So, I have a rule that I really try and follow, which is to eat at locally owned restaurants versus chain restaurants. Ruth Chris is one I very intentionally have allowed as an exception to this rule for several reasons. First and foremost, I just absolutely love their sizzling delicious steaks and I have not found anything that really compares to it (not to say that there are not other places that serve a steak I enjoy)!! ALL of the food they have is consistently good (apps, sides, etc.) and their service is always phenomenal. I absolutely love the ginger and cilantro dip their raw oysters come with, their salads are always fantastic (Caesar and Wedge are my favorites), their bisque is yum, I always go for the filet and get it rare to medium rare (hey…..I like my meat on the rare side and it keeps cooking on your plate, so I don’t want to hear anything about it), and some of my favorite sides are the sautéed mushrooms, creamed spinach and now the sweet potato casserole (you will see below). Also, I like cheesecake, but I don’t typically order it, but when we come here……I order it every single time. We ordered it once since someone else wanted it and since then I am sad for all of the times that I went to dinner there and did NOT get the cheesecake. What a damn shame!!
Okay, we just went recently with some friends of ours for their Caymus Wine Dinner (this is my 3rd wine dinner that I have now attended there and I really enjoy them). Honestly, they had me at Caymus and the rest of it was just icing on the cake. The menu that they paired it with had so many of my favorite things on it and I will say it was ALL really well done.
The Ahi Tuna Poke went well with the first pairing, the Lamb Lollipop was fantastic and I snubbed my nose at the sweet potato casserole because I am not a sweet potato fan. My husband offered to eat mine and I said I would at least try one bite and give it to him. Ummmm…….not so much!! It was so freaking fantastic I ate the entire thing (it essentially tastes like butter and sugar). I have to apologize as I missed a few pictures here of the courses and I am going to blame it on the wine and not the fact that I inhaled each course they brought out immediately!! However, here is the lamb lollipop course and it had a fantastic blackberry sauce that was such a nice touch and went so well with the lamb.
The filet was fantastic as usual. Unfortunately, the wine was really starting to kick in and I literally burnt my mouth eating it about six times. It was served with lobster mac and cheese and broccolini and they were both scrumptious!!! Here is my plate when I thought to take a picture!
The pieces of lobster were large and not stingy like some other places I have had it. The lobster along with the creaminess of the mac and cheese was delightful. The cremini mushrooms that topped the filet were so flavorful and it all paired so nicely together (I would definitely want to replicate this again).
The evening ended with some white chocolate bread pudding that was outstanding and sent me over the edge into “required unbuttoned pants” zone immediately!!! Literally, I unbuttoned my pants and in typical Jenn style…..I forgot about it and got up to leave with them completely open. Whoopsie! Our neighbors at the table we sat with were thankfully quite amused with that along with my potty mouth. That is certainly a neat part of doing these tastings….getting to meet some other people. It is also quite risky in the case you get sat with duds. This has happened to Matt and I before. In fact, our first trip together was on a cruise and they clearly read our backgrounds, and therefore sat us with people in our age group and many of them happened to be accountants (for those that don’t know this….I am a CPA by training). Well, holy shit these people sucked so bad!!!!!!! They could NOT have been more boring and when we ordered drinks with dinner (not included on cruises) they looked at us like we must be raging alcoholics to be willing to pay for the bottle of wine. Matt and I looked at each other and with one look we said….holy mother of god, we need to get our table changed! Just so you know…this is not really an easy accomplishment. Nonetheless we were determined and went early to dinner the next night to talk to the maître d’ and had to beg him to please put us elsewhere and we assured him it was an absolute NEED!! Funny thing was that we had to walk by our old table to get to our new “assigned table” for the week. All of them were looking at us and we just acted confused and unsure why our table was changed. We were seated with a table of MUCH older adults who cruise multiple times a year and had an absolute blast with them! They got a kick out of us having more fun with them than a group of people our age. 🙂 Look, old people drunk are funny as hell!
So, I will just say that I think Ruth Chris always earns my exception to the rule each and every time I go!!!!
#ruthchrisisamazing #holylobstermacandcheese #sizzlingbutterfilet
Perfect review of a great evening! Highly recommend the Caymus dry, silver Chardonnay with dessert!