Ruby Kitchen

It's pretty rare that I give even a mediocre review. I like to think that having a million awesome places to eat + a willingness to try anything = generally having a positive experience to share. Frankly, with the amount of amazing restaurants of every shape, size, and nationality, I don't waste time with places that might be just okay. Occasionally, I'll get dragged along to a pretty substandard place, but for the most part it's hard to get a strike in San Diego.

However, Ruby Kitchen in Hillcrest isn't just a strike. It's a bases-loaded, full-count, tied up, bottom of the 9th in the World Series strikeout. It's rare that I've ever eaten at a place this f@%*ing terrible. The foolish people on Yelp who give this place even the time of day are obviously either brain-damaged, or so ignorant to what food should actually taste like, let alone what even decent service is, that I won't waste my time trying to convince them. It's a completely lost cause.

I wanted to like Ruby Kitchen, I really did. Its next-door-neighbor the Ruby Room offers the typical Hillcrestian a hip and local spot to get their booze on, and Hillcrest has an amazing selection of eateries in every facet of cuisine. The Ruby Kitchen advertises itself as "late-night comfort food" that just happens to be available most of the day. I guess for those in the later throes of blackout, you could tolerate a cold sandwich with little-to-nothing to offer, but if you are even semi-conscious and rational, then take my advice. Save your money and run across the street for a superior meal at Mickey D's.

A quartet of us headed over there at probably 7 pm on a Friday night, expecting there to be at least a few pre-gamers looking to get a head start on soaking up their alcohol of the night. Apparently not. The place (which is ENORMOUS) was totally empty, so why did it take about 20 minutes to get 2 cold sandwiches, some wings, and a cheese steak?

Oh lord, where do I begin. The wings were coated in what I can only assume was ketchup with some pepper sprinkled on them, the 2 cold sandwiches would have satisfied only a starving refugee who has thus survived on cannibalism and fleas, and the cheese steak was more like a chilled rubbery mass of mystery meat with unidentifiable goo spread across the stale roll. Seriously, it's not even worth me wasting any more time thinking about it. If you go there after reading this, you're dead to me.