After my first round of golf of the year (which brought down my handicap, surprisingly) at the Western Skies Golf Club in Gilbert, Arizona, our foursome settled down on the patio at Mulligan’s to share a pitcher of Bud Light. I know.
Mulligan’s is branded as the neighborhood bar & grill, it is a typical 19th hole. Nothing fancy, but it still has 14 HDTV’s, which were broadcasting either the PyeongChang Olympics or the Honda Classic golf tournament, where Tiger Woods seemed to be the only player the camera could find on the course.
The patio is overlooking the practice facility, which is too bad because #1 features a nice water fountain.
I was hungry after the round, so I picked up a menu. It featured the typical after-golf fare, with a Southwestern twist: chicken wings, nachos, short rib tacos, burgers, hot dog, etc…
The Cubano sandwich looked interesting, but I felt a little far from Cuba. I opted for the Green Chile Mac ($9).
It came quickly and looked appetizing.
Cavatappi is type of macaroni – and also Italian for corkscrew. It is hollow, of course, and longer than your usual macaroni noodle. It was a great choice, was cooked perfectly to aldente and therefore had an enjoyable chew to it.
The cheese sauce was, flavourwise, delicious. It is clearly home made, with green chile, as per the name. It had a nice smokiness to it and a hint of spice too. Still, I added a good helping of Cholula Original Hot Sauce – as one does. The sauce was, however, a little too runny – I like my cheese sauce thicker.
The Mac was topped with Cotija, which is a salty Mexican cheese, dry and firm and is often used crumbled or grated as a topping. Here, it was a little lost.
The dish was garnished with a scoop of fresh and zesty Pico de Gallo and two slices of bacon. If it made the dish look good, bacon as a garnish is not as good as when embedded with the Mac N’ Cheese. It wasn’t, also, super warm. But it was good quality bacon, and was nicely crispy. Perhaps I should have crumbled it on top of the Mac.
Finally: the portion was a little on the small side. I was left wanting more.
But don’t get me wrong. Flavourwise, this dish was pretty good overall. It was interesting and far from being bland. I engulfed it all, quickly. I didn’t regret my choice – even though Bruce’s Par 3 Burger looked pretty good – and his french fries were crispy and quite good.
I ‘m just nitpicking. But hoping for a mulligan.