Mack Daddy's

I ate at Mack Daddy's for lunch today. It's an interesting little restaurant on 32nd near Indian School. They focus on lean meats and veggies, and, according to their website you'll find "No salt, No sugar, No white flour" in their dishes. I had looked at their menu on-line (http://www.mackdaddystogo.com) and had decided that the Crispy # 7 sounded good. I ordered a 1/2 order, and the person behind the cash register informed me that it would take about 20 minutes to prepare. But she also assured me that it was very good, so I paid for my lunch ($7.57 after tax, no drink) and left to go fill my car up with gas, since I had planned on doing that after I ate anyway.

When I returned to Mack Daddy's I took a seat in the small dining room. I noticed interesting verbiage on the small table sign that announced the week's specials, indicating that customers (excuse me, "guests") were not to tip. This is probably not a big loss in revenue since most of their business seems to be to-go. After getting a glass of ice water, and waiting a few more minutes, out came my Crispy # 7. Since it was a 1/2 order it had two chicken thighs, but was accompanied by a generous helping of brussel sprouts, broccoli, and green beans. (And I mean generous.) The chicken was juicy (hooray for thighs instead of dried out breasts!) and with the herbs that had been stuffed under the skin it didn't lack for any flavor.

While I don't eat a high-salt diet, I was worried about how much flavor the meal would actually have without any salt at all. The chicken thighs proved to be wonderful - something I could eat every day. The veggies (all of which I like in general) were not quite as good. The char on the brussel sprouts gave them more flavor, and the broccoli and green beans were good, but without salt they seemed to be lacking to me. Now granted, the first few bites of the veggies were tasty, but there were a lot of them, so by the end I wasn't salivating like while I was finishing off the chicken. However, that seems to be how Mack Newton believes you should eat - a reasonable amount of lean protein and lots of veggies. And I can't say that I disagree with that, as I was completely full and satisfied after my lunch. But did it stay with me? I'll update this post later to let you know.

Part of the reason for my choice was price. At $7, it was the cheapest item on the menu, excluding drinks or individual sides. The rest of the basic menu goes on up to $23, with the "build your own" section topping out at $37 for a 16oz bone-in ribeye. A number of the items wouldn't be too expensive if my wife and I split them, something we may try one evening, as they claim that with their special to-go packaging the meal will remain hot for an hour.

I'll definitely be back to Mack Daddy's, and I'm going to snitch some of their herb combinations for my own cooking at home. :)

Update: It's now been about 5 hours since I began my meal at Mack Daddy's. While my stomach's not really hungry, neither is it happy. I'm not nauseous or anything, but I suspect that my system was not prepared to try and digest so much broccoli and brussel sprouts. So unless I start eating better to where my stomach is more prepared for the cruciferous onslaught, I may consider bringing the Beano next time...

History in the future

When we moved back to AZ last year (I'm from Tucson, my wife is from Oahu, and we met in OK...but that's another story) we started a written log of restaurants. We'll be transcribing that from the paper to the blog soon. Unfortunately that log has yet to be unpacked since we moved, so that history may have to wait until it is rediscovered among the myriad of boxes in our house.