Ruby Tuesday’s

1120 Shapiro Dr.

Festus, Mo

Last minute choice.

It was Sunday, I’d just awoken from a heavy, fitful nap. My mind was a bit fuzzy, it had been all day. I suffer from a common disease called "career IT system administrator". The side effects are occasional bouts of sleepless nights and long weekends. IT system admins can only work on big, important systems when the actual users are not using them. This weekend was a scheduled task, to move a  big, important server from one piece of hardware to another. Lots and lots of details, lots and lots of things that can go wrong, and of course we couldn’t start the six hour or more task until Saturday at five P.M. Knowing this ahead of time we lunched on Saturday at our newly-discovered favorite place, Cool Beans Java Cafe in Hillsboro. We had their barbecue steak sandwich on pretzel bread. Awesome good.
The server move went fairly well, I work with experienced pros, but it still took a long time. I drove in to the workplace to speed up the process, my home internet connection is not really ideal for real-time support for many things. Driving in actually saved time and frustration. We finished about eleven thirty, I got home after midnight.

Going straight to bed wasn’t really an option, so I had a snack, watched a little TV and popped the cork on a new box of wine to wind down.

I got to bed about two A.M. which, if I were still in my twenties, would not have been a problem, but surprisingly, aging has affected my tolerance to lack of sleep and even disturbances in sleep patterns.

Sunday started late and was, in my head, foggy. I managed to take care of some chores, mechanically, one of those days were I went to Walmart with a short list and returned with only those things on the list. This is rare. I mean, it’s Walmart.

I got home and took that nap. I woke up with a headache and still fuzzy. It was like I’d flown to Japan. Getting old sucks.

The Place:

Near the Lowes, overlooking I-55.

It was pretty busy, always is. A large group in front of us got seated before we did. We were led to the left of the salad bar. Several families were seated and in various stages of their meals. Directly across from us was a young mother and father with three small kids. One of the boys was jumping  up and down in his seat, something his mother scolded and begged him to stop, only to be rebuked with a nasty “No!” from the little snot-nosed brat. This went on for a while. I was able to tune it out. On this day tuning most things out was not my problem. Tuning them in was difficult.

We scanned the menus, I wasn’t looking for anything new or adventurous, so I pretty much stuck with the same thing I usually get.

The Food:

Angel was in a mood to try something different. We scanned the menus, me not really paying much attention, just checking to see if the petit sirloin was still available. It was, and for a couple of extra bucks they’d add a lobster tail.

“Have you decided what you want with your salad?” Angel asked the table.

The salad bar at RT’s was a forgone conclusion. It’s the reason I was after a ‘petit’ steak. RT has the best salad bar in the known universe. It’s always freshly stocked with dozens of options. My only complaint about it is that the plates are too small.

We ordered our drinks, tea, Diet Coke and Coke. They arrived with luscious cheesy biscuits, another reason to go there. The tea was fresh and clear, it actually had flavor. RT’s usually makes good tea, not always, but usually, this was a good night.

I ordered my petit steak and lobster tail, with the salad bar and a side of mashed potatoes. Angel surprised me by asking for the French Quarter Gumbo, a dish that is apparently related to New Orleans cuisine.

I’ve been to New Orleans, had some Gumbo, I don’t think I’ve ever asked for it again. It’s just not my thing.

Adam ordered the Asiago Sirloin Steak with green beans and mashed potatoes. No salad bar for him, though it was guaranteed that he would be caught filching  those dark croutons off his mother’s plate. She always gets extra croutons because she knows she’ll be sharing them.

So we dashed to the salad bar, once again it did not disappoint. I piled my little plate high and slopped on some dressing. Angel did the same.

We sat back down and dug in. The little boy next to us was acting up again. His mother was explaining to him that they would be going to bed early since they were up so late the night before and had not napped. “No kidding.” I thought. The little boy screamed ‘No!’ a few more times, so she kept debating him.

The salads and biscuits hit the spot, we had time to finish, or surrender, a few minutes ahead of the main courses. RT doesn’t always get this part right, the timing of the courses, but this night they were spot-on.

The small  plate with my steak and lobster tail and mashed potatoes was clean  and sparse. I didn’t mind, I don’t need a lot of garnish and flourish.

Angel’s gumbo came on a larger plate and looked just like gumbo. Adam’s steak was larger than mine, but size isn’t everything.

Angel snorted her plate in an attempt to clear her sinuses. I carved into the steak and thought it a little tough, or maybe they just gave me a dull knife.

No, it was tough.

The lobster was tough too. You just can’t get a properly fresh and cooked lobster in the heartland. I knew it would be overcooked when I ordered it, it always is and not just at Ruby’s. Red Lobsters in the area can’t even cook lobster right. The thing was though, I wanted the taste of lobster regardless, even a chewy one. An overcooked, chewy lobster is still a lot better than no lobster. Lobster is kind of like sex that way.

I only finished about two thirds of my small steak, it was just too tough. The lobster only had about four bites in it, so I finished that, and the mashed potatoes were really good.

Angel had to give up on her gumbo, too spicy after a while, also she claimed to have lost some of her appetite when the mom at the next table kept asking the rowdy little boy if he was pooping.

Summary:

We had a coupon so our meal was ten dollars cheaper than it could have been, coming in at forty seven bucks.

The service was all pleasant and efficient and timely. As a dining experience except for the family at the next table, it was exceptional. The food was pretty good, well the steak was too tough, but the first few bites were good.

The salad bar, of course, makes it all better. Why we don’t just order a salad bar and biscuits and be done with it, I’m not sure.

Ruby Tuesday’s

Festus, MO

We had originally planned to return to Taytro’s Bistro in Festus, a Cajun-ish spot where we enjoyed a light lunch at back in December. As we were readying to leave, Angel offered up an alternative. Doing so aroused our suspicions. “I’m really hungry and I don’t know if that place’s dinner menu had enough stuff that I like well enough to fill me up.” She explained. She’d had a busy day that started early. With a couple of dogs in for training, another for day care and the fosters, plus her morning class for clients and a pickup and drop off, her day had been wall to wall. I on the other hand had attended a pleasant critiquing session, stopped a Walmart for HBA’s and then napped in the early afternoon. She works a lot harder than me, which is her fault for choosing a career that consists of a lot of manual labor and a considerable amount of time outdoors in all kinds of foul weather.

“Mama needs some carbs!” She added. I shrugged my shoulders, which is my casual way of hugging/consoling her.

I respected that she was hungry as did Adam so we asked where she wanted to go where there would be an ample supply of food of the kind she was sure to like. First she suggested Ryan’s, a dive of a buffet, at which I made overt gagging sounds. Then she called out Ruby T’s, I could come up with no rational objection.

On the way there we continued our philosophical discussion, this time, not just on truth, but the universality of truth. Once again we reached consensus quickly and for the last half of the drive we were all but silent.

“Aha!” I shouted, “It’s the salad bar!”

Adam looked at me with the awe and respect I deserve, but there was also a hint of befuddlement in the young man’s dark eyes. “What’s the salad bar?” he asked innocently. “Your mom wants Ruby Tuesday’s because we place our order then immediately get to go fill up a platter full of salad from the generous bar. She’s hungry, hungry now, and knows that we’ be chowing down about five minutes after we get there.”

Angel was smiling, drooling and nodding.

The Place:

Just below Lowe’s, the generous parking lot was only about half full. We walked in and were greeted by a half dozen little girls, probably in their late teens to early twenty’s, dressed in black pants and black shirts. Those also wearing black shoes made me think of them as hoodless Ninjas. Blonde, hoodless Ninjas with scary, hair-trigger hormonal issues. A gaggle of darkly-clad princesses.

We were led to a back booth, passing the salad bar to get there. I think Angel sucked in some produce as we walked by. We were seated at the dark table and handed colorful menus and asked for drinks. Tea, tea (with lemon), Coke. The lighting was so low that I could barely make out the words on the menu.

Usually I get steak, but I wasn’t really all that hungry, not having actually burned off any calories so far that day. I scanned the offerings and landed on a risky alternative. I chose my sides and waited as Angel chewed on the menu itself.

The Food:

I ordered the crab cake with ‘Blue Cheese slaw’ and onion rings, plus the salad bar. Angel, the Lobster Carbonara, and Adam the Chicken and Broccoli penne. Angel also asked for the salad bar (surprise!) Adam declined. Angel shoved me out of the way and had her salad plate half loaded up before I even got to it. She had bloodlust in her eyes, small children ran away in fright.

I forced myself to not pile things on too high, but it was difficult. If nothing else, RT’s has the best, freshest and most varied salad bar of any place I’ve been. There’s plenty of everything, several kinds of greens, different kinds of mushrooms, lots and lots of chopped bits and about ten different salad dressings. Then there’s the croutons, dark and rubbery, which Angel and Adam love , but I can’t stand.

Seated again, Angel tore through her salad like a chainsaw through Styrofoam. I maintained class and decorum, picking and cutting, dousing each bit into both of the dressings, and then savoring each bite. Whenever he thought it was safe, Adam would reach across the table and pluck a crouton from his mother's slaughterhouse of a plate. I was sure he’d mis-time it once and pull back a bloody stump.

The pace slowed as her appetite was soothed, her face faded from the violent murderous red that it had been. Calm overtook her and she relaxed.

The main courses arrived, the two pasta offerings steamy and piled high, slick with sauce and dotted with lobster and broccoli respectively. Angel lit up when she discovered chunks of bacon alongside the buttery lobster bits.

My plate contained a large, but lonely crab cake. The slaw and rings were contained in smaller ramekin-like bowls and cuddled up on the plate with the crab cake. I tasted the thing, more ‘cakey’ than crab, and even though there were large, identifiable lumps of crab, I wasn’t really tasting it. The breading had a stronger taste and it tasted of fried bread. Not a bad thing in and of itself, but crab is king, you don’t want to cover it up. Angel and Adam hunted down and picked the meat out from their pastas, they seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I then tried the slaw. I immediately decided that this dinner had already suffered its first fatality. Blue Cheese slaw sounded good, I like blue cheese, a little sprinkled on a salad, or as a second dressing. My guess is that RT’s took shredded cabbage and mixed it in a vat of pure blue cheese dressing. There was no other taste discernible other than the blue cheese. A little blue cheese is nice, but too much of it ends up tasting like stinky cheese, rotting curds. It was simply too strong. No sweetness of mayonnaise to offset it, just a mouthful of liquid stinky cheese, like moldy, fetid, death itself.

Fortunately the onion rings were just right. I made it through about three quarters of the crab cake, with the help of a couple of cheesy biscuits, the slaw was completely abandoned. As I turned the last curve on the crab cake though, I had to give up on it. It wasn’t just me, Angel confirmed it, way too salty. Crab cake doesn’t need a lot of salt or salty ingredients. Crab is a subtle taste, it can be easily overpowered, and in this case it was.

Angel and Adam seemed quite pleased though, so I just had another cheesy biscuit and watched them push pasta and meaty bits around their plates.

The waitress seemed to notice that I’d left a lot of food behind, but I chose not to complain. I was full, enough salad and bread can do that for a man, and in no mood to yell at the dolts that thought the crab needed more salt and the slaw needed more stinky cheese. Besides it wasn’t Ninja girl that had ruined the dishes, it was those tasteless, under-trained amateur robots in the back, the one’s blindly following the menu cards in front of them. (I don’t really blame them, they’re just trying to earn a living, it’s the institutionalized, carbon-copy-style food prep that I object to.)

Summary:

Sixty bucks before the tip. Not awful, had the food (mine) been up to par. I’ll just choose something else next time. Certainly not that nasty slaw, and ‘pass’ on breaded seafood. Angel and Adam were genuinely satisfied though, no complaints.

The tables were too dark, but the service was perky and quick. The overhead football games were meant for somebody else and added nothing to our experience. The background music was tame, generic and forgettable.

We’ll go back, probably. Most of the time the food is quite good, just not always.

Blue cheese slaw…What were they thinking?