5 of 5 DeliciScore™ (From Heaven) Awarded to Bellevue Brewing Company for their French Dip Sandwich in Bellevue, WA on this 26th day of April, 2014 - Amazing meat, unique and high quality.

Shaky photo of the item on the menu.

Bird's eye view of the meal.  You can tell from here that the jus is too weak / mild / light.

A beautiful sandwich with lots of meat, red onions, a tomato, horseradish.  Most excellent.

Look at all of that good meat.

You can see the well-done, crunchy/crispy, beef from here.

The money shot

Great meat that's crunchy! (in a good way) 5
Light jus 2
Horseradish flavor is good
The meat really is great, even "fun"!
Excellent sandwich overall:  5
The meat really is perfect
This meal is a 5 overall, regardless of the so so (too light) jus
Fantastic sandwich overall

3 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Good) Awarded to Arby's for their French Dip Sandwich in Redmond, WA on this 3rd day of April, 2014 - Arby's new French Dip and Swiss

Arby's launched a new French Dip a few months back that I've since put through the trials. Here's my review.

The magic that is delicious, tangy, zesty Arby's Sauce.

The wonderful Arby's in Redmond.

The jus.

The way by which an intelligent person houses their copious amounts of delicious Arby's Sauce (within a cup lid)

The meal deal.  Fries included.

The pretty cheese looking unit.

The fries.  They're pretty good.

The "money shot".  Looks pretty juicy and delicious.  Cheese is garbage.

I must say that the cheese they're using is not stellar.  It pretty much destroys the otherwise pretty good sandwich.  Look at that terrible, processed cheese.

Rating:

• Bread: 3 of 5.  It's  fine
• Meat: 3 of 5.  It's standard Arby's roast beef, which is pretty good and salty, not bad.
• Non-Meat Toppings: 1 of 5.  Cheese is no good; failure.
• Fries: 4 of 5.  Arby's makes good fries.
• Jus: 3 of 5.  
• Arby's Sauce: 5 of 5.  Zesty deliciousness.
• Sandwich: 3 of 5.  Skip the cheese and enjoy. It's probably a 4 of 5 for the money if no cheese.

OVERALL: 3 of 5.  It's bigger and better than the old one but skip the cheese.

4 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Great) Awarded to Pink Pony for their Prime Rib Dip Sandwich in Mackinac Island, MI on this 11th day of July, 2012 - A delight in a far off land.

Earlier this summer, I visited Michigan where a large portion of Jessica's family resides.  Jessica's parents and I traveled north  to the Upper Penninsula for a few days and took a ferry to Mackinac Island, where motorized vehicles are not allowed, one day.  We had a great time one the island: we rode bikes, we went on a horse-drawn buggy tour, and I even got to enjoy a Prime Rib dip at a restaurant called Pink Pony.  Why not?

Here's the nicely done stained glass sign above the main entrance.  My mom does stained glass for those of you who don't know.

Here's their logo on the menu.  Pink Pony is a nice little place on the waterfront in a hotel.  Here's a little more info on Pink Pony and the hotel containing it.  

I hadn't planned on getting a French dip but there it was on the menu and I'm basically famous for eating French dips by now so there was a little pressure from Jessica and her parents to enjoy one.  Eating French dips now is almost like having a miniature birthday party for myself: I take pictures, I eat, people celebrate.  It's fun.  Provolone and Swiss.  Bonus point for two cheeses.

Here's our view from our table.  It was kind of a blustery day but nice, too.

Here's the sandwich, served.  You can see that there's lots of cheese on it, which was fine and that it comes with home made potato chips rather than fries.  Also note that the level of the jus is fairly low, which is obviously something to really worry about. 

A very large and good pickle and the good, thick, homemade potato chips.  They're using a standard Hoagie-style roll here which was reasonably toasted.  Good pickle.

From this angle the jus looks like a bowl but it wasn't a sufficient amount as you'll later see.  It's a pretty standard dip.

More shots of cheesy goodness.

There it is.  Soft bread, the Prime Rib is done "medium".

I do love this sight of the dregs of the jus and the last bits of the soggy French bread.  It's such a great sandwich!

Yes, I had to go through two cups of jus but cleaned my plate neatly.

They have nice drinks there and a good atmosphere.  Mackinac Island and the Upper Peninsula really were night.  I really enjoyed my trip to Michigan and will definitely go back.

Summary

Total 4 of 5 because the dip wasn't all that fancy or to die for but was very good.

Points for: great ambiance, a fun environment, two types of cheeses, the name Pink Pony, a great pickle, home made potato chips, and good company.

Negative points for: too little jus, the bread could have been fancier, there's nothing that's really striking or rare about the dip.

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...: ) )

2 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Not Quite There) Awarded to The Game Neighborhood Grill for their Prime Rib Dip Sandwich in Kirkland, WA on this 15th day of April, 2012 - Not my favorite.

Here we are.  The Game is a sports-bar in a strip mall type of place in the not-so-cute part of Juanita.
Jessica and I were out driving around and had to go somewhere and figured we'd hit this place up.

First, the Onion Fried Green Beans that we had for an appetizer.  They were pretty good.  Pretty tasty.
Fried, yes, but good.

Here they are.  Not terribly fancy but good.  Foursquare people had left a Tip about these so we got them.
They are served on a bed of iceberg (not the best way to present food!!!) and served with a side of
spiced up (Chipotle) ranch.  Jessica and I liked them but they were a fried indulgent thing.

Here's a close-up of what the beans look like.  Again, not the iceberg.  It really takes any hope of these  being fancy
out of the equation but again, we were at a sports-bar so what am I talking about?!

Okay.  Now.  Onto the French Dip.  It's a prime rib dip, even.  And their #1 Seller...so my hopes were high
but I would soon be very disappointed.  "No better around".  What a claim.  They are very wrong in this claim: there are a LOT of better Prime Rib Dips around: The Keg, for example.  I ordered a salad.  I didn't add cheese.

Okay, here it is served: the bread is too white and looks cheap (fancy toothpicks).  It came with a side of real horseradish but this didn't save it for me.  The jus looks a bit low but I'm pretty sure it was enough because the size of the sandwich was pretty small overall.  The salad looks fine from afar but wasn't all that good.

Here's a (blurry) close-up of the salad.  Iceberg again, nothing great here.  Pre-tossed with bleu cheese.

Here's a close-up of the sandwich.  You can see that they're not too generous with the prime rib.  And the bread really does look plain and terrible.  Bread = 2.  Prime rib = 1, probably.

So apparently I did order a backup jus that came rapidly.  I knew from the get-go I'd be doomed with the small amount in jus #1.  Again, look at that unattractive bread!!

A close-up of the jus.  Not steaming.  Probably a 2

Here's what's left of the sandwich.  You can see that the meat was maybe not even medium rare.  It just doesn't look good.

Other notes:

The bread was too soft.  1 of 5.

The jus was not hot enough, not steaming, and tasted non-descript.  2 of 5.

The prime rib meat was okay but too soft and not chewy and was possibly even mushy!!!  2 of 5.

Overall this gets a 2.

It was nice that they had real horseradish.

The side salad was no good.

I wasn't impressed.

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.

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!