Date Night! (Rancher's Club)

While Kaspian was away with his grandparents last week, we asked "Kuncle" to watch Astrid so we could go to a date night. We found a groupon for Rancher's Club. We have never been there and were excited to try someplace new. We got to try two drinks, an appetizer, two soups or salads, two entrees, and a dessert.
Here is the restaurant website: http://www.theranchersclubofnm.com/
The meal took about two hours. The restaurant was not very busy on a Thursday night and the restaurant was fairly quiet. The ambiance was pleasant with a dimmer room and ranch style decorations such as antler chandeliers. There were also deer heads around and a bison head mounted over the fireplace.
For our drinks, we ordered a lemon raspberry martini and a chardonnay.
The chardonnay was good. The lemon raspberry martini was...mostly gin. Although the description said it came with fresh raspberries, it in fact appeared to be mostly just a glass of gin.
For our appetizer, we chose tuna and beef tartare. It was...melt in your mouth delicious. The appetizer was the best thing we had there.

tuna and beef tartare

 For the next course, Alona had the Rancher's salad and Nick tried the soup of the day. The rancher's salad was good, although on the sweet side. The beet pieces were very sweet. The bacon bits were delicious, and salty; the perfect bite was one that had lettuce, beets and bacon in it. The soup of the day was chicken orzo soup with vegetables. It was a very good chicken noodle soup, with the noodles being substituted with orzo.

Rancher's salad

Chicken Orzo soup

 The groupon included all items on the menu except Wagyu beef. So, Alona had the Lobster tail (16oz!) with Mashed potatoes and broccoli. Nick had the Hunter's Mixed grill which included boar sausage, elk and venison.
The lobster was very very good, although not the best we've had. The sheer size of the lobster tail was amazing and it tasted good, but we prefer ours to be cooked a little bit more, so that it is easy to cut and is not as "tough" or chewy as some of the lesser cooked lobsters. The potatoes and broccoli were great accompaniments.
Nick ordered his plate medium well. However, the venison and elk were bloody all the way through. They were seared, but the insides were completely raw. It was actually to the point where we took it home and fried it to cook it all the way through. Doing that, really helped and the meat tasted very good. Nick's dish came with asparagus and potatoes. They were nothing spectacular but complemented the dish well. The asparagus seemed like it was steamed then grilled, and tasted close to what we do at home.

16 oz lobster with mashed potatoes and broccoli

Hunter's Mixed Grill

 Lastly, for dessert, we ordered creme brulee. This was also very good with sugar perfectly caramelized on top. We were pleased to notice that the creme brulee we make is as smooth, and perhaps even smoother than this one. We think our creme brulee can match this one. We still need to work on the sugar caramelaziation though.

Creme Brulee

Overall, this was a really great meal, but we are glad we had a groupon for it as we don't think it would have been worth it for us otherwise. We are very happy to have tried this and it was a wonderful date night experience. For those looking for ambiance and unique dishes that most places don't have this is a great place, but if you prefer exceptional food we would recommend looking elsewhere.