The Guilty Pleasure: Specialty Chicken Where to Get It: Domino’s Pizza. Locations everywhere, but you were getting delivery anyway. Price: $5.99 when you buy another item from their mix-and-match menu What it Really Costs: [opens box] Jeez, that’s it for six bucks? Domino’s Pizza has me scratching my head lately…
Sometimes behind the bar, you have your own personal trends. Take, for example, this week’s cocktail. A year or two ago, I got on a streak of making this drink for almost everyone I knew. I sang its praises far and wide. But somehow, it never made it into Chow…
The Guilty Pleasure: Three certain pizza toppings. Where to Get It: Your favorite pizza joint. Take your pick. Price: How much does a three-topping pizza run at your favorite pizza joint? What It Really Costs: If your friends aren’t open-minded, nobody’s splitting this pie with you. Everyone has his or…
The Guilty Pleasure: Frozen kouign amann, caramelized buttery Breton pastries Where to Get It: Trader Joe’s, locations everywhere Price: $3.99 for a pack of four What it Really Costs: 340 calories each, 50 more than an Egg McMuffin. The Cronut is so last year. Yes, I know I haven’t had…
I find trends in liquor to be both fascinating and puzzling. Lately, I’m left wondering how the hell marketing executives come up with ridiculous flavors of vodka. Nothing quite says “I’m using a fake ID” than trying to order a drink made with vodka that tastes like Froot Loops cereal…
The Guilty Pleasure: The Waffle Taco, and other breakfast novelties. Where to Get It: Taco Bell, locations everywhere (participation may vary) Price: $1.99 for the Waffle Taco What it Really Costs: Greasy fingers and dismay. Those wacky kids at Taco Bell are at it again. After lots of testing and…
I have a somewhat long-distance relationship with shots. I mean, they’re fun, and they’re easy to throw together, but when your first position behind the stick is making very complex tropical drinks, it’s easy to have a simple part of a bartender’s repertoire fall by the wayside. Then my birthday…
The Guilty Pleasure: Two hot dogs and a freaking huge corn dog. Where to Get It: Chase Field at Diamondbacks home games. Price: Up to $25. But that one includes fries. What it Really Costs: Putting up with your friends giggling about 18 inches of corn dog. I’ll be the…
It’s kind of fun looking through my bar books for some cocktailian inspiration. Quite a few of the recipes (especially the ones on the sticky pages, just like cookbooks) have memories attached to them, and good times are always involved. It beats the hell out of looking at now-questionable hairstyles…
The Guilty Pleasure: Two new flavors of Pringles. Where to Get It: Walmart, locations everywhere. Price: $1.50 a tube. What It Really Costs: See “Where to Get It”. There are certain signs that a trendy food is getting long in the tooth. One of the surest signs is when fast…
It’s certainly busy season around the restaurant. It’s great to see endless streams of happy folks from out of town coming in to enjoy themselves. And the corresponding bump in my paycheck is pretty damn nice, too. But I can’t help but feel a little envious. I’ve found myself researching…
We’re more than a little crazy about wine at the restaurant where I work. So, it stands to reason that some of the cocktails we have draw inspiration from the wine world. For example, we recently picked up several bottles of fino sherry. At first, I wasn’t sure what to…
The Guilty Pleasure: Chokladkrokant Bredbar Where To Get It: IKEA, Warner Road and I-10 Price: About three bucks a jar What it Really Costs: You can’t resist picking up a lamp and and end table while you’re there, can you? One of the best-kept secrets at IKEA, that titan of…
You may have noticed that Mardi Gras is just around the corner. It’s one of my favorite holidays to celebrate, largely because even if I’m not going to New Orleans, it’s a grand opportunity to celebrate the Big Easy’s rich cocktail culture…
The Guilty Pleasure: Ciabatta Bacon Cheeseburger Where to Get It: Wendy’s, locations Valleywide Price: $4.79 solo, $6.79 combo (your mileage may vary) What it Really Costs: Could be better, could be worse, clocking in at 670 calories. It’s long been said that if you want to get better bang for…
Recently at work, I found a bottle of amaretto in the back stock of liquor. A co-worker piped up, “Oh, yeah, that’s the almond-flavored liqueur, isn’t it?” I could only reply, “Au contraire, my friend! Everyone thinks it’s an almond liqueur, but it’s not.”…
We’re not quite sure how it happened, but somewhere along the way Central Phoenix’s Arcadia neighborhood became the unofficial burger capital of metro Phoenix. So when The Stand opened, we were disappointed to hear the area would be getting yet another burger-centric joint. After an underwhelming first visit it took…
The Guilty Pleasure: Bacon Insider Where To Get It: Jack in the Box, locations Valleywide Price: $4.99 (your mileage may vary) What It Really Costs: About 730 calories, almost 400 from fat. For some time now, bacon has been almost fetishized by all manner of culinary folk. It’s understandable. Bacon…
The Arcadia neighborhood somehow has become the burger capital of metro Phoenix. I can’t think of another part of town that has a higher concentration of chichi burger joints. Indeed, it seems burger-centric restaurants outnumber all the other places combined. And so when The Stand first took over the space…
I do love a cocktail that involves showmanship. And few cocktails have quite the flair of this week’s Last Call, the Flame of Love martini. With a name like that, how could I resist making one for Valentine’s Day? The Flame of Love was created in 1970 for none other…
The Guilty Pleasure: New limited-edition Oreo flavors. Where To Get It: Your favorite grocery store. Price: About $3 a box. What it Really Costs: Can you resist the thought of cookie dough flavor Oreos? I have to admit, the folks at Nabisco know what they’re doing with marketing the century-old…
I’ve been on an absinthe kick at work lately. I’ve been trying to get my coworkers on the bandwagon, but they keep wrinkling their nose at the black licorice aroma that I find so alluring. All the more absinthe for me, I suppose. For most people, absinthe is easier to…
