It's my last restaurant on this Arizona visit - and it's to a BBQ joint. While Arizona isn't necessarily known for its BBQ, this restaurant has been voted the best in the area by the local newspaper.
Colt Grill is "a small group of BBQ smokehouses located in the coolest cities and towns of Northern Arizona. Each restaurant has a full bar and a menu entirely made from scratch, centered around smoked meats. We are female owned, family run, and believe in the value of hard work, personal responsibility and perseverance," according to the website.
The BBQ is smoked in giant steel smokers with hardwoods and selections include baby back ribs, brisket, chicken and pulled pork, plus burgers, tacos salads, corn bread, beans, fruit cobblers and whiskey brownies.
The dining room is fairly casual with music playing and folks generally having a good time. Pretty informal and generous with the whiffs of BBQ smoke.
You order at the bar at the front, and then the food is delivered to the table once it's ready. I ordered the pulled pork sandwich, which was topped with crispy COLT slaw and Kansas City Sauce. This was a good sandwich. It's maybe the 1,000th pulled pork sandwich I've ever had, but it was right there in the middle of the pack - some good smoke flavor, some decent quality meat and one of my fav BBQ sauce types.
To go along with the sandwich, I also had potato salad, mac & cheese and peach cobbler.
Everything here was solidly good, and any tweaks I would suggest are minimal. I'd love to see one wildly creative BBQ dish I've never seen before to turn up the innovation level. But, all-around crowd-pleasing good time.
Grade: B
"Make your own edible cookie dough bowl."
Has there ever been a more beautiful string of words assembled? Probably, but this one's pretty close.
Scoopwell's Dough Bar takes the well-known concept of assembling your own dish, but with a new medium: cookie dough. They do also offer ice cream, baked cookies and other treats.
Before I get too far into this, let's first start off by noting that, yes, the raw cookie dough is edible, as per their website.
Q: Is the dough safe to eat without baking?
A: Yes, it’s specifically made to be eaten straight from the mixing bowl. We utilize heat treated flour and pasteurized eggs to take the worry away.
Q: But I thought you couldn’t eat raw eggs?
A: Much like the heat treating process of the flour, the pasteurization process for eggs eliminates any potentially harmful bacteria so all the doughs are safe to enjoy without baking.
Once inside the playful & colorgul space, I went up to the bar to make my decisions on creating the perfect cookie dough bowl.
First step is deciding how many scoops of cookie dough you would like. then, decide on which flavors you would like to include: brownie batter, cookies and cream, chocolate chip, just dough, snickerdoodle, cake batter, peanut butter explosion, oatmeal chip, s'more, banana cream pie, Irish mint or white chocolate macadamia.
Finally, add toppings like: Rainbow Sprinkles, Chocolate Sprinkles, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Mini Reese's Pieces, Mini M&Ms; Chocolate Chips, Oreo, Kit Kat, White Chocolate Chips, Peanut Butter Chips, and Butterscotch Chips.
I mixed and matched without much strategy in mind. That may have been a mistake, because it ended up very sweet. But, I very much enjoy the concept and getting to try something a little bit different. I like cookie dough much better than actual chocolate chip cookies, so this was quite a delight.
Grade: A
Dapper & Stout takes coffee seriously.
"Espresso Drinks feature our locally roasted signature Ensemble Blend. The combination of four coffees from around the globe are masterfully selected and tailor roasted with espresso preparation in mind. The richness stems from Brazil & Ethiopa. The balanced, smooth flavor experience completes the roast with the addition of Costa Rican & Guatemalan beans."
This coffee shop is beautifully polished and feels very high-end. From the lighting and the finishes to the layout and bakery options, the space is refined while bordering on cocktail bar vibes.
They offer coffee drinks of all kinds, including: lattes, cappuccinos, macchiato, Americanos, cold brew, tea, mocha and more.
I ordered a large iced caramel latte. It was good and as expected. Not too sweet, a tad bitter, but fairly refreshing as well.
we also had a number of grab and go pastries that were already packaged. I found a croissant that looked pretty good, so I went for it.
The croissant was a bit too dry for my taste; maybe I should've known better with it being prepackaged.
The two together, though, made for a decent start to the day.
Grade: B
Listen, not every meal can be a glamorous night out. Sometimes, you want to eat well but not leave the house. This is precisely why delivery exists in my mind. And on this occasion, it was Yama Sushi House in Chandler, Arizona.
I went with these two:
Caterpillar Roll - crab mix, avocado and cucumber wrapped inside, topped with avocado and eel sauce
Godzilla Roll - crab mix deep-fried with yum sauce and eel sauce
Both were decent, but nothing mindblowing. The crab mixture could be a bit more flavorful, the fried part could be crisper, but the avocado was fresh and layered in a lovely way.
Grade: B
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