Ruth's Chris - US Prime in Canada, eh? (Toronto, ONT)

Entrance for Ruth's Chris

After my friends and I landed at Pearson Airport in Toronto, ONT this past May, our minds were to get to our hotel and find some good grub in the city! During the cab ride, we were asked what were we doing in Toronto during the holiday weekend. What holiday?? I guess we had showed up in Toronto during their Victoria Day weekend (a la Memorial day weekend in the States). As a result, most of the businesses were closed for the long weekend, which included our intended destination, Rodney's Oyster House (a place I'll blog about later). Thus, after exploring a bit in the Financial district of Toronto where our hotel was located, we were able to stumble upon Ruth's Chris, an American steakhouse chain that I've actually never had before. Ironic, eh?

Bread

We were served with some fairly lukewarm bread and butter, not much to write about, but it does its job.

Bellini Martini

Christian Moueix Merlot 2005

Onto the alcohol, one of my friends went with the bellini martini, while another friend and myself shared a bottle of Merlot. I figured a nice red would go well with some bloody beef coming out way.

Spinach Au Gratin

We shared an order of spinach augratin, unfortunately it was left mostly uneaten. None of us were a fan of this, particularly me. Though, I'm not too fond of spinach in general to begin with.

Buffalo Rib Eye

One of my buddies ordered the buffalo rib eye. Simply said, it's the meat from a buffalo. I was able to try a buffalo steak on a business trip to Denver awhile back and loved the tenderness of the meat and it seemed like my friend enjoyed his steak as well. Topped with a dijon mustard based sauce, it looked like a good match for the buffalo steak.

T-bone

Another one of my friends went with the T-bone steak. Anytime I think of the word T-Bone, the episode of Seinfeld always comes back in my head. Anyways, it seemed like my friend enjoyed his cut of meat as well, but given the fact we were all starving, I wouldn't doubt in any case. The fact the steak was cooked in an ample amount of butter, definitely made it taste good, though I wouldn't let the cardiologist find out.

Cowboy Ribeye

Finally, one of my favorite cut of steak, the ribeye. Cooked medium rare, it was quite tender and flavorful from the butter and various seasoning used during the cooking process. One of the nice thing was that there was no need for any use of steak sauce on any of our steaks. The flavors of the meat more than carry their end of the bargain.

Chocolate Bread Pudding

After the ample amount of meat and alcohol, we barely had room for dessert, but as the saying goes, "there's always room for dessert!" Thus, we decided to share the chocolate bread pudding. I'm normally not a bread pudding fan, and this above version was fairly decent. However, the custard sauce on the plate tasted like crack (not that I know). Similar to the flavors of a flan, I made sure not a drop of the sauce went to waste. Quite delicious!

All in all, even though Ruth's Chris was not something we had in our agenda, we were quite content upon leaving for the perfect Toronto evening. Although it's a chain around the United States and Canada, Ruth's Chris definitely is one of the better steakhouse around. I wouldn't put it in the same class as Cut or Mastro, but it's definitely rivals to Morton's and Fleming's.

Final Rating: 8 out of 10

145 Richmond Street West
Toronto, ON M5H 2L2, Canada
(416) 955-1455
www.ruthschris.ca/