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A Closer Look at the $7 Happy Hour at Ruth’s Chris Steak House [ADVENTURE]

via Foodbeast by Elie Ayrouth on 4/19/12

When one of the largest luxury steak companies in the world — Ruth's Chris Steak House — announces a happy hour, eyebrows perk up and frugal eaters come out of the woodworks. What does that mean? Cue Foodbeast visiting their local Ruth's Chris location and trying every last thing on the newly introduced $7 Sizzle, Swizzle & Swirl Menu.

The normally out-of-our-price-range steakhouse crafted a bar-specific happy hour of seven food items and a drink menu mixed drinks, wines and select beer all priced at an extremely affordable seven dollars. In a nutshell — you can ball out, on a budget.

Upon hearing about the chain's new happy hour menu, which is available Monday through Friday, 4:30 – 7 pm (varies from location to location, hit the website for full details), we stopped by our participating local Irvine, CA location to see if it was worthy of a fuss. You heard it here first, the menu is worthy of a fuss.

The selection of food items stand their ground as filling dishes, making the $7 price tag for their USDA Prime Burger with Fries or their Three Petite Prime Burger Sliders a deal that would make you question why you'd eat a fast food burger and fries for a similar price, when you can get the mouthwatering experience of dining in for a similar check total?

The best approach to the Ruth's Chris happy hour is going in with a group of friends, getting a few different dishes, and getting a steady stream of variety throughout your dinner. You'll get to taste everything, and if divided evenly, you'll end up with a very reasonable bill.

Here's a look at what we tried during our visit:

Seared Ahi Tuna

The Seared Ahi Tuna dish was spectacular, I would recommend ordering this in conjunction with the Prime Sliders, because once you're done with the Seared Ahi Tuna dish, you'll be able to dunk the sliders into the left over 'spirited sauce' at the bottom of the dish.

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Prime Sliders

Remember those sliders I mentioned you should order alongside the Seared Ahi Tuna? These are them. For $7 you get a plate of three, fist-sized sliders, meat cooked to perfection, buns glistening, and oozing of deliciousness. They have absolutely no fixings, and that's how they should be served. 'Natural Pretentiousness' aside, these three sliders are filling enough to stand on their own, much like the other elements of this new happy hour.

They don't need ketchup or any other condiments, but if you're so inclined, dunk them in the pool of sauce left over from your Seared Ahi Tuna dish. YOLO, right?

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USDA Prime Burger with Fries

We're not going to get into a discussion of "the best burger around," because that's asinine. What we can tell you is that you get an extremely generous sized burger that melts in your mouth, it's made of USDA prime beef, ground up, served on an egg brioche bun. Side of fries. Try to find a burger this size, this quality, with a side of fries, for $7. Good luck!

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Spicy Lobster

One the menu's most popular items is a small dish of lightly fried lobster with a sriracha mayonnaise sauce. Great flavors and beautiful presentation. As expected with lobster, the portion falls relatively short of the other dishes, but it's a great item to order and put in the middle of the table for everyone to get a quick nibble.

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Tenderloin Skewers

These skewers are grilled and served with sesame soy sauce and lay on a bed of spring greens. Each order will net you four multiple-bite pieces of meat, and are perfect representations of what the Ruth's brand is about, quality cuts of meat, cooked well and presented fashionably.

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Steak Sandwich with Fries

During our happy hour expedition, the General Manager of the Irvine location, Todd Lounsbury, explained their Steak Sandwich with Fries as if he was describing his first born child. The sandwich features a generous portion of thinly sliced filet mignon, topped with béarnaise sauce, and served with the restaurant's handcut fries. Lounsbury assures you won't find a similar sandwich, of similar quality, with similar atmosphere, at this price, anywhere else. To our knowledge, we have to agree.

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Their drink menu was also on point, everything from Classic Cosmos and Pomegranate Martinis, to our Foodbeast favorite, a Moscow Mule, a drink consisting of Smirnoff, Canton Ginger Liqueur, fresh lime juice and a splash of ginger Ale.

Below are photos of some of the delicious drinks we downed during our Happy Hour visit. The entire experience is one we recommend. Read up on the menu items available, the locations participating, and get down to your local Ruth's Chris location to enjoy the festivities like we did: