Restaurant: Jackson’s

Location: 11927 Democracy Drive. Reston, VA 20191. (703) 437-0800

Date: November 26, 2011

Cuisine: American

Rating: Solid mid-sized chain offering

Back “home” in DC we wanted a quick and easy meal and so headed out to Reston to this reliable place. I reviewed Coastal Flats last year, another member of the same small chain.

This is one of those well done (but not earth-shattering) mall places. It seems that good malls these days aren’t going with the giant chains or with one-off restaurants. they must feel the need for a little more stability in their business relationships.

The menu.

They have these donut-like rolls which are pretty delicious.

This was billed as an “perfect margarita” and actually, it was pretty good. Not quite as good as my own, but not bad at all.

A mojito.

“Lobster and ham mac and cheese.” Pretty good too. The ham made it.

A special salad. Fried oysters, blue-cheese, salad.

A simple green salad.

Grilled cheese for my son.

Fried grouper, fries, and cole slaw. This was a tasty fried fish, nice and crispy. This chain has an unusual but very good slaw, chopped, with a bit of peppery bite.

Crab cake roll with a side of butternut squash.

And the platter version, two crab cakes with fries and slaw. The cakes a pretty good, with big lumps of crab. It does have a little breading (obviously).

Sautéed spinach.

Lobster roll with corn on the cob. No shortage of lobster here! They claim it’s all the meat from a 1.5 pounder. Looks like it.

This isn’t really chef driven cuisine. It’s basically comfort food. But it is well done.

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