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Friday, April 11, 2008

Ruby's Diner - Irvine


4602 Barranca Pkwy.
Irvine, CA 92604
Phone: 949.552.7829

www.rubys.com


I visited Ruby’s the other night with my wife, Tim and Isabel. I hadn’t been to Ruby’s in many years, but I remembered it fondly. Visions of juicy burgers, crispy fries and creamy malts danced through my head. We were seated immediately and I grabbed a menu in eager anticipation.

I looked over their menu and quickly picked out a Bacon Cheeseburger ($8.99) and their new Double Dark Chocolate Chip Malt ($4.49). I was also very excited to see that they now, in addition to their regular fries, offered Parmesan Bleu Fries, Garlic Fries or Cajun Fries for only $1.00 more. To make it even better, the fries were all you can eat! I really wanted to try both the Parmesan Bleu and the Garlic fries. It was finally decided that I would order the garlic fries and my wife would order the parmesan bleu fries with her veggie burger that she was sharing with Isabel.

Tim decided to order the Caliente Burger ($8.99) with bacon ($0.80 extra). The Caliente Burger came with double pepperjack cheese, guacamole, jalapenos and fresh salsa. My wife and Isabel decided to share the same burger but with the veggie patty instead.

My malt came out after just a few minutes. Sometimes I hate that they bring malts and shakes out right away because I often end up filling up on the malt and then by the time my food comes, I’m too full. The malt was fantastic though. My only complaint about the malt was that there were a ton of chocolate chips stirred in. The chocolate chips were almost the same size as the width of the straw. This made drinking the malt through a straw almost impossible.

After what seemed like a very long time, our food arrived. I was excited to dive into my bacon cheeseburger. I looked down at my burger and was shocked at what I saw. The extremely black thing sticking out of my burger in the picture below was the bacon I was served.

This was the blackest bacon I have ever seen. To call it burned would be an understatement. I looked around for the waitress so I could request new bacon. She was nowhere to be found. Even though the restaurant was about half full, there seemed to be only one waitress working in the entire restaurant. After about 10 minutes, the waitress finally walked by our table. I flagged her down and pointed at the bacon. I asked her if it was possible to get some different bacon to put in my burger. She said, “Oh, sure, we’ll just replace the bacon for you.” Then she just grabbed my burger off my plate with her bare hands. I was kind of shocked and said, “Can’t you just bring me more bacon and I’ll put it on myself?” “No,” she said and walked away with my burger in her hand. I watched as she handed my burger to the cook through the kitchen window and asked him to replace the bacon. About five minutes later I received a massacred burger back. The bun had been torn apart and the cheese had been ripped off by the cook trying to tear the burned bacon off of the patty and melted cheese. The bacon had been replaced, but my burger looked like someone had thrown it against a wall. I contemplated complaining about it, but I was so hungry that I just shut up and ate the burger. The visions of tasty Ruby’s burgers that I had in my head were destroyed. The burger I took a bite of was cold, soggy and really, really bland.

Meanwhile, while all of this was going on with my burger, my wife and Isabel split their burger apart and began eating it. My wife took a bite of her burger. She said “Why does this burger taste like paper?” She took another bite, ”I think there’s paper in here.” She reached into her mouth and pulled out a piece of paper. She looked more closely at her burger and found that there was an entire slice of deli paper between her veggie patty and the melted cheese. There was no way to remove the paper because it had been melted on by the cheese. Isabel realized that she too had eaten a few bites of paper. We pointed this out to the waitress and she apologized and said she would have the kitchen make another burger. It took them about 20 minutes to replace the burger, so everyone else was done eating by the time the burger came back.

Tim didn’t seem to like his burger very much either. He said that it was really bland. He said he would have much rather had a burger from Red Robin.

The silver lining of our trip to Ruby’s was their french fries. The fries were golden, hot and crispy. The parmesan bleu and garlic toppings that they put on the fries were absolutely delicious. I think If I ever went back to Ruby’s I would just order parmesan bleu and garlic fries. Hmmm.....I wonder if they could combine the two....

Ruby's Diner on Urbanspoon

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, that was a just a chain of comedic events you ran into there. Ruby's is usually pretty good, but I haven't been o that one specifically, sounds like they were having a bad night.

Bill said...

I'm not so surprise with the service and food you've gotten from Ruby's Dine, they have been slipping for awhile now and that's the reason I have not been back.

Anonymous said...

Ewwww.. that sucks! Bad service all around. I won't be going to that location for sure. I actually love Ruby's burgers but I only go to the one in SJC or the Shops at Mission Viejo. In all my visits I only had a problem one time when my burger was raw in the middle. They fixed it right away and comped my meal.

Griffin said...

Yes. This was defintely the worst service I have ever received at a Ruby's. Hiromi, I'm actually quite surprised that they didn't at least offer to discount the meal after all these issues. It really seemed like they just didn't care at all though.

Big Daddy J said...

Over a year later and no real improvement - we were a party of nine and they still messed up a number of our orders. After forgetting a number of items, the waiter asked if he could get anything else for us. We told him - and he promptly forgot again!

We would have told him again - but we had the same 10 minute wait you did with no one in sight.

They don't learn - and neither does my fam - they love the place. It's beyond me why - it's obviously not a one time fluke.

Unknown said...

ok im just saying but i went to the Malibu Pier Ruby's over the summer and the service was great and the food was AMAZING!!!! i had a burger i think lol and it was the best burger ive ever had the chocolate shake was great and i had no prob drinking it but i did get stomach cramps afterwards but thats only cuz im slightly alergic to chocolate but the fries were amazing and i loved the atmosphere we were in Ruby's is amazing. im even putting it on my likes side for my Me Gusta project in spanish