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Jack’s Irish Pub By: The Lady of The Night Out Why should you eat at Jack’s Irish Pub? Monday is St. Patrick’s Day when everyone is proud to be Irish for a day. The Irish, known for their beers and whiskeys, are not celebrated for their cuisine. So, if the food isn’t that great, why is every casino adding an Irish pub to its restaurant row? (New York New York just announced its pub yesterday.) Here’s another interesting fact, when Palace Station opened Jack’s Irish Pub, it decided it could share the kitchen with the coffee shop next door because management assumed the bar tab would drown out the food orders. Today, 60 percent of the pub’s revenue comes from food, even though it serves some of the rarest single malt whiskeys in town. That tells me there’s something deeply satisfying about Irish food. It’s basic, honest, down-to-earth. And, it gets better with age! County Clark, we have the luck of the Irish with such tasty Celtic classics at hand. Who should you eat at Jack’s Irish Pub?
Who shouldn’t eat at Jack’s Irish Pub?
Ok, so what’s the food like? The flagship entrée is the Guinness stew. The bowl is so big it looks like a miniature swimming pool; there’s definitely enough food for two. In fact, no one has ever finished the stew since the day the pub opened its doors. This dish is covered with a ceiling of puff pastry – pierce it with a fork and steam rises like out of a chimney on a frosty night. The pastry is baked, so it’s a beautiful golden brown on the exterior. But it retains its lovely chewy undercoat. As for the stew itself, how could anything not taste heavenly when one of the world’s finest beers is a key ingredient? Actually, the Guinness adds a deep undercurrent of flavor. Huge squares of sirloin, cubes of potatoes, whole baby carrots, and peas all retain their toothiness while their flavors melt into the Guinness gravy. My favorite entrée is the shepherd’s pie. It has a wig of whipped potatoes that are baked to add a layer of crunch. They look like ridges on a snow capped mountain range. Just fold the spuds into the steaming stew. What surprised me about this stew was the high quality of the meat. There was not a droplet of grease anywhere. It was a natural balance of healthy and hearty. The beef boxty proves real men eat quiche. Boxty looks like a pancake that’s made with homemade potato flour. In the old days the cooks cut up potatoes and put them in a porous sack and whacked ‘em to get all the moisture out. Irish friends of mine put the sack in their washing machine, set to the spin cycle. What’s left after all that shaking makes a lighter-than-air pancake. The shepherd’s pie stew forms the filling. The chef also drizzles some on out the outside to form a decorative band. Boxty is one ethnic dish you’ve got to try. The fish and chips were also first rate. Jack’s uses Alaskan cod, a thick white fish with lots of flavor. The crust, infused with beer, was more like a crisp casing than a typical fish batter. Malt vinegar is already on the table. The chips are thick waffle potatoes – none of those politically incorrect French fries here. The dish also comes with peas, an unexpected but delicious addition. Jack’s Irish pub took the classic Reuben sandwich and improved it. Instead of putting sauerkraut on the corned beef – I can’t stand sauerkraut – it uses an onion relish. Then everything is baked into a unified whole with white cheddar cheese and served on grilled rye bread. Voila! The Irish Reuben. Another hybrid and a popular entrée is the Irish nachos. Mexicans use tortilla chips as the foundation for the fixings. Jack’s substituted potato chips. And it makes these gossamer thin chips right here in River City, frying the potatoes with their skins on. Dessert in the desert: I was too full and didn’t eat dessert. The last word: The Irish food at Jack’s Irish pub is remarkably authentic given its staff probably grew up near Decatur not Dublin. The Gaelic goodies are down-to-earth and down right delicious. Add some foot stomping Irish music, and you have the recipe for a good time. Isn’t that what pubs are for? Where is it? At Palace Station, West Sahara at the 15. The phone is 702.367.2411.  By: The Culinary Curmudgeon I love Jack’s Irish Pub. It has all the ingredients to make a man feel at home: serious, manly food, single malt Irish whiskeys, and endless sports. The Final Four is coming up; there’s no better place to watch the action: Jack’s Irish Pub has a private TV in each booth. You can watch the full court press at the bar as well as on the court. I wish the fress to impress places would install tiny TVs on top of their tablecloths. It would make their highly starched dining rooms seem homier. And the family won’t have to rush home to see CSI. Thankfully, Jack’s Irish Pub truly understands the LVNV diner. We like to sample authentic dishes like Shepard’s pie and boxty when we feel adventurous or when we have to prove we can dine, well, out of the box. But the restaurant understands that after an evening of stout Irish brews, we crave familiar bar foods like chicken tenders and red hot wings. American food and Irish beer are the pot of gold at the end of my rainbow. However, we predict Mexican Irish cuisine will NOT be the next hot trend in restaurant dining. The Irish nachos sounded great in theory but were awful when we actually had to eat them. We couldn’t harp on the home-made potato chips – they were so thin and crisp you could almost see through ‘em. But all that nacho stuff doesn’t work on potato chips. Even the sour cream struck a sour note. My advice: let the Mexicans have their nachos and you specialize in potato products. We couldn’t stop eating yours. As a dining purist, we applaud the fact you are NOT dying your beer green for St. Paddy’s Day. You can’t make Coors Light taste better by dying it day glo colors. Real Irish beers need no additives. One question: who decided tunes by the Wolves was music? Why don’t you play those great Irish songs in the pub at lunch? If you must play music by bands from the animal kingdom, I suggest tunes by the Eagles. Monday is St. Patrick’s Day. Visit Jack’s Irish Pub… for everything that ales you. Aired 14 March 2003
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