Tuesday, December 08, 2009

Lunch at Jackson's Hole

Yet another shopping trip to Nelson last week meant yet another lunch out with Dad. This time, Dad wanted to go somewhere completely off my radar, though he had eaten there before...Years ago. He had had a great experience at Jackson's Hole with a friend way back in the mists of time (a few years ago, but other than that he couldn't specify how long it had been) and wanted to try it out again. Well, who am I to argue? Though I hadn't heard anything about it myself, I did silently acknowledge that things do change in the restaurant business from time to time, so hopefully the place was still good.

It was crap! Crap, I tell you!

The bar & grill type restaurant, located at 524 Vernon St., is located in a funky old building constructed in 1899 or thereabouts, and the interior is very cool indeed. The menu was decent, consisting of the usual lunch suspects you tend to find in a bar/grill. I had a hard time choosing, actually, but went with the BBQ Club House sandwich with fries, and my dad went with the Cajun Chicken Fajitas.

My sandwich was great - very tasty, nice bread, tangy BBQ sauce, but there was something wrong with the fries. They had a...flavour...It took me a few bites to recognize what I was tasting, only to realize it was staleness with a hint of freezer. I couldn't believe this. This place had to have a high turnover so there shouldn't be any stale fries on hand, but that was definitely what this odd flavour was. Ugh!
My dad's fajitas had several problems from my perspective, though he said the flavour was fine. For one thing, they arrived terribly presented in three different parts: the filling, a small ramekin with uninteresting and punily portioned toppings & little containers of salsa & sour cream, and then a third thingy containing the tortillas. It took up a lot of space and I have seen much more well-organized presentations of fajitas at other places. The ramekin with the toppings, as I mentioned was small and there were two problems with it. For one thing, it contained a whole bunch of olives. Now, this wouldn't ordinarily be a problem for me, but my dad detests olives, so he was trying to pawn them off on me. But when I dug in, the olives were obviously canned AND they were dried out and wrinkly - as if they'd been sitting out uncovered for a long time. They were disgusting. The second issue with the toppings was that there was no lettuce, but rather a spring mix situated underneath all the other toppings. Not practical at all. As for the filling, Dad said it tasted "all right" but it looked not very fresh and very unappealing.

So, if you're ever in Nelson, BC, give this place a miss. We won't be going back. Luckily, this is the first really bad meal Dad and I have had on our trips to Nelson, so we're doing pretty well, I think!

8 comments:

Palidor said...

That's too bad because the pictures certainly look good. Well, you don't know until you try, right? Funny about the fajitas - I've never seen them served any other way! They always come on separate dishes and hog space on the table. :-P

Anonymous said...

Well dog-gone-it. It's a wonder they've been in business that long.

Bob said...

That sucks! I've found very little is as disappointing as a bad meal ordered out. We actually skipped what used to be our favorite restaurant before we moved since it had gone so far downhill.

Kim said...

That's too bad, stale fries are no fun. I laughed at the huge display that was the fajitas. Sometimes it's like you need a bigger table to accommodate everything that is "fajitas".

Inspired by eRecipeCards said...

bar food... they should at least be able to do fries right...

But time with Dad is time well spent. I love this tradition of yours.

Reeni said...

I hate it when that happens! How disappointing!

Tina said...

Jackson’s Hole…when I saw this title on Google Reader I thought you were in Wyoming ! You did say you were going away for the weekend. Sorry to hear this restaurant wasn’t up to par. That is always disappointing. And there just isn’t an excuse for nasty frozen fries.

Chris said...

Those weren't shriveled black olives....they were raisins :)

Sorry that lunch was a miss but at least you had good company!

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