Jack in the Box!!!! Ha ha, remember when you were a kid and you were like “Jack in the crack!!!!! LOL ROFL!!!1!!!!” What a hilarious jokester you were.
I always seem to get really excited about the fast food places I go to for Goldentooth. I don’t know what it is, I guess I still have it ingrained in my mind that fast food is this amazing special treat that I can only have once in a while. So I get my hopes up and, invariably, they are dashed. Remember the Mexican pizza? Yeah. Anyway, I got all excited all over again for Jack in the Box, but I was like REALLY excited. Because I was finally going to try a JitB Taco!!!!! I’d never had one before but they are crazy cheap and people love them!!!! I imagined them to be like tacos from my favorite spot in Sactown, Jimboys, very inauthentic, very greasy, and very good.
Steve was also pretty pumped for this trip because he’d found a coupon for a free grilled deli trio sandwich and for some reason he thought one of them looked really good. He was so excited he emailed me the coupon with the subject line “free jib yo!” which is probably the best subject line of any email I’ve ever received. Anyway, I doubted that his sandwich would live up to his expectations, but I figured, when else will I have Steve excited to accompany me to a fast food place? and just ran with it.
It was late-ish when we rolled up to the corner of Geary and Mason, and Jack in the Box was glowing like a Greyhound station bathroom. Like most fast food joints, this place was populated by tourists, teenagers and vagabonds. We ordered and got our food pretty quickly. Steve convinced me to take our grub to the second floor dining room, a place that turned out to have a nice view of the street while also being depressing as all get out.
There were plenty of seats up there but there was only us and a largish group of high school girls gossiping in a ear twisting melding of English and Spanish. Oh, and the intense pounding bass coming from Biscuits and Blues next door. Anyway, time to dig in!
Again, I was going for a wide variety of menu items, though my lack of hunger pangs ended up dissuading me from going as crazy as I might have. I ended up with two tacos
Only 99 cents! And boy oh boy, can you taste that. These were FOUL. I am surprised after eating these that people have a tendency to be grossed out by pate, I’d think they’d be accustomed to it if they are fans of these tacos. A paste of meat resembling nothing so much as cat food was smeared across the insides of a dense, chewy taco shell then sprinkled over with shredded lettuce. It was, alas, not the taco of my dreams, and I will not be in a hurry to eat one again.
I also got an order of jalapeno poppers, after talking with a friend earlier about how Jack in the Box uses cheddar cheese in their poppers rather than cream cheese. I love me a cheddar cheese popper so I was all set for a treat. Of course, I was treated to nothing but disappointment, the poppers were very nearly burnt on the outside and the inside cheese was lukewarm and separated into a mess of oil and cheese-product solids. There was, at least, a rather pleasant pepper flavor.
Steve and I shared an order of curly fries, the best “dish” of the night because, by God, curly fries are delicious and hard to fuck up. Alongside the curly fries Steve had a side salad, which I assume was sufficiently salad-like, and the aforementioned (free) deli sandwich (yo!).
The deli trio grilled sandwich lived up to my expectations of being a horrific thing. I think the words “creamy Italian dressing” sums it all up pretty well. This was a greasy, slimy mess. Steve was sad, he thought it would be like a Cubano, I think because there are pickles on it. Let me set the record straight: this is absolutely nothing like a Cubano.
So, surprise surprise, Steve and I didn’t like Jack in the Box. I guess we’re a couple of snobs. I hope you’re getting excited for our visit to Burger King! I know I am!
Jack in the Box
400 Geary
Goldentooth 