There’s been a big gourmet burger craze taking over the country these past few years and Milwaukee has been no exception. When Stack’d Burger Bar opened a little over a year ago Milwaukee already had a pretty wide selection of great burger places thanks to places like Sobelman’s and AJ Bombers, but Stack’d certainly seems to be holding their own.
I’m a sucker for eggs on burgers (or eggs on anything for that matter) so when I visited Stack’d I went with the Hangover Stack. This burger includes fried onions, Nueske’s bacon, aged cheddar cheese, lettuce, tomato and a fried egg. I got mine on a pretzel bun as well, which I’d highly recommend not only here, but anywhere else that offers them. I also got a side of their “Twisted Mac ‘n Cheese” which I wasn’t a huge fan of because it kind of just tasted like something you could buy in a box at the grocery store, but the burger more than made up for it.
Stack’d also has a pretty decent beer and wine selection, but the really great thing about them is that they use only locally grown and raised ingredients from Milwaukee brands and Wisconsin co-ops. For as many good burger places as Milwaukee has I’m definitely excited to head back to Stack’d as soon as I can.
As soon as I saw Applebee’s new provolone-stuffed meatballs with fettuccine mentioned on one of those “unhealthiest new restaurant foods” lists I knew that it was one of those foods that I had to try as soon as possible. I mean, provolone cheese is great and meatballs are always delicious, so combining the two is pretty much a win-win situation.
I headed to Applebee’s for dinner one night recently and after enjoying an appetizer of mozzarella sticks (I wanted to stick with a “foods stuffed with cheese” theme for the night) I was finally presented with my plate of stuffed meatballs and fettuccine. My first thought was that they should really call this “fettuccine with provolone-stuffed meatballs” and not the other way around, because all this dish comes with are three meatballs that are only slightly larger than golf balls. Don’t get me wrong, the meatballs were great, but I expected either a few more meatballs, slightly larger meatballs or both.
The fettuccine was alright, but nothing spectacular. It came with sauce and melted cheese on it, which was good, but kind of just tasted like something I cooked in my microwave at home. This is one of those meals where you can almost feel yourself getting more and more unhealthy with each bite, but I guess that should be expected when you’re eating a dish that contains 1,550 calories and 97 grams of fat.
Sobelman’s has long been known to have some of the best burgers in Milwaukee. Hell, the URL to their website is milwaukeesbestburgers.com, so with a gutsy name like that they better be good. I stopped by on a recent Friday night to try their Big SOB Burger, which consists of four 1/3 pound fresh Black Angus patties, three different cheeses (with 12 slices of cheese in total), bacon, grilled onions and diced jalapenos along with fries on the side.
My burger was cooked perfectly and was absolutely delicious. I also really loved the fresh butter roll that the burger was served on, so I was a little disappointed to learn that the rolls are baked exclusively for Sobelman’s, because I’d love to be able to buy the same kind of rolls and use them when I grill out at home.
I actually thought the Big SOB would be a little more difficult to finish, but I really had no problem at all. I honestly think I could have eaten two of them. Who knows though, the fact that it was so easy to eat could be a testament to just how good the burgers at Sobelman’s really are. I even ate the rest of the chicken wings that my buddy Chris ordered but couldn’t finish because he was too full to eat them all. Too full after eating his one patty burger…
Choosing which fast food restaurant to eat at each day on my lunch break can be quite a daunting task, especially with the multitude of choices I have near the office I work at. On one hand there’s McDonald’s and their always delicious (and reasonably priced) Dollar Menu. On the other hand there’s Wendy’s and their delicious 5-piece Crispy Chicken Nuggets. Then of course there’s always Taco Bell and their constantly changing menu always bringing something new to the table (pun intended).
On this fateful day I simply couldn’t choose just one, so I decided to hit up a few of my favorite lunch stops, get something from each of them and combine all that food into one delicious sandwich. It was on this day that the Fast Food Super Stack was born.
My first stop was at McDonald’s where I picked up a McDouble for a dollar. Next I headed to Wendy’s where for $1.29 I bought five chicken nuggets. After that it was off to Taco Bell where for $1.19 (even though their commercials claim it’s supposed to be 99 cents) I purchased their new Chicken Flatbread Sandwich. I have an entire hour for lunch and had only spent 15 minutes at this point, so I decided to make a final stop at Burger King where I purchased a Whopper, onion rings and a Diet Coke.
After receiving my Burger King order I sat down and started assembling my sandwich. I decided to use the McDouble and the Whopper as the top and bottom parts of the sandwich, and then put the Chicken Flatbread and Wendy’s nuggets in the middle. I was originally planning to eat my onion rings on the side, but figured that if I was going to do this I had to do it up big, so I threw those into the sandwich too. Since I no longer had any onion rings to eat on the side I also poured the ranch sauce that came with my Wendy’s nuggets and the ranch sauce that I got from Burger King onto the sandwich as well. This thing was a mess…
Taste-wise the sandwich was pretty good. The chipotle sauce in the Chicken Flatbread mixed perfectly with the ranch sauce from the chicken nuggets and onion rings, and the Whopper and McDouble added the perfect amount of ground beef to go with the chicken from the nuggets and flatbread.
When I got back to the office I went online and looked up the nutritional info for my newest sandwich creation. When all was said and done it clocked in at 2,170 calories and 133 grams of fat. The plus of me eating all this food though was that I got 83 grams of protein, and protein is good for you right?
Pink’s Hot Dogs has been a Hollywood staple since 1939. If you visit during lunch time or on a busy night you can expect to wait in a line that stretches down the block as people wait for their specialty dogs such as the “Three Dog Night” (three hot dogs wrapped in a giant tortilla, three slices of cheese, three slices of bacon, chili & onions), The “Martha Stewart Dog” (a 10″ long hot dog, relish, onions, bacon, chopped tomatoes, sauerkraut & sour cream), my personal favorite the “Ozzy Spicy Dog” (a spicy Polish dog, nacho cheese, American cheese, grilled onions, guacamole & chopped tomatoes) or maybe just one of their classic chili dogs.
I was planning a trip to Las Vegas in spring of 2007 and heard that Pink’s was planning on opening a location in the Planet Hollywood Hotel & Casino, so I was exited to try it out since I hadn’t been to the Hollywood location for a couple years. When I arrived in Vegas however I found out that Pink’s wasn’t open yet, but that it was “coming soon.” A trip back to Vegas in 2008 yielded similar results, as did another tip there in the spring of 2009.
This year however I was in Las Vegas yet again, (no wonder why I never seem to have any money) and was delighted to see that Pink’s had finally opened its doors in the fall of 2009. I love how casinos and hotels that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build can be finished in a year and a half, yet a small hot dog place can take almost twice that.
On my second day in Vegas I made the trek over to Pink’s and was happy to see that in addition to the classic menu from Pink’s Hollywood location they had some Las Vegas themed specialty hot dogs as well. I decided to go with the “Today Show Dog,” which featured two hot dogs in one bun, mustard, onions, chili, cheese & guacamole. As if that wasn’t already unhealthy enough I also topped mine with some mayonnaise. Their hot dogs were just as good as I remembered, but I’m not sure if they were necessarily worth the three year wait. Either way though, I’m sure Pink’s will make my list of places I stop at to eat each time I’m in Vegas.
There’s been a big gourmet burger craze taking over the country these past few years and Milwaukee has been no exception. When Stack’d Burger Bar opened a little over a year ago Milwaukee already had a pretty wide selection of great burger places thanks to places like Sobelman’s and AJ Bombers, but Stack’d certainly seems to be holding their own.
