Jim's

 

Our ninth entry takes us to another San Antonio tradition, Jim's. Jims started back in 1947 as the Frontier Drive-in when a young Jim Hasslocher and a business partner started to sell char-broiled hamburgers to customers at Brackenridge Park. 63 years later Jim's has 20 locations in south and central Texas with the goal of good food, low prices, and great service in mind. Jim's serves breakfast, lunch and dinner to thousands of people 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This entry puts the location on Hwy 281 and 1000 Oaks to the test, lets see how they did.

What we ordered:

This time around was the family meal after Church, so there were a few more people involved. First off we started off with the fried mushrooms, these are some of my favorite appetizers that Jim's has to offer. Breaded and fried to a delicious golden brown, these mushrooms are big and juicy with a meaty flavor that I enjoy. Served with cream gravy as well these were really good, too bad there were so many people today I really could have enjoyed a couple more... Next off for me was a cup of their famous tortilla soup. The soup comes adorned with strips of fried corn tortillas, chicken, and shredded cheese. All of these things make an awesome soup that is enjoyed almost every time I eat here. For my main course, and what seemed to be everyone's choice today was the club sandwich. The club sandwich is served with thinly sliced ham and turkey, bacon, lettuce and tomato round out this sandwich and your choice of thin cut fries or hand-breaded onion rings finish off the plate. Everyone except my Grandmother got this same sandwich, I guess great minds think alike...

Grades:

Service: B+ I give this score not only on this visit, if I were to do that I would give this an A-. I will be honest and let you guys know that I have not had the best experiences at this particular location. So a B+ is all I could muster today. 9 times out of 10 the location is understaffed and the waitstaff that is there is not the best. The food quality is still good if you can get it correctly the first time. Maybe its just bad luck on my part, I dont know.

Pricing: A+ Jim's has always provided good food at low prices, I can never complain about the price at Jim's. 

Restaurant Cleanliness: B+ I think this has something to do with the service issues I have experienced in the past. I believe that Jim's has bussers on hand at the busy times of the day, but when I go at off-hours there seems to be dirty tables, or straw wrappers on the floor, or something that could be taken care of if the waitstaff was more efficient with their time. As far as food safety issues go, Jim's does do a good job with that. I do feel comfortable consuming the food I get here.

Overall Satisfaction: A- Pros: Great food, great price. Cons: sub-par service, and marginal cleanliness at this particular location. I like Jim's as a whole, but this location I waver on. Reluctantly I do end up at this location and I guess I will just deal with it.


For more information about Jim's go check out their website at http://www.jimsrestaurants.com/

HuHot Mongolian Grill

Here we are, back again. This entry is going to take you all to HuHot Mongolian Grill. A Mongolian Grill basically has no boundaries, you pick what you want to eat, pick your sauces for your meal, give it to the chefs to cook, and enjoy, repeat until full. HuHot does offer a few regular menu items for your enjoyment, but the main focus of your dining experience is the grill. Tonight we visited San Antonio's only location which is at the corner of DeZevala Rd and I H 10 East.

 

What We Ordered:

Tonight's section is a little different as there were several plates involved and each one was different. The layout of HuHot starts with the protein area where all types of meats are available, from beef and chicken to sea scallops and mussels are there for the picking, load them in your bowl and proceed to the veggies. Now at the veggie bar there are various types of items such as broccoli and bean sprouts to baby corn and watercress. 

The options here are various and delicious, but you are not done, get over to the sauce area to complete your custom plate. The sauce area in my opinion can either make or break your meal, the good thing is that HuHot has detailed instructions above the bar to guide you along the way. If you are wanting something specific such as sweet and sour, or teriyaki, you are good to go. 

Grades:

Service: A Basically since Im doing the majority of the work, the waitstaff just has to keep the dirty plates off of my table and keep my glass of tea full. This visit it was done at a rapid place.

Price: A The pricing is good for an all-you-can-eat places, I always look at it from the standpoint of the more I get to eat, the lower the cost-per-plate to me is. 

Restaurant Cleanliness: A This is a new grading point on my blog. Since I work in the food industry I tend to look at this a little more closely. HuHut was clean, the carpet was swept and vacuumed, and the tables were wiped down. One thing with HuHot I do cut some slack towards the buffet station, most of the food is raw and people due tend to drop things when they are putting their plates together, but the HuHot staff does a great job of food safety and cleanliness

Overall Satisfaction: A HuHot provided me a good meal and good service, the chefs at the station were friendly and the waitstaff did a good job. Ill visit them again.

For more information about HuHot Mongolian Grill, head on over to http://www.huhot.com/