I remember a rumor that circulated some time in the 80's about Jack in the Box using kangaroo meat in their burgers. That, combined with the "checkerboard square" symbol of Ralston Purina meant an absolute avoidance of Jack in the Box by everyone I knew for a few years. Eventually, Ralston Purina went, "Jack", the giant ball head clown, came back and so did most of us. At first I only got the finger-foods like their egg-rolls, chicken tenders, jalapeno poppers, etc... all standard grade appetizer type foods. Then, The Ultimate Cheeseburger. Two Patties of meat, three slices of cheese and some mayo/salad dressing type sauce. A tidy, tasty little cholesterol doubler. Heart attack wrapped in foil. Sometimes it's so good to be bad. From that point on Jack in the Box was completely acceptable.

Last visit I had the Sourdough Jack meal and two tacos. (more on those later)The sourdough toast is a tasty alternative to a regular bun even if it is a little greasy. Cheese and bacon give it a lot of extra flavor. The meat patty, well, it's pretty much standard grade formed frozen fast food meat patty. Pretty unremarkable. The fries reminded me of Long John Silvers fries. The shake was pretty good. It's advertised as a real ice cream shake and even though it was extruded from a machine rather than scooped and mixed, it still was a great step up from the frozen gum/hydrogenated vegetable whatever usually served in fast food restaurants. And then the tacos. Jack in the Box tacos are some sort of meat like paste folded into a corn tortilla and frozen until ready to drop into the fryer. Out of the fryer it's dressed with lettuce, a half slice of american cheese,and some mysterious substance that may pass for salsa in perhaps, let's say Maine just because of the distance from Mexico. I understand that Jack in the Box is based in San Diego and a whole other civil war could be fought over the differences in Tex-Mex and Mexicali style food, but this favors neither. That's the strange part. I like them. They've got this weird duality, crunchy and chewy. I guess they are kinda' like Krystal hamburgers (I get those every time I go back east). Yeah, I know they are awful but they are still good to fill up on. Especially on the way home from the bar.

I also got a free antenna ball that has a Dallas Cowboys helmet on it. Anybody have a New Orleans Saints antenna ball wanna' trade? Or maybe a Jags antenna ball?

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