordered a sampler of it and I tried it and it was quite good.  But I stuck to water.  We were on our way to a movie (goal was to see the new Russell Crowe movie The Nice Guys) so we didn't have a ton of time.  I'd never had the French dip and had noticed that Brian Ashbach had been getting it recently so I figured I'd get in on that action and give it a whirl.

There it is: French Dip.  Roast beef (sure was) on French baguette with au jus.  (no real frills here) but the do have toppings. $1 Cheese $1 Grilled Onions $2 Roasted Mushrooms.  Although it is my custom to only order "as it is listed by the chef" I went out on a limb here and added Cheese and Mushrooms.  For cheese I was given choices by the waitress (bartender): cheddar, Swiss, etc. but I chose Havarti since it seemed to be the most "far out" and abnormal.  Although I later realized I could have things other than fries, I wasn't asked and was fine that I was expecting fries. 

When the sandwich came out I noticed that it was a bit shy on jus so I immediately asked for more, knowing I would be in jeopardy later on.  The lady was super nice and even asked if I wanted it now or to time it when I was further through the first one and and I said now.  I need to be surrounded by jus.  

So there it is, the sandwich.  You can tell that there is a lot of roast beef on this thing.  And I'm happy it's "classic" thin that way.  And they really piled it high, which was a nice feature.  Yes, it did look a bit gray in color but it was fine / good, perhaps even juicy.  

Very nice, these mushrooms they added.  They were good.  Not great, ravingly awesome mushrooms but really good, delicate and nicely prepared.

So I ate on the sandwich for a while without the jus to know what was going on as a standalone unit.  It was pretty good.  I thought maybe the bread was a bit stale but the sandwich was quite hearty (one half considerably larger than the other) but both were quite big.  The sandwich alone was pretty good.  Lots of meat.  The meat was salty but not bad; what you'd expect in sliced, deli roast beef like that.

And of course at some point you have to go all the way with this thing and take the plunge.  I always get butterflies in my stomach before I do because it could either add or subtract and it can be sooooo risky!  "Will it be hot enough?"  "Will it be good enough?"  "How will it taste differently?"  So many thoughts simply race through ones mind as they stare into the abyss of that jus-y potential.  So I did.  And......it was really good.  Hot.  Salty as it should be and just plain good.  So I ate and ate and ate and dipped and dipped and dipped and enjoyed.  Then I got to the fries and they were good, too.  Jessica helped me with the fries. 

Raw notes: (inside the mind of a French dip genius as he types notes into his phone while consuming a French dip)

• Salty
• Crunchy 
• Possibly stale bread 
• Lots of deli meat thin sliced 
• Mushrooms good 
• Jus good and hot, helps 
• Havarti not really noticeable 
• Generous, big size 
• Overall 4 
• Meat 3 in quality 5 in qty 
• Bread 4-5 because of crunchy toasty 
• Jus 4-5 
• Cheese choices nice 
• Crunchy fries 
• Nice the lady asked when to bring out jus too

Conclusions

4 of 5 Overall -  (pretty good!  Possibly stale/overly crunchy bread and the meat is good but not as thrilling as it could have been.  The $15 price tag is a bit high too, but not far fetched in King County)

3 of 5 Meat - Just lots of deli roast beef

5 of 5 Non-meat toppings - Good options here.  Lots of cheese options.  I didn't feel like onions.  The mushrooms were a really nice, gourmet touch. The Havarti was also fine from a lubricating perspective (the bread was also buttered I could see)

4 of 5 Jus - Really good jus that was hot and plentiful upon request.  It definitely added to the sandwich.

4 of 5 Bread - Good bread that may have been stale but thinking back on it, stale bread may be a good secret for a good French dip to make the jus create a larger benefit when dipped and providing some remaining chewiness post-soak.  

The Ram is a fun place.  It was very lively in there, busy.  Food was pretty good.  It's a fancy, trendy, vibrant, family-friendly sports bar.

http://www.theram.com/locations/wa-issaquah/

HOURS
Sunday – Thursday, 11am – 12am
Friday & Saturday, 11am – 2am

965 N.E. Park Drive
Issaquah, Washington 98029
Tel: (425) 313 – 0415

French dip review: Palmer's in downtown Redmond WA

11 AM last Saturday after I got up at 5 AM and water-skied in the rain (thanks, Pete, that was a blast, and Ryan, you are my water-ski hero) I was aching for Mexican food from El Toreador (had never been there but had heard that they have very thick, homemade tortilla chips that I wanted to try) but after parking and getting out of the car in the rain and all that, I realized that El T didn't open until 11:30 AM.  Panicked, I walked next door to a dive bar called Palmer's to use their restroom and enjoy a drink while I waited for El T to get its act together.

Yet lo and behold, part-way into my beer as I perused their menu and studied the gentleman next to me who was eating a French dip, I realized I had to eat.  They have a Turkey dip with Pepper Jack option on the menu, so I figured I'd be stupid not to get it.  I knew while ordering that it would come with beef juice and not turkey juice but oh well.  Palmer's also offers classic roast beef with Swiss and burger dip choices.

My apologies but I wasn't in the mood to take pictures of the location or dip so you'll have to go off of my wonderful, descriptive prose.

A quick rant about juice pairing: it makes me absolutely livid (kidding) that restaurants haven't figured out that they need to make a jus that pairs with the meat.  For example, Palmer's serves regular beef jus with their turkey dip.  Really?  Why?  And even Philippe's, the original, uses beef jus on their lamb and turkey sandwiches.  Shame on you, people!!!

Okay, back to it.  So I got my Turkey dip with Pepper Jack and a side salad with bleu cheese served.  The style of the sandwich was very classic, bar-style: simple French bread roll from the likes of a Franz Bakery (store bought, nothing fancy) and a very mediocre salad on the side.  The meat and cheese were fine, no big whoop there.  The Pepper Jack may have even been processed cheese, which would be a failure if I took the time to study it.  The jus was way too watery and extremely disappointing but I didn't complain since I had enough.  The salad was quite poor, definitely nothing special there: boring iceberg-style lettuce and no interesting toppings to write about.

*After I'd eaten my plate* (I could complain about this if I wanted but I won't) the bartender gal asked me if I liked it.  I paused for a while and asked her if she wanted to know its score.  She said, "What?" and I explained to her that I reviewed French dips and this was about a 2 of 5.  I told her that the jus was very watery.  She apologized and immediately went back to the cook to tell him to remedy that.  I saw several dips go out after mine with a much darker, richer juice.  So kudos to the waitress for jumping on that.

Palmer's appears to move a lot of French dips (I saw four of them before 11:30 am on a Saturday so that says something), so apparently some people order it, and possibly enjoy it.  And with three dips on the menu, I guess the odds are good.

Overall, this dip and Palmer's were not my style.  That said, I'll still have to review their burger dip and regular French dip to see if they're any better.  Also, I need to test their more robust jus to see where it lands.  Perhaps, with a bolder, more reasonable juice, they'll be fine and score a 3 of 5 instead of a 2.

Bread: 2
Meat (turkey): 3
Cheese (Pepper Jack): 3
Jus: 1 (maybe even a zero?)
Waitress: 4 (very nice, helpful, apologetic, friendly, promised to change and improve things)
Overall dip: 2
Bloody Mary: 3 (it was quite good and spicy yet they had pathetically small green olives in it)
Dip selection: 4 (nice to have three options, I want 300 options...: ) )

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!