The food reviewer for the Bowling Green Daily News had little to say good about Hog Wild in Bowling Green.

Hog Wild has been around a while and currently sits in front of Hobby Lobby facing Scottsville Road. I settled in for a BBQ plate special, a pork shoulder plate, a loaded potato and sides. Despite a recommendation from a friend, the food here was not that good – nothing stood out and much of it was sub-par.

The BBQ plate special was pretty ordinary, with a decent helping of shredded pork on a bun, with either hot, medium or mild sauces. Each of the sauces was fine, and the hot sauce was notable in that while it was fairly spicy, the heat didn’t linger on the tongue. But the meat, while tender, was not all that tasty. It certainly didn’t stand out. The shoulder plate consisted of several thin slices of grilled shoulder meat with a pepper-based rub. This had a slightly better flavor than the barbecue sandwich, but was quite tough.

The loaded potato came with butter, sour cream, nacho cheese and bacon bits. This part of the meal stands out in that it seems representative of many of the preparations at Hog Wild. Many of them seem to come from a can. The cheese, for example, seems to have come from one of those big cans one gets at Sam’s Club, which is hardly cheese at all. It shouldn’t be that much effort to use real shredded cheese on a baked potato.

Yet the canned food tradition continued with the sides of cole slaw and potato salad – both of which tasted as if they had been purchased at Kroger. The sweet potato fries were fine, but lacked the kind of crispness that one would hope for. My partner called them “soggy.”

Finally, I also tried the burgoo, a dish with a rich Kentucky history. … There was none of the nutmeg, cinnamon or other spices one expects in a burgoo.

In all, this was not a great dining experience. One bright, shining spot is that the entire restaurant is nonsmoking – something that should bring diners to Hog Wild at least once. But the food is definitely not on the top of the Tour d’BBQ list of places to eat again.