Some BBQ places have a reputation that precedes them. Others, you just kind of drive by a bunch and decide it’s time to pay a visit. Porkopolis in Scottsdale is the latter, and I finally decided to pay that visit. I was greeted by possibly the friendliest waiter a BBQ restaurant has ever seen and the scent of smoke and meat juices.

After enlisting the assistance of the waiter, I ended up ordering the 3 Meat Platter with the baby back ribs, pulled pork and burnt ends (which is an option even though the menu doesn’t say so!) It was tough deciding between the burnt ends and the brisket, but I felt confident in my decision. I also opted for mac and cheese and mashed potatoes for my sides.

The platter was nothing short of massive, and the ingredients in the platter were also huge. And yet, somehow a couple of pickles managed to squeeze onto the plate and taint the mashed potatoes. I pushed them away, but was unquestionably disappointed to find there was one or two lurking beneath the potatoes. I tried to move on to the rest of the food and the mac and cheese really helped me through that tough time. It was cheesy, stretchy and had just the right amount of char on top.

Of the meats, the pulled pork was the best. This was weird to me because usually I simply don’t love pulled pork. However, it was juicy, smokey and flavorful. I was expecting the burnt ends to be the best, and they were quite good, but just not as delicious as they could have been. The baby back ribs were of the fall off the bone variety and I don’t care what some people say, I love that. The mashed potatoes were…mashed potatoes. No complaints, but nothing special.

I would definitely make my way back to Porkopolis for that pulled pork. I mean, it’s in the name and it makes sense. I’d switch a couple of other things around as well, but would expect that nothing would be less than “pretty good.” Porkopolis may not be a real city, but it still has all of the amenities I need.

You probably wouldn’t expect Phoenix to be the most Italian of cities. After all, there is not Little Italy and the Mafia is more of an East Coast thing. Yet, Phoenix definitely has some homegrown Italian favorites and Babbo is one of these. Babbo invited me out to its Scottsdale location for a hosted dinner and I took them up on the chance to check it out.

It began with the house bread, which was served with a plate of balsamic vinegar and kalamata olive oil a popular option recently.

Despite the roasted onions atop the bread, this made a strong first impression as I probably ate a whole meal’s worth of that bread. But this was just the start and I made sure to massage my stomach to make way for an appetizer of my choosing.

We chose the Firecracker Rolls, which are essentially Babbo’s take on egg rolls. However, instead of being filled with whatever egg rolls are filled with these days, they came with three filling options. The first was steak, jalapenos, onions, provolone and mozzarella. The second was Italian meats, provolone and mozzarella. And the third was buffalo chicken, mozzarella and gorgonzola. We tried all three with a marinara dipping sauce. I was partial to the buffalo chicken option, but that’s because there will always be a special place in my heart for buffalo flavored things in the summer. The steak packed a nice punch that was even spicier than the buffalo and the Italian meats is really something that should please anyone.

For my main course, I went with the Three Cheese Mac and Cheese. It’s described as “This ain’t no kids meal!” and that ain’t no joke. I had never seen anything like this called “mac and cheese” before because it could probably better be described as penne pasta in a spicy cream sauce, but that should in no way distract from the tastiness of this dish. In reality, it used a smokey chipotle cream sauce mixed with cheddar, mozzarella and gorgonzola, plus bacon, sausage and croutons with penne in there.

Its probably not even proper to call it a grown up mac and cheese, but moreso it is a conduit to eat all of the things you normally want to eat, but look somewhat classy as you do. I loved the kick of the chipotle, the bacon was delicious and that sausage just added another great element. The only thing I might consider questioning is the croutons. I can only try to guess that they were tossed in there to seem like a grown up version of breadcrumbs and to give some crunch. Yet, sometimes you just don’t want to mess with a good thing like breadcrumbs because breadcrumbs are already plenty grown up.

We finished off our meal (honestly I don’t know where the stomach space came from) with Stuffed Churros. These were those same egg rolls, but stuffed with a ricotta cream cheese (basically cheesecake filling) and topped with nutella and strawberry sauce. These were delicious, but I know you’re here for the savory stuff so I will try my best to just stick with that.

Babbo did some unique things and deserves a lot of credit for that. I mean, stuffing buffalo chicken in an egg roll can’t even be remotely described as Italian and yet Babbo figured out a way to get away with it. They upped the stakes for mac and cheese and really eased themselves into a dessert that also can’t remotely be considered Italian and yet it, too, worked like a charm. If you stick to the straight Italian food, you’ll probably leave thinking “Hey, that was like Olive Garden, but much better and I don’t hate myself after eating the food.” If you give some of the more unique options a chance, though, you’ll not only leave Olive Garden in the rearview mirror, but actually look forward to a return visit.

Everybody just looooves the Fox Restaurant Group in Phoenix. But can there ever be too many Fox restaurants? I headed to The Greene House in Scottsdale’s Kierland Commons in my continuing quest to find out. The Greene House is a modern American restaurant showcasing things like salads, sandwiches, fish and chicken. As in most similar situations, my eyes went right for the burger.

This wasn’t just any burger, but a Kobe Burger topped with aged cheddar, bacon, butter (fancy) lettuce, tomato (of the vine-ripened variety) and thousand island dressing. I continue to assert that Kobe Beef in a burger is waste of Kobe Beef, but since it was the only beef option I managed. I ordered without the lettuce and tomato, then went with medium rare. I also chose the mac and cheese as my side, and must say I was glad to have mac and cheese as a regular side option instead of just fries or a salad.

Yet, despite my joy about mac and and cheese, the results were…fine. I mean, i don’t know if any of the Fox restaurants know how to make bad food, but there was nothing special about either the burger or the mac and cheese. There was no lack of execution or anything, but just felt like a lack of inspiration. If I’m being fully honest, my stomach was asking me why I walked by Shake Shack on the way to The Greene House without just getting my burger there.

Some were household names with tons of locations around the Valley of the Sun, like Grimaldi’s and Zoe’s, but others seemed a bit more special and I sought them out (along with some booze, of course).

The Italiano – Aioli Burger

I’d been hearing murmurings of how great this place was for a while now, and its victory at Burger Battle 2018 further cemented my desire to get there. This burger wasn’t perfect, nor would I expect it to be in such a situation, but the combination of mozzarella, bacon, basil garlic aioli, balsamic reduction and a discarded tomato made me more eager to seek out the real deal.

Mac Daddy – Tom’s BBQ

Is it proper to describe mac and cheese as wet in a bad way? Because that’s how I felt about the Mac Daddy, which is mac and cheese topped with pulled pork and BBQ sauce. Perhaps the measurements went awry in the kitchen, because a dish like this is very hard to mess up. Yet, it was underwhelming, leaving me thinking I should have hit up another spot in the BBQ region.

Carne Asada Fries – SuperFarm SuperTruck

This is a truck that knows how to make fries. The fries themselves were perfectly crispy on the outside and moist on the inside, as well as seasoned to perfection. The beef was more ground than steak, but seasoned well, and the cilantro, cheese and sauce all acted in harmony with one another. The lime juice didn’t hurt either. These were easily my booze-free highlight of the festival.

Jollybeez Wings – Good Fortune Kitchen

What can I say? I’m a sucker for Filipino food. And while I can’t say I’ve ever had wings at an actual Jollibee, I have had balut and that should pretty much prepare me for anything. That said, the wing here was pretty good, and while there may have been a little too much focus on the corn and slaw? surrounding the wing, I was definitely a fan of the crispiness, meatiness, moistness and peanut sauce.

Unfortunately, one man can only eat so much. I left the Scottsdale Culinary Festival with not just a full stomach, but also a heart full of hope for the food scene in Phoenix. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like thing are bad in any way, but the variety I saw in places like Good Fortune Kitchen tells me that better foods are yet to come.

I went into Cold Beers and Cheeseburgers expecting to get some cold beer and a cheeseburger. And pretty immediately, I knew this would not be the case. It started with a delay to my beer because they were out of what I wanted. That was fine, because places run out of beer all the time and so I went ahead and ordered a new one. But then, I was told that it was Monday and that meant $12 build your own mac and cheese with basically whatever the hell you want in it.

So I dove into the mac and cheese headfirst. I added avocado, bacon, truffle oil, beef chili, blue cheese, green chiles and pepper jack cheese. Oh and breadcrumbs too. It was perhaps the richest bowl of pasta the world has ever seen and I went to town on it. Despite the fact that the FDA never should have allowed this to be made, it was actually made in a very balanced way. Nothing had been skipped out on and I downed bites of all the individual ingredients with glee.

Eventually I hit a wall and couldn’t eat anymore. But I ate anyway. No regrets, right? Well, maybe. I mean it was delicious, but I might have gone over the top. I’m certainly glad I did it, but when I inevitably make my way back, I’ll be sure to stick with the original plan of grabbing a cheeseburger to go with my cold beer.

There are certain aspects of the Phoenix area that are tough to get used to. Not in the sense that they are bad in any way, just that they are different. You see, I spent much of my life thinking that good food is a pretty rare find in a strip mall or as a standalone building in the parking lot of a strip mall. But, when a city is basically all strip malls, the good food simply has to be there. Thus, while my expectations of BBQ spots are generally a bit less pristine than a strip mall, I couldn’t pass up the chance to check out Naked BBQ in Scottsdale.

Of course, Naked BBQ had the added bonus of being the second location, so I assumed they already had a fair idea of how to smoke some meats. When we arrived, the guy behind the counter told us they were running a Beef Rib special, that it was the best thing they had and that it was like eating a dinosaur bone. I figured he meant something along the lines of sauropod as opposed to the velociraptor (basically the dino equivalent of a faster turkey). This also came with two sides and I got the mac and cheese and convinced them to let me get banana pudding as my second side because it was the same cost.

To start with, the rib (yes, it was literally just one rib) was nothing short of incredible. It was also on the sauropod side of of the dinosaur spectrum. The meat had just enough smokiness to it to bring out the savory flavor and just enough fat to blow away my taste buds in a logarithmic fashion. The meat was easily pulled apart with a fork and could have easily been sliced with a butter knife you can learn more at https://www.wetheknives.com/best-damascus-chef-knives-review/. I was also recommended the horseradish sauce to dip and it went perfect if used in moderation. The hot BBQ sauce and the regular BBQ sauce also got the job done in terms of adding a bit of taste, but there was so much flavor in the meat that there really wasn’t a need.

The mac and cheese was also a really solid addition to the meal. It was plenty creamy and cheesy, but took a definitive backseat to the main course. The banana pudding was actually a bit disappointing. I am by no means a banana pudding aficionado and am perfectly happy with Jell-O Pudding, but this actually tasted like Jell-O Pudding and I could have just made that at home.

Dessert aside, this was one delicious meal. And, perhaps more importantly, it helped me in my continuing quest to set aside restaurant prejudice and be a real Phoenician.

It’s hard to make BBQ trendy. It is inherently something that people have very specific expectations for, and anything “new” and good is almost always a minor tweak that makes a real difference. So where can innovation come from? Booze. At least that’s what Bootleggers BBQ in Phoenix was thinking, offering a pretty snazzy modern divey bar that also serves up BBQ. It’s like a gastropub meets a BBQ spot and I was eager to see how the meat would hold up.

So, after a couple of beers, we went with the BBQ Sampler for Two. This came with pulled pork, brisket, a hot link, turkey and two St. Louis Ribs. There were also tortillas for some reason and some cole slaw. When it arrived, it looked mighty pretty. I dug right in and was happy with the results. By far my favorite was the brisket, which was juicy, smokey and super tender. In fact, there wasn’t really anything to complain about for any of the meats. Even the hot link, which can often be hit or miss, was solid if not exciting. They used an amazing small wood stove to cook efficiently.

Truthfully, I would have been happy with pretty much any of these meats as my full meal (except maybe the turkey, but that’s more personal preference than anything else). And yet, after I downed half the platter I wanted some mac and cheese. So I ordered it and have to say it didn’t impress me. Just ho hum flavor and simply not cheesy enough for me. Perhaps that is why the sampler didn’t come with a side, but I still would take the good main course over the side on almost any day.

Bootleggers was an impressive, if not overly exciting meal. But having that bar was a great touch, because I got to drink Bell’s Two Hearted Ale and it’s hard to go wrong with that. I’d definitely be willing to make Bootleggers BBQ a regular BBQ stop.

Like in LA, food trucks are a thing in the Phoenix area. And it makes much more sense here because everything is so damn spread out. Pasadena spoiled me. But I digress. The good news is that my office is all about bringing food trucks in every month (not for free, of course) to mix things up and to keep us from driving literal miles to the nearest food. This last time, it was Sweet Magnolia Smokehouse, serving up BBQ.

I was the first in line because I was hungry, but also because I wanted to learn what the best food was. The guy running the truck that day highly recommended the brisket in sandwich form, so despite my previous painful brisket experience I took him up on it and ordered it regular sized because I’m trying not to be the fattest person in the world. Quality over quantity, right?

Oh, I should also mention that it came with cole slaw and a side. I chose the mac and cheese and let them no there was no need for slaw because I’m not a stupid rabbit.

It arrived on a bun doused in BBQ sauce. Doused, I say. But honestly, I didn’t really mind it. Sure, I would have taken about half the sauce, but somehow the brisket itself was still able to shine through, all chopped up and full of smokey goodness. A couple of the bits were kind of tough, but that’s a minor complaint in the grand scheme of brisket. The mac and cheese was actually pretty fantastic, with a great noodle to cheese ratio and relative moistness that I found comforting.

Sweet Magnolia Smokehouse may not be the best brisket in the land, but it definitely serves up some solid BBQ – albeit with some questionable sauce volume.

It would have been much more convenient to go to Blue Tractor BBQ in Ann Arbor. After all, I seem to get there about once a year. The trouble is that every time I’m there I can’t help but stop at Zingerman’s, with an occasional other restaurant thrown in once every blue (or maize) moon. Instead, I went to the location a number of hours further away in Traverse City, Michigan, not far from Sleeping Bear Dunes.

It began with Tractor Twists, which are not at all your typical BBQ food, but that should in no way cheapen their deliciousness. These are twisted bread sticks that are stuffed with monterey jack cheese, coated with garlic and herb butter and served with marinara sauce. You could basically call them deconstructed pizza twists, and that would sound and taste just as good as these did.

I kept the twist theme going with my main course, which was the Pork Mac & Cheese (get it? the macaroni noodles are twisted!). This meant that the mac, which was cheesed up with a smokey gouda bechamel sauce, was topped with smoked pork shoulder, which was then topped with tangy BBQ sauce, kind of like an inception situation. And while the portions were impressive, to be honest, my first bite was disappointing. The bit of pork shoulder that I got was dry and the mac and cheese wasn’t creamy at all. But as I dug in, I realized that the creaminess had settled towards the bottom of the bowl and just needed my assistance for proper dispersion, while the pork shoulder was plenty juicy on the interior. My theory is that the dish was simply plated a little too quickly compared to my eating companions and spent a little too long under the heat lamp or elsewhere. It’s situations like these in which I wish we didn’t just wait for all food to be ready to be served. Alas, this is America, and for some reason this is a custom that lives in.

But I digress. Once I got into the thick of my meal, it was super delicious. It combined basically everything you need to survive – meat, cheese and carbs – and did so well, at least after a bit of stirring. It’s definitely a place I would recommend for someone looking to get smoked up in Northern Michigan.

At 8 miles around, Mackinac Island is known for a few things. A beautiful hotel, horses, bikes and even some food. That food is fudge, so I’ll not bother with writing about how Murray’s Fudge is the best, but the island is not without other restaurants catering to the throngs of tourists that make their way and need something to eat. On this visit, we left the main drag and found Ice House BBQ.

We started things off with an order of their Crunchy Deviled Eggs because apparently deviled eggs are what my wife craves when she is pregnant. Unlike normal deviled eggs, these are coated in panko crumbs and fried before getting the yolky mixture back in the whites. They were certainly tasty and nice twist on the usual deviled eggs, with the crunch of the crumbs almost making up for the lack of crunchy bacon.

For my main course, I ordered the Baby Back Ribs. They were said to be dry rubbed and slow smoked, and came with two sides and corn bread. I picked mac and cheese for my side and got potato salad so my wife could enjoy it. The ribs came out pre-sliced, which was certainly surprising. But this didn’t stop me from digging in. These wings weren’t fall off the bone, but instead seemed to adhere to the bite mark method of smoking. The flavor was pretty decent, but not exactly something special. On the other hand, I could really appreciate the char on the outside of the ribs and the flavor it brought. The mac and cheese was pretty solid, and made for a nice accompaniment.

Ice House didn’t exactly serve up the finest BBQ in the world, but it was unquestionably a solid choice for a meal on an island made for tourists.