Went to BAR Ranch Saturday night, overall I was disappointed but I think we caught them on a bad night. The owner was having to wait tables as his server had to go home, so service was a little slow but wasn't a problem. There were no exotic/Wagyu meats available (despite the online menu), the 3 steak options were a strip, Chateaubriand, and tomahawk ribeye all prime or Angus, our reservation was at 7:30 and when he presented the menus "we're sold out of the strip and we just sold the last Chateaubriand". There was the offer of a higher end 60? day dry aged ribeye for about $80 more than the tomahawk (all prices are for 2 people), but we passed. He brings your cut of meat out to inspect before cooking, while it was huge, quality wise and marbling didn't appear any different than the tomahawk I had bought the week before at Kroger. Steaks are cooked over wood fire which I like, but I don't think the chef did a great job moving it around the grill as ours was cooked well-done on one end to near rare at the other. The owner had explained there would be a gradient of medium on the outside to med rare in the center, but that's not how this turned out.
The appetizer we got was a wagyu crostini with goat cheese and supposed to be some tomatillo serrano bacon jam, but i didn't really get any of that, still it was very tasty. I had the wedge salad which was good, but I think there was cayenne (or maybe the missing serrano bacon jam) in the dressing and it had a little more of a kick than i would have preferred, but still very good. My wife had the French onion soup and it was very good. Our sides were the Yukon gold mashed potatoes and the Brussel sprouts, both of which my wife and I agreed may have been the best of either we ever had, they were great. Dessert options were all cakes (different from online menu), that i am fairly certain were all outsourced, we had the red velvet and it was good as well, no complaints. We were able to BYOW but there was a $50 corking fee, which seemed on the high end, Del Friscos is $40, but there was a particular bottle of wine I had been saving and wanted it for that night.
Had it not been a b-day dinner and not wanting to throw a wet blanket on what had otherwise been a great evening, I might have raised some concerns/disappointment with the owner, but sometimes you just don't want to go through that. My recommendation for anyone else trying the place is to just call ahead and make sure they are going to have better cut options and potentially reserve one as well. It's a nice place, atmosphere was good and you can actually have a conversation with the other people at your table unlike some places these days...which makes me feel old for even stating that. I'd consider going back, but it's also in downtown Plano and there is just not an easy way to get there for us now in N. Prosper, drive took 40 mins.
TLDR: good place, caught a bad night, verify what beef they have before going, get the mashed potatoes and take a helicopter.
