Tag: Jack in the Box

If you traveled back in time and told me a year ago that Jack in the Box would be selling boba drinks in 2023, while I was drinking a boba drink, you would have boba flying towards you from my spit take because that would be extremely surprising and laughable. But here we are with Jack in the Box’s Iced Coffee and Milk Tea with Boba.

The iced coffee version features High Mountain Arabica coffee with sweetened cream and vanilla, served over ice with brown sugar boba, while the milk tea one comes with freshly brewed tea with sweetened cream and vanilla, ice, and brown sugar boba. If you’re unfamiliar with boba, they’re chewy tapioca balls that give the drink its other name, bubble tea.

And it’s those dark-colored bubbles in these fast food drinks that make it hard for me to recommend them, especially if you’ve never had boba drinks before. They’re described as brown sugar boba, but they’re more like bland sugar boba because they have a nondescript flavor that’s not even sweet. But I was not too fond of their texture. Chewing on them was like mashing my teeth on clumps of hard raisins, which are too chewy for boba. These issues make them weird compared to other boba I’ve had, which have better flavor and texture.

While the tapioca texture was weird, I will say that the milk tea by itself was tasty, and I wish Jack in the Box offered on its own. According to the app, I could customize it to not include boba, but the price wouldn’t change. It’s sweet, creamy, and tasted like the canned and bottled milk teas I’ve had from Japan. As for the iced coffee, if you’ve had Jack’s iced coffee, it tastes the same, but I prefer the milk tea.

Part of the boba experience is the use of a wider straw that allows the tapioca to be sucked up, and Jack in the Box does provide it. But with my iced coffee one, for some reason, most of the balls had difficulty going up the straw, even after shaking and stirring the drink. Eventually, I gave up and left most of them in the cup.

If Jack in the Box’s Iced Coffee with Boba or Milk Tea with Boba is going to be your introduction to the popular Asian drink, I can’t recommend it, even if you live in a boba desert without a place that sells the drink for hundreds of miles. While the base drinks are fine, they contain the least satisfying boba I’ve ever had in terms of taste and texture.

Purchased Price: $4.99 each
Size: N/A
Rating: 6 out of 10 (Milk Tea), 5 out of 10 (Iced Coffee)
Nutrition Facts: 280 calories (other nutritional numbers aren’t available on the Jack in the Box website).

If you can’t wait for McDonald’s Shamrock Shake season in February and March, you can get your green minty shake fill this fall with Jack in the Box’s Girl Scout Thin Mints Shake. The frozen treat features Jack’s ice cream with chocolate mint flavoring and Thin Mints bits mixed with whipped topping and more Thin Mints crumbles on top. Also, sorry, maraschino cherry fans. There is no cherry for you on this shake.

It looks less fun than the bright Shamrock Shake. When everything is mixed up, it has a green-gray color that a paint company would call Aloe Fog, Melted Clovers, or something like that. But it’s as enjoyable as a Shamrock shake with its strong minty flavor. But perhaps it’s a bit too strong. If I drank this shake blindly, I wouldn’t be able to determine that it’s specifically a Girl Scout Thin Mints Shake because it lacks the chocolatey notes that the actual cookies have.

The mint flavoring in the ice cream is so strong that it overwhelms the cookie bits and whatever chocolate flavoring. It also doesn’t help that the larger cookie crumbs provide an additional minty burst without cocoa flavor. Having two types of cookies would be weird, but maybe the chocolate would’ve had a stronger punch if Oreo crumbles were added. It’s an ingredient that every Jack in the Box location has, so it wouldn’t be difficult to add.

Most of the cookie crumbs are tiny enough that they succumb to the milky mess they’re sitting in and become soggy bits or not noticeable at all. But my teeth were rewarded with some crunchiness when they captured more significant Thin Mints bits.

If you want a tasty shake that’ll make your insides as nippy as the weather outside this fall, Jack in the Box’s Girl Scout Thin Mints Shake will help you accomplish that. But if you’re hoping for a bit of chocolate to cut through that mint, you’ll be disappointed.

Purchased Price: $6.69*
Size: Regular
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 780 calories (no other nutritional information was provided on the Jack in the Box website).

*Because I live on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, things are a bit pricier here. You’ll probably pay less than I did.

I’m angry that Jack in the Box’s new Angry Monster Tacos don’t have jalapeños. Okay, I’m not irate, but I’m confused by their exclusion because they would’ve made these truly angry. When monsters get angry, like Godzilla, they may burn things down, so why not attempt to burn my mouth with these.

An order of Angry Monster Tacos comes with two spicy seasoned tacos with shredded lettuce, American cheese, and taco sauce inside “angry” red shells that are in neat monster-themed sleeves. Looking through the Jack in the Box app, ordering just one is impossible. But if you want to feel the anger without committing to two, you can order a pair with one regular Monster Taco and an Angry one.

So how angry are these? They’re definitely spicier and more peppery than a regular Jack in the Box Taco, but they’re not hot enough to make me wish I’d ordered a cold Coke product to go along with them, even after eating both. If you’re a fan of Jack’s regular tacos and not spice-adverse, you’ll probably like these because they pretty much taste like them but spicier. Nothing about them makes me like them more than Jack’s regular offering, and they’re flavorful enough that you don’t even need the taco sauce packets that you’ll probably be given. Although I wonder what flavor they would have if dipped into a container of Good Good Sauce or Creamy Avocado Lime Sauce.

But now let’s end on that red shell. It’s all color, no calefaction or flavor. I’ll admit its dark red hue does look cool, and much like wearing dark colors makes one look slimmer, its color makes the obligatory oil-soaked center available with all Jack in the Box tacos look less noticeable. It’s neat enough that I wouldn’t be angry if Jack used the same shell for Angry Santa Tacos or something in a few weeks.

Purchased Price: $3.00 for 2
Rating: 7 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 440 calories – other nutritional info is unavailable on Jack in the Box’s website.

Jack in the Box’s website says its Breakfast Taco contains a freshly scrambled egg, American cheese, taco sauce, and Jimmy Dean sausage in a crunchy taco shell. But after eating one, I wonder if I got a lettuce-less regular taco with eggs stuffed in it because it tastes like a typical Jack in the Box taco with eggs stuffed in it.

I thought the sausage would be in crumble form, but it looks like the same meat in a regular taco, which I guess could be sausage crumbles that were crumbled even more. Maybe the sauce and American cheese overwhelmed the sausage’s flavor, and that’s why it tastes similar to Jack’s original taco.

The scrambled egg had a slight butteriness, and while Jack in the Box’s description of the menu item says, “scrambled egg,” mine had an egg-normous amount of the yellow yolky product. So either mine was made with two or more, or Jack in the Box is purchasing some Flintstones-era eggs. There was so much in mine that when a large chunk of it fell out while I was removing the taco from its sleeve, there was still enough in it if I decided not to put that nugget back in.

Oh, and it wouldn’t be a Jack in the Box taco if it didn’t have that signature oil-soaked shell center that distinguishes it from others in the fast food world and is the reason why some folks hate Jack’s tacos. While that darkened shell section has a soft texture, every other area on the shell has a satisfying crunch.

I like Jack in the Box’s regular tacos but am slightly disappointed with this Breakfast Taco. Tasting like Jack in the Box taco with eggs is fine, and I didn’t hate it, but I wish something else was added to make it a little more egg-citing.

Purchased Price: $1.49
Rating: 6 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 200 calories – no other nutritional information is available on the Jack in the Box website.

Jack in the Box’s Potato Wedges are back!

(Sigh)

But only for a limited time and in the form of Classic and Spicy Sauced & Loaded Potato Wedges. The Classic version features my beloved potato wedges topped with shredded cheddar cheese, cheddar cheese sauce, ranch, and bacon crumbles, and the Spicy one also includes Spicy Good Good Sauce and jalapeños.

I tried to see if I could order my precious potato wedges without any toppings via the app and checked to see if I could swap the regular fries with them, but there was no option to get them naked. Look, I should be ecstatic about once again being able to stuff my mouth with these spud slices, and I am, but I really wish I could get them without all the other stuff. Or even better, I wish they were permanent again.

Am I sensitive about losing these potato wedges? Oh, heck yeah! I created an entirely new type of post on this site just so I could sing their praises. But then, a few months later, they were discontinued. Since then, I sometimes think to myself, “Maybe if I didn’t write that, they might still be on the menu.” I’m sorry, Jack in the Box Potato Wedges lovers. It’s all my fault.

Anyhoo, I picked up the Classic Sauced & Loaded Potato Wedges, and not surprisingly, I loved them. I even scraped off the cheeses, sauce, and bacon from a few of them just so I could experience again what I lost and what Jack in the Box won’t give me.

It tastes similar to the Bacon Cheddar Wedges that Jack used to sell. The ranch sauce provides some additional flavor on top of the other toppings, but it’s mostly a bacon and cheese show. And that’s perfectly fine because it still means I get to stuff my face with Jack in the Box’s Potato Wedges, which I thought were gone forever.

Seriously, Jack. Make your potato wedges permanent again.

Purchased Price: $3.50
Rating: 8 out of 10
Nutrition Facts: 520 calories – other nutritional information is unavailable on Jack in the Box’s website.