Ruby Tuesday(s)

Well, as you can see I am stretching a little for a topic "tue"day. I tried (very briefly) searching for historical information on Tuesday March 15th. Didn't come up with anything that interested me. So yahoo listed Ruby Tuesday's restaurants among the Tuesday "listings". I thought, why not? LOL.



One thing you should know right off the bat. In Canada, as far as I know we have no Ruby Tuesday's. Certainly not in Edmonton anyway. So first thing I did was to take a look at their website. It's got a good basic layout and has some really nice shots of their food. Definitely makes it look like a place I'd like to try if given the chance someday.



One thing that was surprising to me though was in the "our story" tab/page I believe it was, they seemed to liken themselves to a five-star restaurant when to me it just seems like an upscale family restaurant. Like Appleby's. Maybe I'm wrong about that. Who knows. I'm just a Canadian after all. LOL.



The salad that they show on their site is absolutely gorgeously photographed. So much so that even though it seems to involve a lot of broccoli, it still looks good. Maybe it's the plating in part. They are on nice heavy, square all-white dishes. Also, they have a good sized "portion" of grapes on the plate. An "awful" lot for a garnish. And a pretty elaborate garnish at that.



One thing that put me off a bit but that has a positive side is the size of their portions. The steak and shrimp plate seemed to be quite small. The size of the steak, the amount of shrimp and even the dollop of creamed mashed potatoes seemed smaller than most places. That is probably a good thing as many places offer way too much according to nutritionists.



The only thing about the size of the portions that isn't so good is that I suspect that considering that they mention themselves in the same breath as five-star restaurants their pricing probably doesn't reflect the smaller portion sizes. It figures. Then again I'm really just guessing. But I doubt that I'm wrong about that.



Finally, they list on their website their charitable endeavors. Principally their involvement with a program called Feeding America (formerly called America's Second Harvest). They sell gourmet cookies in "mini-bulk" - a half dozen whereby 10% then goes to the charity. I'd be curious as to how popular these cookies are and how expensive. Nice thought though as it's year round.



Carmen



P.S. One funny thing is that they have a take-out option that they amusingly call (even writing it on the take-out boxes) Ruby's Tue Go. LOL.



P.P.S. So to my American readers and anyone else who has one of these restaurants in their area or has ever eaten there - how was it?



The C.A.T.