Spice up Date Night with a Jeff Ruby Meal Kit, like I did
By: Shae Combs
My husband and I started doing quarantine date-nights when Covid hit, but now that we're eleven months in, things have gotten a bit... monotonous. We decided to spice things up by trying one of the Jeff Ruby meal kits and attempting to recreate the iconic Jeff Ruby's experience in our home.
The ordering and pickup process couldn't be simpler. When you visit their website, you get to choose pick up or delivery (we chose pickup) and the location (we picked The Precinct because it's closest to us). After that, you pick a date and time that works for you.
Finally, you choose the meal kit you are interested in. They have a few different meal kit options, but we picked the Dinner For Two (because it's a date night, duh!). This kit includes the following:
(2) 8 oz Angus Filet Mignon
Half Pound of Alaskan King Crab
Asparagus
2 oz of Steakhouse seasoning (The BEST steak seasoning out there)
Sixteen Bricks Sourdough and Truffle Butter
Choice of Chocolate Cake or Butter Pie (Chocolate cake ALL DAY)
When we unpacked our meal kit, everything was separated and easily identifiable and it included cooking directions for each item.
My husband took point on the steaks, asparagus and crab. He patted the steaks dry with paper towels and seasoned them really well with the included steakhouse seasoning. These steaks were extremely thick, so they needed about eight minutes per side on the grill for a perfect medium-rare.
Normally when we visit a Jeff Ruby's steakhouse, we enjoy a pre-dinner cocktail, so we decided to make ourselves a Manhattan while the steaks sizzled away on the grill outside. During this time, we also set the table, lit some candles and heated up the bread in the oven. During the steaks' last few minutes cooking, we added the asparagus and then the crab legs to the grill alongside them. And that was it! After the steaks rested for a couple minutes we plated everything up and dug in.
I mixed the dressing and bacon right into the salad before serving, just like they do with the real Freddy Salad. You really can't go wrong with Sixteen Bricks bread and the truffle butter was a nice addition.
My husband cooked the steaks perfectly and the seasoning made it taste like a real Jeff Ruby's steak. We did miss that crispy char on the outside that the steakhouses do so well, but other than that it was amazing.
The asparagus was good and the crab was delicious. A few words of caution with the crab - we could've left it on the grill a few more minute to heat up because the pieces were so big. We are lucky enough to have crab crackers at our house already, but if you don't, you might find it difficult to get them open.
Finally, the chocolate cake was perfection. The slice they gave us was so big that we only ate half and saved the rest for the next night.
All-in-all we very much enjoyed our meal kit and would absolutely recommend it. The experience isn't quite like being in an actual Jeff Ruby's restaurant, but we put a little effort in and it was a fun date night in our home.
With Valentine's Day just around the corner, this would be a fabulous way to have a romantic night in, while still supporting a local business! You can preorder your Valentine’s Day meal kits now for pick up at The Precinct or Carol & Johnny February 12, 13 and 14.