My wife and I were visiting Calgary for the weekend and wanted to see what all of the hype was about Alberta beef. We decided to try Char Cut for dinner based on the current reviews. The place was packed and the service was a bit slow. Three waitresses walked by and all were very friendly but it took almost 20 minutes for someone to actually take our drink orders. Our waitress was super nice and attentive once she finally made it over to our table. Wine selection was good and I tried one of their French red wines. We ordered the escarole salad to start followed by the charred octopus and butcher's cut strip steak. Salad was crisp, packed with fresh ingredients, and full of flavor.... so we were excited about the rest of our meal. The charred octopus with sausage, tomatoes, and white beans was REALLY charred. I suppose some people like their seafood this way, but ours was mostly burnt and dried out so we did not eat more than a bite each. The steak was overcooked as well. We ordered medium rare-to-rare and the meat came out as a pink medium. I even specifically asked them to not overcook. Too bad as we really wanted to have a nice beef from Alberta after being accustomed to eating great steak for years at many of the high end restaurants in Manhattan and Tokyo.
Overall, this was a disappointing foodie experience. Perhaps this was just an off night for Char Cut.