So after a day of suit shopping at Alderwood Mall in Lynnwood, WA we decided to eat at the Claim Jumper restaurant right outside. Before this day, I never heard of this chain of restaurants, but my friend had. We both never tried it though. We Yelp’d a bit to see what the ratings were. 3 out of 5 stars, but it was a chain restaurant so who knows, I’m sure everywhere is going to be different.
We got to the restaurant, and it was pretty busy, but it was a HUGE restaurant with plenty of space for us. We had no clue what this place was about, and noticed that some people had badges on their shirt. We realized later that they have a bit of a Western theme going on. It seemed kind of promising, the menu was very big and a lot of the food sounded good and there were lots of choices that were different from the other chain stores, but we could only settle on a couple things.
We ordered the Cheese Potato Cakes, and Parmesan Garlic Rings to start. It came out fairly quickly. The Potato Cakeh’s description is Cheddar, jack & aged parmesan cheese, mashed potatoes, onions, dill and cilantro lightly breaded & fried crisp with salsa ranch ($7.95). This came with 3 cakes, and were very good. We ate every last bit of it, and the sauce was really good too. The Parmesan Garlic Rings were described as served with spicy mustard ranch or BBQ sauce for dipping ($6.95). Now looking at the name, I wasn’t expecting Onion Rings. And I wouldn’t have ordered it. These things sucked bad. Bland, and no taste what-so-ever. The dip couldn’t even salvage it by adding flavor. You couldn’t even taste the onion. What’s even worse is that, my friend ordered a steak that came with regular onion rings that tasted 10 times better.
For our entrées I ordered the Jamaican Jerk Sweet Potato, and a steak for my friend. My dinner was a complete fail. I guess I should’ve known though, because as we walked to our table we saw tables with gigantic baked potatoes with lots of toppings. We also looked at the menu and a lot of their featured stuff were giant baked potatoes with toppings. However, I didn’t think that my meal was going to be a gigantic Sweet Potato with chicken inside. It was disgusting. Sweet potato in small portions is ok, but I definitely don’t like it as the majority of my dish. I thought I was getting jerk chicken with some roasted sweet potato chunks on the side. What I got was a huge sweet potato with some chicken on the side. So gross. My dish was described as Slow-roasted and shredded chicken with green onions, red peppers, cilantro, papaya relish, fresh lemon and drizzled with honey ($12.95). Sorry I don’t have a picture. But it sucked. Trust me. Don’t order it, I don’t get why they would have this under the Favorites section.
As for my friend’s steak, well we read a review earlier on Yelp saying that they ordered medium and ended up getting a medium-well steak. So my friend took that in consideration and ordered a Rare in hopes to get a Medium-rare. Man, complete utter fail again. It was basically Bleu, or seared on each side for a few seconds. The inside was completely pink and raw. This was over a 1-inch thick steak, and it was so chewy. The parts with seared edges on more than two sides were OK, but the middle pieces were just too hard to swallow.
The menu is huge, and I’m sure there is something good in there like the Potato Cakes, but do not try what we ordered (Garlic Parmesan Rings, Jamaican Jerk Sweet Potato). I’m sure the Steak is hit or miss like every where else. Overall, the price isn’t too bad, and I’d say it’s on par to what a Chain Restaurant would offer.
The service was OK, and they took a little too long to refill our drinks.
My friend’s friend also said they showed Caloric values on their menu, but we never saw any of that info, but we could’ve heard wrong. I found a link on their site with all the info here http://www.claimjumper.com/menu_nutritional_information.aspx
Claim Jumper – Lynnwood
18725 33rd Ave. W
(425) 778-5700
http://www.claimjumper.com
