Tuesday, September 22, 2009

JJ's of Jacksonport - when will the fire strike?

Ok...I'm going to be reporting on the 'original' JJ's in Sister Bay quite soon. They astonishingly hit an SOS grade somewhere in the low 80's with their Steak Ranchero's dish (haven't decided exactly what their score is yet). But, alas, all good things are destined to disappear before your eye's. The place burned down. Not totally, but the kitchen was torched sufficiently to deny us the only true hot sauce experience in Door County to date.
So we move on to JJ's of Jacksonport. Another location recently opened in Jacksonport WI, sporting a similar Mexican themed menu to the Sister Bay location, but falling some way short of the parent operation in its ability to deliver the hot chili sweats.

JJ's of J have (supposedly) the same dish on the menu as the parent operation JJ's of Sister Bay, - the infamous Steak Ranchero's. So shortly after their grande opening I visited, hoping (foolishly) to get my hot-fix via the fiery steak dish.
But the Ranchero's at JJ's of J left me cold, or at least comparatively cool. A poor facsimile of the original dish served in Sister Bay.
Some time passes and I pluck up courage to return. The delightful Lynn pours me a margarita and a few Fat Tyre's and I'm sufficiently juiced to revisit the menu.
I order the Chimi with instructions to serve a side of their HOTTEST sauce, along with more hot sauce just in case.
Now the hot sauce they served with chips was once quite potent, and my side of hot sauce was supposedly based on that, but kicked up.
Well it was very, very mild - delicious of course, as we've come to expect, but without the fiery bite that we've also come to expect.
Some mild perspiration under-eye, but no burning or reddening and absolutely no screams from the throne room the following morning.

Well, I wait in anticipation for the reopening of the Sister Bay operation and pray to the chili gods that their old menu is reinstated in full.

A poor 40 out of 100 on the SOS scale.
Rooze

6 comments:

  1. When is the Sister Bay location re-opening...anyone heard anything?

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  2. I heard they're opening towards the end of this month (October). Still see a lot of contractor vans parked outside each day, so looks like they're real busy!
    Looking forward to having them back.

    JJ's of J is a bit too far off the map for me.

    Rooze

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  3. So the latest is they're opening in Sister Bay on Groundhog Day, thought it's unclear if both kitchen and bar will be ready by then.

    Rooze

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  4. the JJ's in Jacksonport needs to improve the food; it is the worse food I have eaten in Door County

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  5. when a person orders fish tacos with slaw, the last thing you expect is some american coleslaw put on the tortilla---very awful taste
    the famous JJ's deep-fried quesadilla extremely greasy, actually drips with grease
    would never eat this food again

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  6. Yeah it's not too good for sure. Strange really, when they had the fire up in Sister Bay they brought the head cook down to Jacksonport to get the food and menu organized, so you'd think it would be at least on par with the Sister Bay location, but it isn't. The only place worse I can think of is MoJos in Egg Harbor.

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