1 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Nah) Awarded to Financial Center for their French Dip Sandwich in Seattle, WA on this 3rd day of April, 2014 - Little Cafeteria in the Financial Building

The Financial Center building in Seattle has a little cafeteria in there and they offer a French dip.  Here's my review.

A mediocre salad.  3 of 5.

Look at this puppy.  Wow.  Not good.  Pretty light on the meat!!

Really?  This is a sandwich?  I paid for this?

Grill marks.  Yes!!!

A simple meal of food.

Jus.  What you'd expect.  Not too bad.

Rating:

• Bread: 2 of 5.  It's thin and mashed on the panini grill.
• Meat: 1 of 5.  Need more.
• Salad: 3 of 5.  Good enough.
• Jus: 3 of 5.  Good enough.
• Sandwich: 2 of 5.  Pretty small and pathetic but did the job.

OVERALL: 1 of 5.  Not your top sandwich.  The Asian lady behind the counter, though, is really nice!!

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 Yard House for their French Dip Sandwich in Seattle, WA on this 20th day of December, 2013 - A traditional but good Roast Beef Dip

Yard House is a newer place in downtown Seattle near Westlake Center.  I went there for lunch with coworkers Chris and Brian S. today.  We called our order in.  They said 15-20 minutes and it took 23 minutes.  Tolerable, I suppose.

A picture of the bar at Yard House.  They have many fine beers on tap.  We were not able to imbibe today.

Back left: Jus cup.  Back right: salad with bleu cheese.  Front: ROAST BEEF DIP: swiss on garlic french bread with au jus, horseradish cream (cal 930)  $11.85

You can see from this picture of the jus that it is very "faint".  Weak.  It would be clear soon that it was sub-par jus.  It was only a 1+ or 2 out of 5.  Needs more richness, wasn't hot enough.

Eater's eye view of the jus, sandwich and horseradish cream.  A LOT of (probably too much) plastic was used in this packaging...

Here's the sandwich with cream.  You can tell that the roast beef is very light colored: pink even.  Pretty nice, tender meat.

The sandwich has a good ratio of bread to meat (lots of meat) but good bread, too.  Toasting was good "garlic bread" made it nice.  Slightly chewy.  Cheese was mild but good. The sandwich was pretty delicious on its own.

Rating:

• Bread: 4 of 5.  Good flavor, nice texture.
• Meat: 4 of 5
• Non-Meat Toppings: 3 of 5.  Good cheese
• Salad: 3 of 5.  Some wilted lettuce.  Nice touch of pickled onion on top.  OK bleu cheese.
• Jus: 1+ to 2.  Way too watery, no flavor, not hot enough.
• Non-jus alternate dip option: 4 of 5.  The horseradish cream was rather nice.
• Sandwich: 4 of 5.  Good size, solid flavor.

OVERALL: 4 of 5

4 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Great) Awarded to Village Wines for their French Dip Sandwich in Woodinville, WA on this 24th day of November, 2013 - I can forget you.

Village wines in Woodinville for dinner with Brian and Lindsay 8 days before Lindsay's due date with their first.

There are two options for the dip.  I selected the Village French Dip, which has mushrooms, onions, and pepper jack.  It definitely had horseradish on it, too, so not sure what happened there.

The plated dip with side Greek salad.  Salad dressing wasn't very good and onions on salad were overly pungent.

The dip.  Well-toasted bread.  Good dense bread.  Thickish cuts of meat.  Overall a pretty solid, decent-sized dip.

The jus had a wine flavor to it and was tangy and good.  Medium thickness....not too thin.

The cheese.  Doesn't look like pepper jack.  They may have given me the Swiss instead.

Overall   4
Bread     4
Meat     3
Au Jus   4

3 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Good) Awarded to Fadó Irish Pub & Restaurant for their Lamb Dip Sandwich in Seattle, WA on this 7th day of November, 2013 - Pulled Lamb French Dip

Hello.  Had a dip while out with a buddy the other day.  The first LAMB dip I've ever had.  I like lamb but this dip was only okay.  3 of 5.  The bread was a 2, the jus was a 3, the lamb was a 3, the cheese was a 2.  The thing that gives this sandwich points and a 3 rating is the use of lamb to make it fun and unique.

5 of 5 DeliciScore™ (From Heaven) Awarded to FX McRory's for their Prime Rib Dip Sandwich in Seattle, WA on this 9th day of March, 2013 - Very solid sandwich.

It was the first week at my new, fun, exciting job with Cynergy, The Experience Agency.  Cynergy makes awesome software for awesome clients and has a very impressive portfolio of work.  The Seattle team walked out in the rain to lunch at a local bar and restaurant, FX McRory's.  FX (McFunster's as some call it) is at the north end of Century Link Field parking lot where the Seahawks--who won 11 games in the 2012 season--play.

FX has an incredibly large selection of alcohol and a pretty diverse menu.  Earlier in the week I'd had a pretty good mushroom Swiss burger there.

Here's the Prime Rib sandwich.  It's really good.  It's served on Macrina Bakery bread and comes with fries.

Here's the very good looking prime rib.  It's cut thick but not overly chewy.  The meat is a 5 of 5.  You can also see the very pretty Macrina bread quite well from this angle.  The flour-marks are a nice touch and the toasting is done well.  There's no additional toppings on the sandwich, which is totally fine with me, and the waitress said she prefers this sandwich to the Prime Rib dip with cheddar.

It comes with real (and real good) horseradish that's shredded thickly.  

The au jus is the only strike against this sandwich.  It's good but not awesome.  It's a tangy and fine just not as great as the rest of the sandwich.

Overall   5
Bread     5
Meat     5
Au Jus   3.5

This is a great French dip and FX McRory's is a fun, nice place near quirky, fun Pioneer Square in Seattle downtown.  Great for a workweek lunch or a game-related treat.

4 of 5 DeliciScore™ (Great) Awarded to Wilde Rover for their Turkey Dip Sandwich in Kirkland, WA on this 2nd day of October, 2012 - Turkey Dipper

I was meeting my friend Rob for lunch at the Wilde Rover today.  I decided to enjoy a beer while I was waiting for him to show him.  I had a Newcastle Brown Ale which is good, but it's no Mac & Jack's African Amber, which Rob had when he showed up.  Oh well, a beer's a beer.

They have a lunch menu.  That's nice.

I had thought about Fish and Chips but then I saw the "Weekday Lunch Trio" option, which was pretty nice.  And one of the options was the Turkey Dipper.  I have to have the dipper.  So I asked the waiter what was on or with the dipper and he said that it had cheese and mushrooms on it and a poultry broth that you dipped it into and that it was popular so I was interested in getting it.  I got that and a cup of the Northwest Seafood Chowder.

Here's my Newcastle Brown Ale in a Guinness mug.  I don't really like Guinness (too thick) but I did have it once with Blackcurrant syrup at Fado in Seattle and it was quite good.  (FYI)

This picture might not do it justice but overall I was pretty impressed when this was served.  It was on a shiny, clean, nice plate.  It came with soda bread and my soup looked pretty good.  The sandwich looks kind of small from this angle but it was actually pretty good-sized for being a half size.  The jus impressed me as well.  This may be the first non-beef jus I've even had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The meat looked fine and the mushrooms were good, too (mushrooms not overly fancy but good, especially for a mushroom lover like me).

The bread they served it on was very nice; it seemed home made.  It was perfectly absorbent.  The meat was not overly dry like turkey can be, nor was it overly salty or deli-like.  The bread was finished with a dusting of flour, which made it seem fancy and substantial.

The color and flavor of the semi-thick jus was quite good.  It was very fun to be dipping and dunking my sandwich into a non-standard juice.  

The cup of Northwest Seafood Chowder was also quite good.  The cute little baby potatoes in it were excellent and the flavor was very good as well.  It may have been just slightly too salty but I was very pleased with it overall.

You can see that the bread soaked up the jus well and has a nice texture.  The mushrooms were pretty good but could possibly have been made to look better.  The turkey was fine and mild, a good break from beef, beef, beef.

Summary

4 of 5.  This was very good.  It wasn't a 5 because it was just not quite gourmet enough but it was a very excellent, fine sandwich.

Points for: mushrooms, great bread, a healthy serving size for a half, good turkey, non-beef jus, that they went out on a limb with a non-standard dip option that people apparently like, nice lunch options, serving it alongside good soda bread and soft butter.

Negative points for: the mushrooms could have been prettier, thicker, meatier; the turkey could have been more thick or robust; the jus should have been a little hotter but I could have just been talking for too long before I dove into it; the cheese if it was there wasn't really noticeable but it was fine.