The Rum Bucket

Its been a while, like almost 2 years, since I’ve been to the Rum Bucket. I guess we thought the food was just ok and there were other places to go, although you have to admit the Rume Bucket is nice and close. So the word on the street is they got a new chef and the food is much better. I’ve seen commercials on social media for their all you can eat seafood buffet on Friday nights and their Prime Rib special on Saturday night. I asked on our Hampton Lakes Facebook group if anybody had tried those. I got a lot of responses saying that the food was much better, but nobody specifically talked about those nights.

One of the bartenders, Carlos who lives in Hampton Lakes, said the food was better than before and we should come down to check it out. So my wife and I and two other couples went on a Thursday afternoon around 3pm to check it out for an early dinner. I’d like to apologize to Carlos. We should have sat at the bar and had him take care of use, but we were with friends that we hadn’t seen in a while, so we sat at the long table so we could sit across from each other. Next time, Carlos, we will sit at the bar! Our waitress was very good. There wasn’t many tables, since it was 3pm. But I’m sure she would have been excellent even if the place was packed.

We got some mocktails ($6 each), cocktails and beers. All the drinks were good. Thank you Carlos! I ordered a Onion Ring appetizer. Everybody liked those. I think they are a bought in product. I’ve bought onion rings for my restaurants in the past because I didn’t want to go through the process of making them from scratch. A lot of places do this. I settled on beer battered onion rings because the breading was kind of like a tempura texture. These onion rings were heavy on the breadcrumbs. Very crunchy, not much onion, but the sauce that came with them was good. Again, everybody liked them and we ate them all up! So not really complaining. But I think I’ll try a different appetizer the next time.

Everybody enjoyed the entrees. They were all visually appealing. You eat first with your eyes! Although my wife’s boneless chicken wings were saturated in BBQ sauce! She ate them all, but was scraping some of the sauce away. I ordered the all u can eat chicken Wings (Thursday only) with Buffalo Sauce, blue cheese dressing and a side of cole slaw. The wings weren’t tossed in the sauce. The sauce was spooned on the platter and the wings were put on top. Maybe to keep them crunchy. So I rolled them around in the sauce before I ate each one. The wings were perfect. A nice, crunchy skin on the exterior and soft, coming off the bone meat on the inside. I did ask for some more and got three gnarly bits of chicken wings. That’s ok. My hands were totally messed up, but they gave me lots of wet wipes. Other entrees ordered were A special of the day pineapple, chicken sandwich. Chicken Tacos and shrimp Tacos. And a fish sandwich with the biggest piece of fish I have ever seen on a fish sandwich! Everybody liked their entrees too!

Here’s a link to The Rum Bucket’s website. Check out the koi ponds and turtles! Lots of outdoor seating. They have live mucic at times. Let me know what you think. I have lots more restaurant reviews out here on my website. Just select Restaurant Reviews from the Topics on the right side column. Like and comment on my posts and send them to your friends to pass the word. Thank you!