Chop Steakhouse- Richmond

For Dine Out 2017, we tried out CHOP in Richmond. 

Chop is located by the Sandman hotel so there an be plenty of parking available from the huge lot.  It might be hard to find if you are not from the neighborhood.  It’s next to highway 99 leading up to Oak St Bridge.

Inside the restaurant was like a maze because the dining area was separated from the bar area.  Chop also has 2 separate entrances, so make sure you go through the right one.  The washrooms were also very fancy.  There’s a large comfortable couch in side the men’s washroom.

We were lucky to get a Friday evening reservation but it was early for 5:30pm.  On the Dine Out menu online, they only showed a $30 dinner menu.  We were pleasantly surprised to see that they also offered a $40 menu as well.  Popular restaurants fill up fast for Dine Out.   

Our server was extremely friendly and pleasant.  After taking our orders we got some multigrain dinner bread.

Being a healthy multigrain based bread, it was kind of dry.  We would have preferred something like sourdough bread.  Nevertheless, this was easily fixed by adding lots of butter.

They didn’t have any beer specials that evening, so we ordered Granville Island lager from the tap.

We all ordered salad as a starter.  Here is a Cesar salad.

This is the artisan green salad which is a bit more unique than the Cesar.

Both salads were very fresh.

If ordering from the $40 menu, you get an extra appetizer.  Two of us ordered from the $40 menu so we shared the following appies:

The Crab Cakes here were nice and fluffy with a tangy chipotle sauce to complement.

Next are steak bites with some bbq sauce underneath and some horseradish aioli.

The steak bites were very tender and tasty.

For the main course, we had prime rib, cooked medium.  This is from the $40 menu.

We did not know it was going to be such a large serving!  It was also cooked perfectly red for medium.  The prime rib was very very tender and it really kicks the Keg’s butt!

Next is maple bourbon haddock.  This is from the $30 menu.

The fish was cooked perfectly too.  It  was not overcooked and remained very moist.  The sauce was a bit too overpowering though.  It was a bit too sweet for our liking but not entirely bad enough to ruin the fish.

Dessert time!

Tiramisu:

The tiramisu is served in a cup and was too creamy.  The lady fingers were too soggy though.

Warm apple crumble with vanilla bean gelato:

The apple crumble was sour and tangy but was perfectly balanced by the gelato.

We really enjoyed our visit to Chop.  Our server was very attentive, laid back and checked up on us several times to make sure things were OK.  The captain also came by a couple of times to make sure we enjoyed our meals.

We certainly like to come back to hang out during happy hour too as their happy hour menu looked quite delicious.

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 Delights.

Ruth's Chris Steak House - Downtown Calgary

We celebrated a relative’s birthday in downtown Calgary at Ruth’s Steak House.  This is quite a classy upscale restaurant.  We learned that this restaurant has roots in the US and has now expanded to multiple locations in North America.

The restaurant is located on the 2nd floor with many windows with the view towards downtown Calgary.

We went quite early on a weekday for dinner.  Ruth’s has this special date night menu which they have extended to every day of the week so we were happy to see this deal available for us.  The date night menu allows each couple to order a wine, appetizer, main course and dessert.

There were six of us so we ordered quite a variety from the date menu.

For appies, this is the house salad with some goat cheese spread on top.  Veggies were very fresh and was served on a long shaped plate.

This one is the calamari.  It was deep fried then tossed in a sweet and spicy chili sauce.

It seemed to be Asian inspired.  The calamari was cooked just right and was not too chewy. It was a unique spin to calamari which we never tried elsewhere before.

Here are the different sides that come with the main dishes.

The mashed potatoes were very creamy and buttery.  The one in them middle is a creamy spinach.  The spinach dish was prepared well and it was not bitter at all.  The one on the right side is the sweet potatoes. 

This one is just a regular fries that came with one of our steaks.

The first star of the show is a petite filet.  It was a nice thick cut, seared perfectly on the outside.

Inside was made to order, medium.  It was served on a hot plate with butter melted and still sizzling below it.

We also ordered a chicken breast main course.

It is cooked perfectly with some the skin lightly crisped.

This is a fresh salmon main course. 

The salmon was very juicy and flavorful also served on top of sizzling butter.

The yellow thing you see on some of the dishes above is just some lemon wedges for you to gracefully squeeze the juice without squirting all over the place.  Such attention to detail!

Here are the desserts:

Apple Crumble:

Crème Brulèe

Bread pudding:

All the desserts were perfectly sized and expertly created.  They were also not overwhelmingly sweet like at some other places.

A lot of attention to detail was put into preparing all our dishes from the appetizers to the desserts. Our server was also very attentive to our needs.  He was a bit snobby but he really took pride in his job to make everything  right from seating us, pouring us the wines, and serving our plates of food.

The restaurant was rather quiet throughout our stay there.  There were less than 5 tables from beginning to end.  Expect to pay premium prices here, but know that it is well worth it.  The food is superb and you get upscale service..

SFDD gives 4.5 out of 5 Delights.

Maui, Hawaii Special - Outback Steakhouse

We  had the opportunity to visit Maui for the first time so we are looking forward to share our restaurant visits with you.  We will start with Outback Steakhouse.  True that this is not quite Hawaiian, but we were craving for some steak that evening and since there was an Outback not too far from where we stayed, we dropped in here for dinner.

This Outback is located in the Kihei section of Maui within a strip mall.  We got here Sunday early evening and were seated promptly.  It was not a full house like other Outbacks that we’ve been to. I guess tourists prefer Hawaiian restaurants instead since it appeared that the other tables were locals.

We started with the loaf of brown table bread which came with some whipped butter.  The bread was cold though.  We recall that the bread at other locations usually comes out warm.  We didn’t care much for it since we were looking forward to our appetizer coming up next.

Outback is famous for their Bloom’ n Onion.  It is a giant onion fried in a light batter and blooms open like a flower’s petals. It comes with a spicy chipotle dipping sauce.  This onion seems smaller than before, but it was still more than enough for the two of us.

You have to be careful though when chomping down on the onion while hungry. It fills you up quite fast due to the oil and the richness of the dip.  Aside from the size of the onion, it tasted consistent like other locations.

One of our meals came with a side salad.  This is also smaller than the ones we had at other locations, what’s going on Maui Outback??  Furthermore, the lettuce leaves had black specks on them throughout. 

We ordered their prime rib.  We usually get medium but from our experience, restaurants seem to overcook it so we asked for medium-rare this time.  It came almost perfect as a medium so it was just what we expected.

The beef was so tender it can almost melt in your mouth.  It was also not to overly fat along the sides.  It was also not overly seasoned as you can taste the natural beef flavors throughout.  It came with mashed potatoes but they were bland as if the kitchen forgot to add in the salt.  What was strange was serving this nice piece of meat on such a small plate.

The second main we ordered was the beef tacos.  It came with 3 rater large pieces with medium well cooked beef.  This was presented quite nicely as they used a special utensil to hold up the 3 tacos.  They were very generous in the amount of beef stuffed in each taco.  It came with some sort of ranch/tarter sauce type of dip and some more of the bland mashed potatoes.

Despite the few hiccups we were still satisfied with the main dishes and the bloom’ n onion.  The server was friendly and got us what we needed in a timely matter.  This location is located in a strip mall with plenty of free parking available.

SFDD gives 3 out of 5 Delights.

Hamilton Street Grill - Yaletown

Surfing on Groupon we found a good deal at a Yaletown restaurant that we never tried before.  Being downtown, it is pay parking everywhere so we scheduled to go on a day which we can muti-task. We spent the day doing some shopping during the daytime, coffee break, reading and then heading down to Yaletown for dinner without needing to move our car which we parked at an all day discounted lot.

It is a rather upscale atmosphere with friendly service.  It was not too busy when we arrived at 6pm early Saturday evening.  We disliked that we were seated in a very uncomfortable, crowded part of the restaurant.  The tables and chairs were just too close to each other.  My chair had to make contact with the person behind me.

The Groupon deal was a 3 course meal for $59 for 2 people.

We got dinner bread presently quite nicely, but could have used a bit of heat.  It came with some whipped flavoured butter. We think it might be chipotle flavoured.

We also got the R&R cream ale which was off the tap.  I was not aware it was going to be so dark, so I must get more acquainted next time about beers before I order.

We both got the same 3 courses.  We started first with the butternut squash risotto:

It was a good size but we found it was a too bland for our liking.  The risotto was done quite well and was not watery.

Our main course was the certified Angus beef New York steak.  It was a rather large size:

It comes with green beans, carrots and mashed potatoes.  We both opted for medium which was cooked to order.

As for flavour, the steak was quite bland.  It seemed like there wasn’t any seasoning beforehand.  The peppercorn sauce was unusually sweet.  We had to sprinkle some table salt on the side to make it work.  The mashed potatoes were OK, a bit too creamy to a point that it looked like the powder mixed type of mashed potatoes which I hope it wasn’t.  The veggies were tender and well done.

For dessert, we got the flourless chocolate cake with raspberry sauce.  Flourless ??!  Well it was like a brownie. It was good but calling it a cake is a bit misleading.

We also got the Latte creme brulee.  This was done quite well and was very creamy like it should be.  It was a good size for sharing but after a few bites it was already feeling very heavy in our stomachs.

You also get tea or coffee included after your meal.

The atmosphere was nice and the server was friendly.  We did not feel rushed and the food came without a lot of wait time.  The food was a bit bland but not that bad.  It was reasonable for the $59 special pricing, but definitely we would not pay their claimed regular price $108 on a normal day.  A lot of the other customers we noticed were also there for the Groupon deal.

They had other choices as well for this Groupon deal, perhaps if you tried the fish, you can comment on how you liked it.

SFDD gives 3 out of 5 Delights.

Pepper Lunch - Richmond

Pepper Lunch opened their first Canadian location in Richmond just about a month ago.  It originated in Japan but also has locations in Taiwan and Hong Kong.  It’s located on the corner of Westminster Highway and No3 Road, the same complex where London Drugs is located.  Pepper Lunch specializes in food served on a sizzling hot cast iron plate.

It’s kind of like Nando’s where you order at the counter and pay first.  Then they assign a table for you and someone will bring you your food later when ready.

We got the basic Beef Pepper with Rice.  It came sizzling hot with a neat paper wrapped around the plate to protect you from the sizzling juice.  Once it arrives, you have to start mixing the rice and meat together so it cooks because the meat is served raw.

The beef was quite tender, it is probably sliced from sirloin with light seasoning.

We also tried the Salmon Pepper Rice.  The salmon was also raw when it arrived so it had to be mixed together to be sure it’s cooked throughout.

Pepper Lunch has a open kitchen concept so you an see the cook preparing the food if you sit close enough.  The service was very friendly as the servers energetically greeted customers when they arrive and departed.  The food also arrived rather fast, which is expected since they don’t have to cook the main part of the food. 

Price is also very affordable as they got a good selection for $10 and change.  You can also up it to a larger size for a few dollars more.

SFDD gives 3.75 out of 4 Delights.