French dip review: Redmond's Bar and Grill, Redmond, WA Smoked Onions Prime Rib Swiss, 4.5 of 5

The Redmond's Bar and Grill Menu cover.

The bar with big screens above.  Our friendly bartender Charlie was good and reportedly heading back to Hawaii.  Good luck, Charlie!!!

Behind the stranger's head in the bottom left of the frame you will see "Christmas Lights", which is actually a stage where musical talent can play.  Pretty cool.  I guess the building that this restaurant is in is 108 years old!!!

The French Prime Dip: French roll, smoked  (NICE TOUCH)  onions, seared (NICE  TOUCH) Prime Rib and Swiss served with au jus and fries or salad.  $13.  I went with the salad.

Here's the dip and you can see part of the salad.  Medium rare Prime Rib, and you can see that the greens are nice and dry.

Another view of the sandwich.  Sorry, my other pictures of the plate didn't turn out.

I was a real fan of this pen, BTW.  I honestly thought about either stealing it or asking the owners if I could have it.  Here they are on Amazon for your enjoyment.

The Review of the French dip sandwich and such:

Au jus amount: 5.  Very large.  They gave me a bowl of it.  Great (see Adam's bowl at Gere-a-Deli for comparison's sake. 

Bread color: Whitish

Bread texture: 4.  Absorbent

Overall sandwich size: 4.  Big

Bread toasting: 4. Well-toasted

Salad comments: Nice looking with very cute--extremely thin--sliced carrots

Salad dressing: Bleu cheese that was really garlicky, great and flavorful.

Salad greens: Very great.  Dry greens.  Gourmet greens.  

Other salad toppings:  Cukes and HALF-GRAPES!!

Au jus temp:  2.5.  Additional jus was not steaming.

Bread/bun size:  Wide

Meat done-ness:  5.  Medium rare with visible pink.  I prefer to see some pink on my Prime Rib...

Sandwich characteristics:  Soft, good, not greasy

Bread characteristics:  Really good 

Au jus characteristics:  "Oilyish" but good, authentic jus

Salad description:  4.5.  Sweet good, half-Grapes on salad, nice, dry, fresh, hearty, and CHEWY (which I think is something you want!!!) greens...lots of red (which I think of as nice and fancy/gourmet) greens.

Other sides:  A nice Kosher-style pickle spear that was good.  I think this is a good addition to every French dip meal is a nice pickle.  As if the sandwich and jus weren't salty enough, right?!!  But I think because it is cool and crisp, it is very refreshing...as is the salad and that's why I typically choose it instead of fries, BTW.

Skewer type:  Fancy toothpicks

Other comments:  Smoked onions are a nice addition, had to order hot jus, which they brought out rapidly.  Jus can be TOO hot, BTW...  I burnt my tongue/mouth but it was better hot, so I was grateful.

Cheese comments:  Mild but good Swiss

Overall sandwich comments: 4.5.  GREAT flavor, the smokiness is a real winner.  Overall it's really good with big, soft, absorbent but not too soft bread.  The side-salad also really made this meal with its garlicky, creamy bleu cheese dressing, good greens, and cukes.  There were no "crunchies" (like croutons or sunflower seeds) on the salad but they were not needed with such good lettuce and cukes and thin carrots shreds.  Oh! and there was just a little bit of feta cheese on top of the salad which made it really good.  More salt but hey!  Hotter initial jus may have made this a five.  Additionally it is not exactly a "fancy" French dip like that at The Keg but it's real good and the smoked onions really make it interesting and unique.

Overall:  4.5.  Great experience, pretty crowded in there.  Friendly owner Tim and bartender Charlie.  Patrons seemed happy to be there and there was good ambiance.  It was crowded on a Wednesday night and my date and I had fun.

Editor's note about the score.  After later reflection, this sandwich really is as good as the dip at Canyon's restaurant that got a 5, maybe better.  We are in the process of recalibrating our scoring system.

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!

5 of 5 DeliciScore™ (From Heaven) Awarded to Gere-a-Deli for their French Dip Sandwich in Anacortes, WA on this 26th day of September, 2011 - Adam's Gere-a-Deli French dip w/ cheddar: get a BOWL of jus!

Gere-a-Deli's a great, popular, long-standing Anacortes staple.

My brother, Adam, ordered a BOWL of jus to manage the risk of outage.

Review: "Good bread, good meat, good jus, cheese was mild but pleasant, atmosphere nice, the previous sandwich [at Island Cafe] was larger and crispier. This was a solid product. 5."

French Dip Review: Canyons, Redmond, WA. Prime rib and provolone are yummy!, 5 of 5

Setting the Scene

Jessica's dad was in town and we weren't feeling like bar food, so we went to Canyons, a reasonably decent restaurant in downtown Redmond.  I wasn't planning on reviewing a French dip, but the conversation about my new hobby came up and I figured I may as well.  I used Jessica's phone, the Motorola ATRIX 4G, which has a flash, to take the pictures and I think they turned out pretty well.  I hope you enjoy this, my third French dip review (it's starting to become routine!)

Menu and Ordering

This isn’t just a dip, it’s a Prime Rib Dip, which is special.  The price was $13.99.  They had bottomless fries or potato chips, but I opted to sub for the salad for a 99 cents with Bleu Cheese dressing, which is my staple.

Plate

The salad it was served with was pretty good except it was iceberg lettuce, not a favorite of mine.  Besides that it had good, chunky bleu cheese, good tomatoes, cucumbers, red onions (which I love on salads), good croutons, and some small shavings of cabbage and carrot.  Good-sized salad, rather large for a starter salad.



The dip looked excellent when it was served.  The meat looked very meaty and the bread was beautiful.  You can see from the photo that it has a sheen to it.  I was very impressed.  And the melted provolone looked really good.  I was excited!  The overall portion looked quite good as well.  The bread was rather wide.  You’ll note that the Au Jus looks a little empty and I later ran into problems with this.

Skewer method

No skewer in this bad boy.

Bread

This bread was really lovely and tasted good.  Firm and crunchy.  The sheen is what really made it for me.

Meat

This was the first prime rib dip that I’d reviewed.  It was worth it.  Tender, medium rare.  Not fatty at all, which was good.  Lean.

Non-meat toppings

For the first time in any of my reviews, the cheese actually added something!  The provolone was mild but it’s hearty texture gave the sandwich a little something extra.

Au jus

The au jus was fair.  Overall it was pretty good but nothing to really write home about.  The portion was too small.  As I neared the end of the jus, I asked the waitress for more, which took quite a while to get more.  I had to wait with a portion of my dip for the refill to arrive, which is a strike against.  Some visible fat in the au jus, which I think is a sign of a good one.  Mild flavor, not overly salty and not too dark.

Portion

The portion was perfect.  A bit on the bigger side, which I don’t mind.  The bread, as I mentioned before was wide.

Overall dip

Overall, this was a very good sandwich.  Wonderful and pretty bread, really good medium-rare prime rib, delicious and hearty provolone, and pretty good au jus.  The only complaint would be the au jus, which was good but not great, wasn’t enough, and the refill didn’t come in time.

Other (fun?) stuff while there

The ambiance in here’s not bad.  It was reasonably crowded and looked like other folks were having a good time.  They serve an interesting blend on the menu from a Thai Peanut Chicken Wrap to Ribs, Steaks, Burritos, and Pastas.

Summary

Overall, this was a good dining experience.  Everyone I was with enjoyed their meal and I got to review another (very good) French dip.

	Score (0-5)	Comments
Bread	5	Very good looking, good tasting, big.
Meat	5	Really nice looking and tasting medium-rare prime rib!
Au Jus	4	Good, mild, not too dark, not top shelf.
Overall	5	Great dip, great bread, provolone, and meat.

Reason to go back: a really great dip, other fun food.

3 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Good) Awarded to Arby's for their French Dip Sandwich in Redmond, WA on this 15th day of September, 2011 - Arby’s French Dip and Swiss: Meh. Get Two.

Setting the scene

It’s Arby’s.  Nothing to write home about (besides Arby’s Sauce and delicious roast beef sandwiches).  I wasn’t looking forward to this French dip but I felt obliged to do it, simply because it is very obvious and probably quite popular as a nationwide phenomenon.

So I went to my local Arby’s and threw down on a French Dip and Swiss.  At the time of writing this, EIGHT people liked this on Facebook.  I would hazard a guess that probably 80,000 actually like it but 79,992 are embarrassed to admit it.  Here’s my review!


Logo on their garbage cans.  Woo hoo!  Let’s eat this!!!

Menu and Ordering

It’s Arby’s.  Who cares.  I ordered the thing.  I will admit, sadly, though, that I watched them spray the au jus out of some hot water heater thing.  Like maybe even added boiling water to a powder in front of my eyes?  It didn’t make the au jus in a styrofoam cup look any more delicious, gourmet, or very well cared for.


I got some Jalepeno poppers with it because the other options didn’t entice me.  Total cost with a beverage: $7.03.

Plate 

They threw in some “Bronco Berry Sauce” for my poppers.  WTF is Bronco Berry Sauce?  The au jus comes with a sheath for your protection.


I unwrapped the items.  The Bronco Berry Sauce looked interesting.  The dip looked small.  The au jus was steaming and smelled pretty good.  I had an ice-cold sugar free lemonade.  I was generally looking forward to this but the dip looked so small!

Skewer method

No skewers were injured (or used) in the making of this dip.  Like the au jus shield, Arby’s customers are not to be trusted with hot or pointy things!

Bread

I was actually reasonable impressed with the bread.  It was nicely toasted.  Not too soft.  Not too hard.  It soaked up the au jus nicely.  There was not enough of it.

Au jus

The au jus was hot, pretty tasty but nothing to write home about, and JUST BARELY ENOUGH.  It seriously GOT DOWN TO THE WIRE with this au jus but was BARELY able to cross the finish line with me.  Phew!

Meat

Arby’s is known for its roast beef.  There wasn’t a ton on here but it was pretty good / what you’d expect: thin-sliced, meaty, good.  Probably not enough / I got my $3.99 (sandwich no meal) worth.

Non-meat toppings

Arby’s markets the French Dip and Swiss.  There aren’t onions on this, thanks God.  The Swiss cheese is processed and only serves the purpose of an unnecessary lubricant for a meal that becomes very well lubricated by the jus.

Portion

Too small.  I would recommend to anyone that if they’re going to go this route in their French dip quest that they GET TWO (2)!!!!!!!!

Overall dip

Overall the dip was pretty good.  The bread was good.  The Arby’s beef was good.  The cheese is to be forgotten.  The au jus was hot and JUST ENOUGH.  The portion was too small and I should have gotten two.

Other (fun?) stuff while there

The Jalepeno poppers were not fun.  They were cream cheese filled, fatty and unnecessary.  Slightly spicy but not really.  The Bronco Berry Sauce –in looking at the ingredients—had no berries in it but looked like jelly.  It behaved and tasted more like Sweet & Sour sauce.  Forget these and stick with fries or potato wedges or some such thing.

Arby’s Sauce IS TO DIE FOR.  Die for it.  What you really want at Arby’s is 500 Jr. Roast Beef sandwiches with 1,000 Arby’s Sauces.  Nothing (maybe not even the world’s best French dip? (Sacrilege, I know)) tops Arby’s Sauce.  (So succulent and delicious).



Their logo is a cowboy hat.  How fun.  My friend Brian thinks that Arby’s is total white trash.  I disagree.  I think they have some nice options and I completely LOVE dipping ANYTHING into zesty, tangy, succulent Arby’s Sauce.



And their French Dip with Swiss, although small and carrying unnecessary cheese, ain’t half bad for the $3.99 price tag.  Remember: Get 2!

	Score (0-5)	Comments
Bread	2	Surprisingly good but not enough.
Meat	2	Small portion, not exciting.
Au Jus	1	Hot and salty but not that great. From a powder.
Overall	3	Good value. Basic staple.

Reason to go back: it's Arby's, it's cheap, it's good enough, you could get some Arby's sauce!!!

4 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Great) Awarded to Maggie Bluffs Marina Grill for their French Dip Sandwich in Seattle, WA on this 11th day of September, 2011 - The First Official French Dip Review

I have been really excited to do my first official French dip review.  I asked my Facebook friends if they had any recommendations of where to start my quest and Spencer Chan suggested that I try the dip at Maggie Bluff's in the Magnolia area of Seattle.  I'd been to Maggie's one time before and remember having enjoyed the experience.  Here's my review of the dip there.

Setting the scene

Jessica and I showed up at dinnertime on a sunny summer Saturday night.  It was a beautiful, warm evening and Maggie Bluff's (MB's from now on) was pretty busy..but the wait wasn’t long at all.  We were seated immediately. 
Many people were out on the patio enjoying food, drinks, and conversation in the sun, looking out onto Elliott Bay Marina and beyond it, Elliott Bay, Mt. Rainier, and the Seattle skyline.

Menu

The menu was well laid out.  There were a lot of other things that looked good as well.  Jessica got the chipotle steak tacos.
I got the French dip of course, which included by default Swiss cheese and grilled onions.  In general, I don’t prefer getting the cheese and onions, as I find them superfluous, but I got them for the purposes of consistency.  (See the rating system page.)  The bread was from local bakery, Macrina Bakery. 

Plate

The food was quick to arrive and looked very good on presentation.  I was stoked to get the tots but torn having to choose between those and garlic fries.

Skewer method

They used a quite and nice bamboo twisty on each roll.

Bread

The bread was very good and pillowy in texture but not too soft.  It soaked up the juice nicely and was delicious in general.

Au jus

Served in a nice white ramekin.  An insufficient amount arrived initially but it was the right temperature and very tasty so I dove in.  When I had depleted my first helping, I asked for more, which promptly arrived and was equally good.
 

Meat

The meat was good.  Standard roast beef it appeared that was tasty enough.

Non-Meat Toppings

The swiss cheese was good and added some flavor.  The grilled onions were not too many.  I did not notice the onions much except for one bite when it crunched a bit…I kind of liked that.

Portion

The portion was very good.  There was enough of everything.  Overall I would say it was a rather large portion.

Overall dip

Overall, the dip was great.  The tots were hot and crunchy.  The dip, great.  The au jus, as you can see, had a little bit of fat in it (but not too much), which makes for tastiness!

Other fun stuff while there

I decided that I want to buy a standard poodle.  This doggie was roaming around with its owners and it was so cute.  Jessica, who’s a vet, also thought I may be interested in a Labradoodle or Goldendoodle.

They serve “Grown Up Milkshakes”, which we didn’t order but we will next time for sure!

Summary

We had a very good dining experience here and the French dip was quite good.  The au jus was very good, the bread very good, the meat, nothing to write home about, and the toppings were fine.  The options of sides was a real winner.

	Score (0-5)	Comments
Bread	4	Real good. From a local bakery.
Meat	4	Good. Nothing wrong here.
Au Jus	4	Delicious and authentic.
Overall	4	Great dining experience, setting, dip and options.

Reason to go back: the location, view, tots, and good, fresh-tasting french dip.

Let's review French Dips!!!

Hello, my name is Eric Veal and I use this site to keep track of French Dip reviews.  I *really* love French Dip sandwiches and want to provide a platform for people to get reviews.  (And provide reviews).   (And also to give me an excuse to try a lot of French Dips.