Free $25 Gift Card to Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse: Do It

March 2, 2010

NYC Food Guy always welcomes guest bloggers.  Today we turn the spotlight on regular contributor King of Ketchup.  E-mail [email protected] if you’d like to contribute!

A couple weeks ago I stumbled across this website advertising an offer for a free $25 gift card for Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse. Two days later, my free $25 gift card was waiting in my mailbox. All you have to do to receive your own free $25 gift card is follow these four easy steps:

1. Become a fan of Uncle Jack’s on Facebook.
2. Follow Uncle Jack’s on Twitter.
3. Send an email to [email protected] with your name and address requesting your gift card.
4. Eat free steak.

Fully equipped with $50 worth of Uncle Jack’s gift cards, my girlfriend and I walked into an empty Uncle Jack’s on 56th street last Saturday night for our 7:30 reservation. Apparently we’re the only people who eat steak at 7:30 on a Saturday night, because by the time we left at 9, the entire place was packed. The back of the gift card instructs customers to present gift cards before ordering, but in hopes of avoiding the Uncle Jack’s “special sauce,” we waited until we were finished before handing it to our “captain” (aka waiter), and they accepted it without a problem.  Click ahead to read about the entire meal.

We started by sharing the house salad ($9), which came with a light citrus vinaigrette and was way too big for one person to eat alone.  The salad pictured below is only half of the entire salad.  So far so good.  The self-proclaimed “famous Maryland lump crabcake appetizer” went for $18, so we went with the less-pricey and more-boring salad. Also out of our price range was the Alaskan king crab leg  special.  I love king crab, but unfortunately my wallet feels differently.

Now onto the main event: the 48 ounce porterhouse for two ($85).  While it did not arrive sizzling, it was charred, tender, juicy, and flavorful.  The juice was delicious and resulted in an almost negligible addition of ketchup (only one tiny glass bottle of Heinz). Sure, ketchup on steak is blasphemy to most steak-aficionados, but certainly not to the King of Ketchup. The steak was very good — the strip side was definitely tastier than the Filet side — but both were tender and cooked medium-rare as ordered. It wasn’t quite on par with a Luger’s or Wolfgang’s porterhouse, but it was still damn good.

As for side dishes, we went with the garlic mashed potatoes in addition to the sautéed asparagus.  The size of the sides were huge (only about one-third of each is featured below), but the mashed potatoes were lukewarm and  relatively tasteless.  The asparagus, sautéed in oil and garlic, were tasty enough, and as expected, provided a pleasant reminder of the delicious meal the following morning.

Even though we were sufficiently stuffed after crushing the entire steak and cleaning the bone, the chocolate soufflé was too good to pass up.  It arrived hot and was an unbelievable touch to finish the meal. While the whipped cream was slightly watery and far from fluffy, the adorable little raspberry-sauce hearts made up for it. Our free $50 was applied to the final bill, and although the meal was far from free, who can complain?

If you can live without the steak, go during lunch and try “The Big Jack” cheeseburger with steak fries for $20, or the Filet Mignon sandwich on garlic bread with sautéed onions and steak fries for $19.  Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free lunch was lying.

Uncle Jack’s Steakhouse (3 locations)

44 West 56th Street b/t 5th & 6th Ave

New York, NY 10019

212-245-1550

440 Ninth Ave

New York, NY 10001

212-244-0005

39-40 Bell Blvd

Bayside, NY 11361

718-229-1100

http://www.unclejacks.com/

Posted in MANHATTAN, MIDTOWN WEST, Uncle Jack's Steakhouse