McCall St. Brewer
Well-Known Member
The other night I ate at a nice restaurant that I have eaten at a number of times before. I have been there many times in the past and have never been disappointed.
My wife ordered a steak and, as usual, it was very good. Everything else we ordered was good. The exception was the prime rib. It wasn't that it was really bad or anything. It just wasn't normal Wisconsin supper club prime rib. To get to the point, it appears that they are serving some sort of a pre-cooked product that seems to come packaged by the individual serving. Traditionally around these parts prime rib tends to be a Saturday special. Restaurants buy special ovens made by Alto-Shaam to slow cook rib roasts. When you order prime rib, they slice off a nice slab and plate it up with its own juices.
Mine obviously was not that. The first tip-off was the appearance. It looked like it was cut from a slab of stone or something. It was perfectly flat with razor sharp edges. It had very little fat. It was uniform in color. "Real" prime rib is darker around the outside edges and pinker in the middle. There were no juices. It was served in some sort of dark brown liquid.
I suppose I know why they do this. That way they don't have to worry about guessing how much of it they will sell on a given night. Rib roasts are expensive. If they make too much, they have some very expensive leftovers to cut up and make into soup or something. If they don't make enough they have a lot of disappointed customers.
That doesn't make it right, though. The product I was served was simply not the real thing. Unforturnately, I think a lot of restaurants are doing this now. The problem is figuring out which ones to avoid. Prime rib is normally a pretty expensive menu item. Unless you can see it brought to someone else's table before you order, it seems pretty risky these days to order it.
My wife ordered a steak and, as usual, it was very good. Everything else we ordered was good. The exception was the prime rib. It wasn't that it was really bad or anything. It just wasn't normal Wisconsin supper club prime rib. To get to the point, it appears that they are serving some sort of a pre-cooked product that seems to come packaged by the individual serving. Traditionally around these parts prime rib tends to be a Saturday special. Restaurants buy special ovens made by Alto-Shaam to slow cook rib roasts. When you order prime rib, they slice off a nice slab and plate it up with its own juices.
Mine obviously was not that. The first tip-off was the appearance. It looked like it was cut from a slab of stone or something. It was perfectly flat with razor sharp edges. It had very little fat. It was uniform in color. "Real" prime rib is darker around the outside edges and pinker in the middle. There were no juices. It was served in some sort of dark brown liquid.
I suppose I know why they do this. That way they don't have to worry about guessing how much of it they will sell on a given night. Rib roasts are expensive. If they make too much, they have some very expensive leftovers to cut up and make into soup or something. If they don't make enough they have a lot of disappointed customers.
That doesn't make it right, though. The product I was served was simply not the real thing. Unforturnately, I think a lot of restaurants are doing this now. The problem is figuring out which ones to avoid. Prime rib is normally a pretty expensive menu item. Unless you can see it brought to someone else's table before you order, it seems pretty risky these days to order it.