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| - hThis is an extremely biased review. After all, I've been coming to Tricks for more than a decade and I've gotten to the point in my life that I gauge the people I may want to spend time with on a little litmus test of my own invention. I will not divulge what the other items on my test are, just in case you're reading this and want to be my friend. Or enemy. Frankly, I don't give a shit. But if you don't like Tricks, you're out. The wine tastings, especially the annual Wine Fiesta, are legendary in Phoenix, the bar has more ambience than Tempeans know what to do with and the menu, especially now with the newly cooked up HOT 46 happy hour items, are a gourmand's wet dream. You can't go wrong with food at Tricks.
Up until recently, if one was hungry on a Friday night, say around 1030, your choices were limited to Casey Moore's (another fabulous drinkery and eatery but of a different ilk than Tricks), a couple of gas inducing Mexican treats at Taco Bell or any of the other something-Berto's dotted around the valley or delivery from pizza pie people. A few weeks ago, after lamenting this lack of eats at this time on the weekends, I nursed on my third or fifth Guinness while sitting under the trees (growing up through the bar, right overhead) of this sublime bar. The bartender, Gavin, a bloke who during the day can also suit you up in the finest garments for any occasion from a bris to a board meeting, slid the HOT 46 menu in front of me. Served Monday thru Saturday from 4 to 6 PM and on Friday and Saturday from 10 to midnite, this delectable and slight menu will sate the hunger roiling inside your belly. I tried all six items and found nary a clunker in the bunch.
Homemade Artisan Grilled Cheese with Roasted Garlic Tomato Basil Soup - much better than your drunken special made at 240 AM, post-bar with neon-yellow American cheese and penicillin-hosting white bread. It's fine, people, hits the spot perfectly with a stout.
Flatbread Pizza with Homemade Mozzarella, Fresh Tomato Pomodoro and Basil - finally, a fucking pizza that doesn't come out of my ass the next morning in essentially the same form it went in my mouth, all burny and greasy. A thin crust with dollops of mozzarella that will make you positively renounce your allegiance to lactose intolerance. Tolerate it, baby, and eat this pizza.
Herb Crusted Mac & Cheese with Southern Fried Drumettes and Smoked Chili Honey - after eating this three cheese delight (gruyere, cheddar and oaxaca) and sucking the marrow from these tiny, cute little drumettes with breading I wanted to kiss, I went home, took my boxes of mac and cheese from the grocery store and summarily shot them. Bad food needs to be executed. Good food, like this fine Tricks take on an old standard, needs to be given a medal.
Antipasto of Cerignola Olives, Cured Meats and Artisan Cheeses - this needs no explanation because it is a standard dish, and by that I do not mean to say it isn't exceptional, but you should recognize that a lovely plate like this is simple and comforting during the draining of a nice Malbec. I will say that the cheeses were fun, the olives divine and the salami, sliced thin, was amazingly mild, not too fatty or salty, and covered in a reduction of the sweetest sauce. I wanted to put it on my nipples and lift my breasts to my mouth and lick it off. Oh, wait, I don't have breasts, or prominent nipples, but I know from my time spent licking liquids from the prominent nipples of not-so-prominent women that this sauce would make even a nipple with an unnoticed, protruding stiff hair totally palatable. Great dish.
Thai Barbecue Grilled Quail Skewers with Fire Roasted Mango and Szechuan Peppercorn - how can you go wrong eating a pheasantly bird from a stick. This bird, known to move in short bursts, launched itself on to these long skewers just in time for my sixth Guinness and I thought I was playing matchmaker: quail, meet beer, meet stomach. Have fun. Nothing about mango and quail is conceivably related but hoo-boy did this one hit the spot. The bird melted down my esophagus. Fuck you, chicken, I've found my poultry. Now get back to the frozen food aisle and die again in a microwave.
Trio of Green Chile Veal Breast Tacos with Pumpkin Seed Crema, Pico de Gallo and Queso Oaxaca - fine, I ate a little innocent veal. And it felt so good. If you just showed a picture of this dish to the veal in his pen, he would gladly continue on his thankless path to the grocery store. Run a loop of my face in the vealhouse eating this sublime set of tacos and the little softie would smile at how happy he is going to make his human cousins. Pumpkin is, in my experience, becoming better every year I stomp around this terra firma. From pumpkin beers to roasted seeds to the standard pie to this Crema - pumpkin is dick.
So, that's it. The nicest outside bar I've been to anywhere and my five thousand characters are about to end.
EAT AT
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