Jack In The Box

899 Veterans Blvd
Festus, Mo.
http://www.jackinthebox.com

Please take notice of the new and improved images!*

It was my turn to pick a place. I had several in my head, but I just couldn’t seem to wrap my tummy around any of them. So I decided to pay a return visit to a place that I’d liked before, and one that had an outstanding issue. Time to clear this up.

The Place:

Festus, above the interstate, blah, blah, blah, by now you’ll recognize that Festus has dozens of places to eat and most of them are within a small area right along Highway A above I-55.

Once again, hardly anyone there. Strange.

I’d been seeing commercials on TV for an ‘All-American Burger.' I decided to go with that before we even got there.

We stepped in and I noticed an improvement right away. In my last couple of reviews of this place I’d made note of the littered floors and tables and that how a place that wasn’t anywhere near really busy should be able to manage that basic function better. I’d even sent a note to management and they responded that they’d look into it.

It was spotless, the floor anyhow. A couple of the tables were not bussed, but only a couple, it could have been that the people that had used them had only recently left.

We stepped up to the line. Angel and Adam took a few minutes, I just stood there, bored with their sloth.

The Food:

Clean floor!

Angel finally decided, oddly enough, a salad. The Chicken Club salad to be exact, along with two of those nasty tacos that her and the boy like so well. Adam stepped up and ordered the Bacon Ultimate Cheeseburger, which, as if made specifically for him, comes with no onions and no tomatoes. He added curly fries and two of those nasty tacos that he and his mother rave about. I tossed in my order, adding curly fries, and none of the nasty, deep-fried tacos.

We filled our drinks, Adam, root beer, Angel, a Diet Dr Pepper (because regular Dr. Pepper isn’t awful enough) and for a change, I bypassed the tea and poured a Coke. I had noticed the tea was that prefabricated, catered stuff a lot of local restaurants offer, and I knew it wouldn’t be very good. We found a table near the back.

Across from us was a young family, a young father and mother, and four young kids. The father in very good shape, high and tight haircut, strong, well maintained upper body, sleeveless workout shirt and long, baggy shorts. He stood most of the time when he talked, like an ambitious executive in a business meeting. The kids, aged between three and ten, three boys and a girl, sat dutifully. The youngest boy, the comedian, sat dunking his pancakes into his sticky syrup, making faces and odd noises. It’s the curse of being the youngest, you have to go for the slapstick laughs to get attention. The boys all had tight, short haircuts. When the food had first arrived the father stood and led them in a prayer. I was somewhat jealous; I’d never had my family in such obliging control. When I did occasionally take my own young kids out it was indistinguishable from complete chaos.

All-American

Our food took just a few minutes longer than seemed necessary, though we didn’t think much of it at the time. Angel played with her phone, as did Adam, I sat and watched the perfect family, growing angrier and more jealous by the moment. I wanted to punch the guy.

The young man that delivered our tray apologized. “Sorry for the wait, there was an accident in the kitchen.” He said, adding: “Here’s a couple of coupons for free tacos since you had to wait.”

“Oh.” I responded indignantly, as if I knew what he was talking about.

We separated things out, I started peeling back the wrapper on my burger.

Chicken Club Salad

“Weren’t there supposed to be two tacos each?” Adam asked his mother. I looked down, sure enough there were only two of the nasty, flat things on the tray.
“I’ll take care of it!” I stood and took charge, I could handle this, I could take care of my family just like that young father. I hoped he noticed.

The man behind the counter, older and in-charge looking, took my concern seriously and immediately started barking out that he need two more tacos ‘on the fly’ which I took to be Jack-speech for ‘not as part of an order.’

“We’ll get those right out to you sir.” He assured me. I felt in control, commanding, and somewhat manly.

Bacon Ultimate.

We dug in, it was pretty quiet. My burger was exactly what I expected. Excellent meat patties with just the right condiments. The curly fries were seasoned, a little stronger than I’d remembered them. I wished I’d had the regular ones instead.

Everyone grunted and snorted as the food was devoured. Angel broke apart one of the tacos and dispersed it on the  salad, like croutons. "The way to make tacos healthy, put them on a salad!" She said, I couldn't disagree. Well actually I could, I just didn't bother.We avoid a lot of fights by simply ignoring each others' outrageously stupid remarks.  Meanwhile, the perfect family was wrapping up, dad was wiping up spilled pancake syrup around the youngest boy's area. The little tyke was now in his mom’s generous lap making spitting noises at the others, they giggled in delight. They were making me sick.

The missing tacos were delivered, four of them. “Here’s a couple of extra for your inconvenience.” The young man said. Tacos are apparently the goodwill currency at Jack in the Box. Like tickets and tokens at Chuck E Cheese, only of real value within their own doors.

Taco

As the eating slowed down, I polled the family. “Real bacon, lots of tomatoes and cucumbers, and good, crispy chicken.” She said of her salad.

Adam nodded his head.
“Use your words!” I scolded him.

“I like a burger that doesn’t taste like a fast-food burger.” He mumbled, finally. “How was your all American burger?” He asked.

"As promised, not a hint of foreign influences.” I replied. It was indeed a good burger. The curly fries, well, I’ll just get regular fries next time. They were fine, just too flavory for the subtle burger.

Adam added more, surprisingly. “Top rung of the fast food chains.” He said of the overall experience.

Summary:

I’d expected the food to be good, it always is. I was impressed that the floor was near-spotless, but noticed a half-hour in that the table that was messy when we got there had still not been cleaned, arriving customers just avoided it. So there’s still an issue with cleaning the dining area. There was a noticeable improvement, but other chains I like don’t seem to have this problem so consistently.

The bill was twenty one and change, about right for a fast food place, even with the extra/missing tacos.

I’m not sure what the ‘accident’ was, but there were certainly a couple of service errors this visit. I won’t judge that too harshly, as it seems to be typical of fast-food places, sometimes orders get messed up, things are misplaced. I only hope they work harder to cut down on these though, so they really can stand out and above, to maintain the status of ‘top rung’.

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* New, improved photos!

I’ve had it with dimly lit restaurants. Rather, I’ve had it with trying to take photos in dimly lit restaurants with my overpriced/underpowered cell phone. It has no flash and pretty low resolution.

As I jealously scanned other food blogs this past couple of weeks I realized that other people’s blogs had nice, rich, colorful photography, whereas on this site the images were third rate at best. I could do better. I trained as a photographer as far back as in high school and have always prided myself on using good equipment and good technique to make good pictures. Some of my photos are even hanging in the local hospital. Life saving and comforting pictures, I’m capable of that.

Nikon Coolpix L3 with 'advanced'
flash suppression feature.

The problem was this. I have a good camera, a Nikon DSLR. Unfortunately it’s a bit large, expensive and bulky to be packing in and out of dives and fast food chains. Then I remembered my other camera, one I hadn’t used since I got the DSLR. It’s also a Nikon, but it’s a point and shoot, about six years old. I bought it as we were in the process of moving from Maryland to St. Louis. My good digital camera at that time, an awesome Olympus, had broken, suddenly and irreparably.  As luck would have it, as a going away gift, my co-workers in Maryland gave me a gift certificate for Ritz Camera. I used it to buy this little Nikon to serve me during the transition and until I could free up some bigger funds toward a DSLR.

It served well enough, as much as a point and shoot can, the delay between pushing the shutter button and the picture actually snapping was constantly frustrating. Taking action pictures of the dogs was damn near impossible. So when, a couple of years later, I bought the big one, the little Coolpix  unceremoniously went into a drawer. 

I remembered it this weekend. Then it took a while to find it, clean it up and get it going. I took some dimly lit room photos to test out its capability for its new job.

The big, bad D40

A point and shoot is rather middle-of-the-road. It lacks the precision of a more expensive camera. The lenses are smaller and not as crisp. The focus mechanism makes a few broad assumptions, and there are very few manual override capabilities. It’s made for snapshots, not art. The flash is tiny and hot. By hot, I mean it assumes you’re using the flash to take a picture of a room full of people. This is not what I’d be doing. I’d be focusing pretty close-up on a small area.I needed to cool off the flash, to keep it from looking like a full-assault, flash-bang grenade in small, dimly lit restaurants.

This is where old-fashioned, low tech solutions become handy.

If you look at the flash area of the camera, you’ll notice what looks like transparent tape holding a layer or two of white paper towel over the flash. That’s because that is what it is, a low-tech flash diffuser.

I tested various materials and shots, and this was the result. I tried it out for real Saturday night at Jack in the Box. The results were quite pleasing.

My hope is to continue to improve the quality of reporting to you, my loyal fans. Let me know what you think!

Ruby Tuesday

1120 Shapiro Dr.
Festus, MO

www.rubytuesday.com

This option pretty much chose itself. We’d been to Ruby’s a couple of times during the quest, but it had been awhile. It probably wouldn’t have been the choice had it not been for an email I received from the chain. “25% off your entire food purchase.” It said. That’s hard to pass up. I gave Ruby’s my (alternate) email address a few years back. I feel no conflict about this I’m not asking for any advantage at any restaurant that isn’t also offered to the public at large. Some places send out deals like this from time to time. I don’t always accept the offer, but it’s available to everyone.

The Place:

Above I-55, just below Lowes and the Waffle House. It had changed on the inside. Gone were all the sports-related knick-knacks, sleds, jerseys, oars, hockey sticks. The walls were painted a muted neutral color and a few, and only a few generic art prints were scattered about. The Large TV’s were limited to the area around the bar and muted. The background music was soft, and forgettable. The place was still dark, even with the large shaded lamps hanging from the ceiling. So dark that I immediately realized that any attempt at photographing the food with my flimsy phone would prove to be a disappointment. I could take my good camera, but in this place that would still require me to use a flash, and I don’t imagine those around me would appreciate that.

The wait staff was still ninja-like, black pants and shirts, though a couple of the young ladies had hems of bright red peeking out from beneath their overshirts. Our hostess reminded me a great deal of the Actress Stana Katic, who plays Kate Beckett on the TV series “Castle”. She  had those same slightly exotic Balkan features that are not Hollywood-template-pretty, more eastern-European pretty. (Katic’s parents, Serbian father and Croat mother immigrated to Canada and later Illinois, from Yugoslavia.) I do not know if our hostess was of similar lineage, I thought it would be rude to ask. I did note that the hostess carried more meat on her bones than Katic does. The actress can’t weigh more than seventy five pounds dripping wet and if you ask me is way TOO skinny, unattractively so.

We were seated in a distant booth pretty quickly though the place was filling up fast. Among the patrons were a dozen or so young ladies in prom-style dresses. Evening or party dresses I guess, I was not aware of a homecoming or prom in the area, though there was obviously something like that going on. I watched as small clutches of them would venture to the restroom together. Why girls want company in restrooms is of course, a complete mystery to me. When I go to a restroom I really am not about to do anything I wish to share with even my closest friends.

We read through our menus though I’d previewed it online earlier and was all but decided. We asked for drinks, tea, sweet tea and Coke.

The Food:

Ruby’s best feature is its salad bar. I’ve spoken of this before and it bears repeating. It is far and above the best salad bar I’ve come across anywhere. Well stocked, well managed, diverse and fresh. I knew this going in and planned accordingly. It’s very easy to overdo the salad and not have room for a big steak and potato meal. So I ordered from the salad/meal combination section. ‘Mini’s and Garden Bar’. Angel ordered form the same section, obviously aping my cleverness. Her choice was the Lobster Mac and Cheese & Garden Bar.  Adam, continuing and completing the aping ordered the Mini’s and Garden Bar as well. We were directed to the salad bar and Angel already had her plate half-filled before the various papers and napkins stopped fluttering in her wake. She loves this salad bar.

Three kinds of lettuce, spinach, peppers, onions mushrooms, cheeses, peas, bacon bits, potato salad, fruit salad, on and on and on. At least ten different dressings, I like to mix them up. A little blue cheese, some Thousand Island, a drizzle of Italian. . .

My little plate was packed, but I was okay with that knowing that the follow up, the little burgers, would still fit into my gullet quite nicely. Returning to the table we sat our plates down and began the pseudo-vegetarian carnage. The drinks had arrived, the tea was actually quite good. Ruby’s is kind of hit and miss on the tea, it was a good night though. And the biscuits. Ruby Tuesday’s luscious cheesy biscuits. Those little delights and a big sloppy salad are enough for a meal in themselves, All-you-can-eat, yummy goodness.

The arrival, a bit premature, of the main courses was almost a non-event. Adam and I were given our small plates with two sliders, a small dose of fries and a small tin bowl of ketchup each. Angel’s mac and cheese was cheesy, steamy, drippy served in a small, half-inch tall rectangular stoneware bowl. Chunks of lobster were prevalent. I almost hated pushing my awesome salad aside, but I was hankering for some meat.

The sliders were about the size and shape of White Castle’s but were a bit meatier and didn’t have whatever WC puts in theirs to make them both insanely addictive and violently diarrhetic at the same time. The tiny burgers were cooked medium well, no small feat as the patties were quite small. There was ketchup and a pickle on the top side, and the bottom of the small bun was coated with mayonnaise. Why mayonnaise? I have no idea. I think it’s a Canadian thing.

“Where do you get such small buns?” Adam asked, staring at his slider.

“Treadmill, lots of time on a treadmill.” I answered, adding: "and better DNA"

Angel oohed and ahhed over her chunky cheesy dish. “Lots of lobster.” She said with strings of melted cheese hanging from her chin.

As we slowed down for the final stretch the topic of haircuts came up, as I was going to get one the next day.

“I just grab a pair of scissors and head to the bathroom and start chopping off the parts I don’t like.” She boasted.

“I have to have mine done by professionals to maintain a professional appearance.”

“Are you saying I don’t look professional?” She accused.

“You’re a dog trainer, the frontier look works just fine for your profession.”

Oddly enough Angel took exception to this innocent and flattering comment. I spent the next few minutes trying to get her to understand that it was a compliment. She remained stubbornly unconvinced. I tried to steer the conversation to neutral ground by bringing up the Super Bowl. This didn’t work well since none of us are the least bit interested in football, we couldn’t even agree on who would be playing in it. Finally we started discussing evening entertainment and decided to stop at Blockbuster after our meal. Bullet dodged.

Summary:

All good. Ruby’s has disappointed us before, and yet they have been quite exceptional at many other times. This was a good night indeed. The coup de gras of course was that not only did we have a 25% off coupon, we, for once, actually remembered to bring it with us. Thus this great and satisfying meal only cost us about thirty five dollars. Sure we didn’t have big steaks or appetizers, but the meal was excellent.  The portions were intelligently chosen to accentuate the place’s strong suit, the salad bar. The main courses were small yet satisfying. Adam even mentioned that the fries were among his favorite. Angel’s dish over time seemed very rich, but since the portion was small, it was great. I found no fault in the food or the service and the price? Wow!

Highly recommended, but read the menu ahead of time and for the love of all that may or may not be holy or even just coincidental, get a coupon!

Laddie Boys II

2595 Us Highway 61

Festus, MO

I first heard about Laddie Boys II a couple of weeks back. A friend had informed me that another friend, Marty Ray, was going to be performing there. I Knew Marty could play guitar/harmonica and sing, but I did not know he’d taken his act on the road. As it was, I could not attend that day. Good news though, Marty’’s group, ‘CT and the Retirees’ played there every other week. So on Saturday afternoon, I headed out, not for the food, but for the music and a brush with fame. 

Laddie Boys is a bit off the beaten path. It has a Festus address, but is a good five-seven miles outside of the city, on a road, highway 61, that has been largely bypassed by I-55 and is generally used only by locals. It sits conveniently beside a convenience store and was probably a big deal before the Interstate was installed. When I got there around 1:00 P.M.I was surprised. The music was to have started at 12:30. My reckoning was that this would be after the lunch rush, if there was indeed a lunch rush.

What I saw was a large, free-standing building, those of you familiar with the ‘Stuckey’s’ chain would recognize the style and period of the building. Nothing surprising about the building itself, those are scattered and repurposed all around the Midwest. What tossed me as odd was the parking lot. It was full, overflowing. I ended up parking in the outer area of the convenience store lot. As I approached the door I ran into Annette, the friend that had originally recommended it.

(Photo Courtesy of Annette Rey)

“We got lucky and got a table, somebody cancelled a reservation at the last minute.” She told me as we headed in. She dragged me back to a table where already seated were Verna and her daughter, and Ann and her husband. When I sat there were only two empty seats left in the room, at the end of our table. At the entrance was a line of folks waiting for someone to leave so they could take their place. That never happened. The place was standing room only.

(Photo, Courtesy of Annette Rey)

The band was playing mostly old style country music. Not the hideous new, rock-sounding anthems, but old school stuff mixed with some blues and a gospel song or two. There were four or five guitars, a dobro and an electric bass, no banjos or mandolins, and thankfully, no steel sliders*. One lady had the voice of a Carter Family member and delivered the old songs with respect and justice. Marty switched between his guitar and a haunting, sometimes howling harmonica. He coaxed the mouth-harp into perfect, lonesome, train whistle sounds as the band sang “I hear that train a-comin’” and tore through “Orange Blossom Special”, like it was written for them.

I ordered tea, even though Ann’s husband advised me against it. He’s a fan of these posts and knows my thoughts on ice tea. I also ordered a blackberry cobbler. The others had ordered full, late lunches, I’d already had a big meal.

(Photo, Courtesy of Annette Rey)

At 2:30 or so the band took a break, Marty disappeared. In about fifteen minutes he returned. No longer in his jeans and band tee shirt, he’d switched into a one-piece bejeweled, white, bell-bottomed jump suit, donned a raven-black toupee folded into a pompadour, sporting oversized gold-framed sunglasses and packing a different guitar. On the face of it shimmering decal letters were applied that simply said “Elvis”.

Yeah he did, and a damned fine job of it too.

I got home around four, Angel was getting ready for doggy-supper. She feeds everyone at 4:30, every day. Adam had cleaned up and was waiting patiently. I freshened up a little and by five we left, heading straight back to Laddie Boys ***. It was my week to choose.

The Place:

As described earlier the place was probably originally a stand alone restaurant of the Stuckey’s type. Inside were dark paneled arched vaulted ceiling probably thirty feet at the peak. Old suspended country-style chandeliers cast a soft, incandescent yellow light. The crowd had thinned considerably, the only folks seated were CT and the Retirees, resting up after a great gig. I left them alone. We found a large, dark toned booth near the back. Without the crowd, the place echoed like a church on Saturday.

A waitress approached. Instead of a standard greeting she called out “Hey we’ve got ourselves a movie star!” Naturally I assumed she was referring to me as I am constantly being confused with the dashing actor Monte Blue. But it turns out she was referring to Adam. He was sporting a beret, which he wears backwards over his longish, wavy hair, a-la Sam Kinison.  We couldn’t decide if it was indeed Kinison she was thinking of and the name Jack Black also whizzed by. Bottom line, she thought he looked like a really famous person, she just couldn’t recall which one.

"People tell me all the time that I look just like Elizabeth Taylor.” She added.

I replied: “I really don’t see that at all.” Which was the truth, but according to Angel, it was one of those times that the truth simply did not need to be brought up. Not that the waitress was unattractive at all, I was just never especially enamored with Elizabeth Taylor, who I always thought of as pompous, rude and arrogant. The waitress was none of these.

She took our drink orders tea, sweet tea and Coke/Pepsi. (which is how Adam now orders his drinks because rare is the case a place has both.)

When she delivered our drinks, she took our food order. The tea was fresh, but a bit weak.

 

The Food:

The menu was uncomplicated, but full of great-sounding, home-style offerings.

I went with the catfish plate served with fries and slaw, they offered three options, one filet, two, or three. I’d just recently had some cobbler (quite good) so I went for the single. Angel decided on the roast beef with gravy and a salad. Adam chose the country fried steak. **

A few more people trickled in, though it was obvious that the state of being packed earlier had more to do with the band/Elvis then it did the food itself. CT and the Retirees disassembled, Marty saw me, looked surprised and stopped by. “We were just talking about you.” he said. Which surprised me since I’m always surprised when I hear that someone is talking about me, I mean really, get a life already.

“I told them that at that table of writers that were there for the show was one guy who I never thought would show up, yet there you were! I know how much you hate country music.” He said.

“Generally I do hate country music, unless it’s local, acoustic and mostly the older stuff. I can almost stomach the music you guys were playing.” I answered.

“Well I’ll pass that along.” He responded, somewhat sarcastically.

“I can tolerate some of it Marty, but if you’ll recall I’m from Kentucky and your band was at least one Banjo short of being great.”

He left after saying kind words to Angel and Adam. Marty’s a really decent guy and one heck of an Elvis Tribute Artist and this is the opinion of a guy who can’t stand any of the Elvis impersonators he’d heard up till that date.

Angel’s salad arrived quickly, Adam dived for the croutons, turned out there weren’t any. He whined about that for at least an hour. It was a simple salad of iceberg lettuce, onions and tomato chunks. It appeared crisp and fresh.

The meals came a few minutes later, simply plated, no garnish or fanfare. My single fillet coated in browned cornmeal was large, the portion of fries was small, and the slaw, served in a separate bowl, was creamy and crisp looking. Angel’s roast beef was steaming and swimming in brown gravy, Adam’s pounded, breaded and pan-fried steak was covered in thick white gravy.

I asked for Ketchup and tarter sauce, Liz Taylor rustled some up very quickly. The meals were all hot and perfectly cooked, fresh, homey and heavy.

(Photo, courtesy of my stupid, low-res cell phone.)

We made the food disappear without a lot of comment. My slaw was indeed sweet and creamy, not watery and vinegar-heavy. My fish was flaky, moist and tender, as good as I’ve been able to find anywhere. Angel added salt to her beef and beans. We’d noticed that the patrons that were trickling in were of the more senior variety. I’m reluctant to call them ‘old’ but that’s really exactly what I’m trying to say. I should also mention that at the show earlier, someone remarked that I was apparently the third youngest person in the joint, and that was only true because some lady dragged her two grandkids along with her. Which led Angel to remark that a place that caters to seniors may hold back on salt in prep and cooking as many of the greatest generation may not care for saltiness as much as younger whippersnappers. Angel and I have decided that this was fine. “It’s pretty easy to add salt to something that’s been cooked a bit bland, but just about impossible to take it out if it’s been over-salted.” She said. I agreed. I hadn’t noticed any saltiness in my food, which if you regularly follow these reviews is something noteworthy. It may define to which generation I actually belong.

Summary:

A very good meal. Sure, those who like a lot of salt may need to add some, but that was about the only concern anyone had other than that Adam said his corn could have been sweeter, a sign of being over-cooked. The food was simple and near-perfectly prepared, the wait staff was dutiful and attentive, the place was clean, friendly and comfortable. The bill only came to twenty eight dollars, a very reasonable price for good, fresh home-style food. Nothing fancy, but in ambience and quality, better than anybody’s Cracker Barrel.

To learn more about Laddie Boys II, CT and the Retirees, and Marty Ray: Click Here.

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*Steel Slide Guitar. The country-music instrument that screams like a dying sow. It screams “Dennis is going to hate this whiny, nasal song!” Buck Owens pretty much ruined country music for me.

**Country fried steak vs Chicken fried steak: I was told earlier in the day that Laddie's 'country fried steak' was actually 'chicken fried steak.' I did some research on this and came to conclusion that the distinction between the two terms is somewhat regional and highly flexible. The jury is still out. In most places the terms are interchangeable.

*** Laddie Boys is NOT named after President Grover Cleveland's dog (1920-1929). I was hoping it was, as I could have delved into the significance of that history. This Restaurant, according to Liz Taylor, our waitress, was named for the nickname of the son of one of the former owners of the place. Of course HE could have been given that named based on the famous dog, who was immortalized in bronze (paid for by voluntary donations, mostly pennies from school children) and donated to the Smithsonian Institute, where it is still housed yet not on display.