Cattlemen's- Roseville

My second cousin and his wife recently had a baby, so GameBoy and I drove across Sacramento to visit them in Rocklin. On the way, we stopped for dinner at Cattlemen's. I had been to the one in Rancho Cordova about six years ago, and had a good experience, so we figured this location couldn't be too bad. It was located right off of the 80, which was convenient in the pouring rain. As advertised, they had plenty of parking in their lot. At 6 pm on a Saturday night, the place was packed with lots of families, young couples, and even old couples. We grabbed a pager and studied a menu so that we would know what to order by the time we were seated. As promised, we were seated twenty minutes later in a booth deep within the noisy resaturant. Since I was on painkillers, I ordered a Coke, but GameBoy went for a mug of Budweiser, which turned out to be a huge 25 ounce mug. Given his low tolerance, I thought that was pretty funny, and took a series of photos as he slowly made his way through the mug that night.

GameBoy loves filet mignon, so he ordered the "petitie" 7 oz. cut of that. I had heard that the sizzling prime rib was pretty good, but with my tooth aching, I decided to go for the filet mignon as well. We both ordered it medium rare, as is our custom. The dinners included bread, salad, beans, and a baked potato as well. The sourdough bread, despite the fact that we had ignored it for about 5 minutes, was still warm, soft, and deliciously chewy. Much better bread than had been expected for this restaurant, which, with its hokey Western theme, evoked memories of Claim Jumper and Lone Star Steakhouse. The all-you-can-eat salad arrived next, served family-style in a large metal bowl. Again, we were pleasantly surprised to discover that they used good ingredients in their salad. Our dressing, Thousand Island for GameBoy and bleu cheese for me, was served in metal gravy boats. I was pleased to discover that mine had chunks of real bleu cheese.

After a few small plates of salad, our steaks and potatoes came. GameBoy's was perfectly medium rare and yummy. Unfortunately, mine, while surprisingly good, was medium well, separated into two pieces, and a bit small for 7 ounces. I don't usually send food back, but this one got sent back, and GameBoy gallantly shared his with me. The baked potatoes were fairly standard, and served with the usual sour cream and chives for toppings. We added the butter served with the bread as well, but some bacon bits would have been nice. That's just nit-picking though- I love baked potatoes.

The bean girl arrived next, bearing baked beans in a big metal bucket, which she spooned into a cute metal bowl for us. The beans were only mediocre, but I don't really like beans that much anyway. The novelty was cute, though, and she seemed nice enough. This steak was noticeably larger than the first (and GameBoy's) and cooked rare. I normally prefer medium rare, but I felt bad about complaining again, especially when the servers had been very nice about taking it back the first time (I got free button mushrooms while I waited). Despite this, the steak was very good cooked rare, and I enjoyed every bit. I was going to shared some with GameBoy, but he likes his steak more done than that, so he only had a few end slices, and I ended up eating most of it- yummy! The button mushrooms, by the way, were not good, but I was so happy with my filet mignon that I ignored them completely.

All in all, a good experience for a good price (about $20 each for the petitie filet dinner). I'll keep this one in mind too.

Date of Visit: 4/21/07

Cattlemen's
2000 Taylor Road
Roseville, CA 95678

My new steak arrived fairly quickly, and