Wild Jack’s Restaurant: Sickly Steak, Rancid Ribs
If you’re going on a vacation to the International Drive area of Orlando Florida, maybe to visit Wet & Wild, Universal Studios, or Walt Disney World, please avoid dining at Wild Jack’s. On About.com dining, the restaurant has mixed ratings at best. There is a grand possibility of a bad night, as I will tell you.
We came in through the front doors and were greeted by a large open lobby and empty lectern. There was no one there to assign us to a table, so we craned our necks, gawking, until a gruff, overweight waiter came to direct us to a sticky table in the corner. Unfazed so far, we purveyed the menu, deciding to share a rack of ribs in several varieties over ice water. The service was extremely slow. After perhaps half an hour we were given reconstituted mashed potatoes and the ribs–which looked very limp.
Trying them, I found them quite cold. The meat slipped off the bone in that telltale way of old food, the fat was clustered and globbed up, and the whole dish was lukewarm and unevenly heated. Our ribs were not fresh: they were some old, reheated things. We told our server, a curt russian lady, that the quality of the food was unacceptable and that we wanted to leave. The manager met us on the way out, and insisted that the ribs come straight from the grill. I politely told him that they tasted old, were cold, and not at all from the grill, and that we did not want a replacement meal. We just left. He didn’t complain much–he knew that ribs at Wild Jack’s were reheated on demand anyway.
The moral of the story? There’s a good wings place down the street.
Wild Jack’s Steaks & BBQ
7634 International Drive
Orlando, FL
Travelling for the next week
I’ll be away in Orlando for the next week. It’s spring break at Cornell University, so I’m fleeing cold Ithaca for warmer climates. Plenty of pictures to come when I return!