BUFFALO WILD WINGS

Where: Buffalo Wilds Wings, 92 N 1200 E, American Fork

Who Went: Owen and Chelsey

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: Huckleberry Lemonade, Triple Threat Nachos, 15-piece wings with Hot Sauce and Honey BBQ

What It Cost: $38.32 (including tip)

What We Thought: 

Okay, a bit of a disclaimer: I went into Buffalo Wild Wings having the lowest of low expectations for the food and service and everything.

Another disclaimer: I love March Madness. A lot. #favoritetimeoftheyear

So, like crazy people, we decided to go to this restaurant on a Saturday night around 7:30 during March Madness season. Obviously, I was expecting like a 2 hour wait or something, so when the hostess told me it would be 30 minutes, I was pleasantly surprised. We took our little pager with us to Walgreens across the street, bought some nail polish, sat in our car for a bit, and then were buzzed in. 30 minutes on a Saturday night during one of the most popular sports seasons? Not too bad in my opinion.

We started out with nachos that were actually supposed to be a meal I am pretty sure -- don't judge. These were called the triple threat nachos -- on one side, it was regular taco nachos, in the middle, there was buffalo chicken and blue cheese nachos, and the opposite side was nachos with pulled pork. Woof. These were seriously intense! The flavors probably went from our least favorite to most -- the pulled pork was actually pretty good, and the regular tacos were only meh. But altogether, and pretty great thing to snack on while watching the game! The cheese was definitely your typical nacho cheese (as opposed to like, you know, real cheese), but it was a pretty fun, and definitely a good value. We put a regular sized ketchup bottle in the background as a size comparison for you!!

Okay, okay, now onto the real business -- da WINGZ. When we started the meal, we told them that we had never been there before, and they offered to bring out a little sampler of the different wing sauces, that we could sample with french fries. Fun! And a great way to try out some of their more unique flavor choices :) We are boring, so we went with regular hot wings and honey BBQ. And um yeah, they were pretty dang good. Not Nicolitalia's good, but definitely at least Winger's good, and good enough that I would go there again! The 15 piece wings was PLENTY and I felt like it was a pretty decent value for the price - we definitely took some home (dinner tonight?) A lot of people have complained about the service at this location, but we must have had really great luck - we were checked on plenty of times, our food came out quickly, and our server even asked if we wanted another refill of the lemonade to go on our way out!

What You Should Do: Since I love March Madness, and they had all three games going at the same time (plus a Nadal tennis match -- bonus!!), I had a great time at Buffalo Wild Wings. It is a lot of fun to go for a big game, since people realllly get into the game, and they have more screens than I've ever seen, so you definitely won't miss a thing haha. The food is not amazing, but it is pretty good, decently priced, and wings are just delicious, okay? If you don't have somewhere to watch the games this week, you should definitely give BWW a try!

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Chick-fil-A

Where: Chick-fil-A, 28 South State, Salt Lake City (multiple locations, including American Fork) 

Who Went: Chelsey & Owen

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: Spicy Chicken Sandwich and Chicken Nuggets

What It Cost: 

What We Thought: $7.38

I've never been to Chick-fil-A, but it seems to be one of those Utah favorites (like Cafe Rio) that everyone seems to love but no one seems to be able to explain. "Their nuggets are just...so good!!!" I've heard tons of people say, so I needed to find out for myself what all this chicken madness was about. 

Owen was in a spicy mood, so he went for the spicy chicken sandwich. We originally tried their food at the food court at City Creek center, so their menu wasn't the most detailed and we didn't have time to ask about all the sandwich specifics. But we definitely weren't expecting to find this inside....

A hunk of fried meat and two sad pickles?? Really? For a sandwich that cost almost $5, I was at least hoping for a little frill of lettuce and tomatoes, maybe some sauce? Nope. This sandwich was as dry as a Utah winter, and was certainly no better (and much less interesting) than a spicy chicken sandwich at Wendy's. We could have paid more and upgraded for a more well-rounded sandwich apparently, but I didn't feel like nearly doubling the price of my sandwich for what I already expected to come.

Chick-fil-A is known for their special sauces, so of course we had to try them all. We got the buffalo sauce, honey mustard, barbecue sauce, and house special sauce. The first three were all about what you'd expect, nothing too special. And I'm pretty sure the house sauce is just honey mustard sauce mixed with mayonnaise or something to make it creamier. It was good, but would I ever go there just for the sauce? No.

Behold, the famed and beloved chicken nuggets. There are probably hundreds of copycat recipes on Pinterest for this, with ingredients ranging from pickle juice to paprika, so I figured they were kind of a big deal. And while they were certainly more tender and flavorful than your typical take-out chicken nuggets, they just didn't do it for me!

What You Should Do: Chick-fil-A seems to have a really popular following out there, so I'm probably going to be hated for this, but I wouldn't recommend going out of your way for this. To me, their food wasn't much better than any other more-accessible fast food joint, and it was much more overpriced for the sad food we received! Maybe I just need to eat there more often to get the Chick-fil-A craze, but I think I'll save my money and time.

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Shakey's Pizza Parlor

Where: Shakey's Pizza Parlor, 496 N 900 W, American Fork

Who Went: Chelsey, Owen, and all Owen's family

Number of Visits: 1

What We Ordered: "Bunch of Lunch Buffet"

What It Cost: ~$8.00/person (for lunch)

What We Thought: 


After experiencing (and loving) the buffet pizzas of Pizza Pie Café, we were excited to try this new pizza buffet restaurant with Owen's family in American Fork. I really need to stop getting my hopes up so high for every place we go to...

It was surprisingly busy, so we first sought out a place to sit while we waited for the line to go down a little bit. Then we got in the buffet line and were presented first with pasta options. This is the secret of buffets -- fill you up and fill up your plate first with cheap pasta. Then they had some other choices - "mojos" which were like big steak fries, macaroni and cheese, salad, these little garlic bread things (best part of the meal), and then finally what we came for. The pizza. Yay for carbs, carbs, and more carbs.

The pizza itself was a huge disappointment, especially since it was the "main highlight" of the buffet. The pizzas were relatively small in size, and the crust was horrible! Hard and dry, it was like eating canned sauce on a piece of cardboard. They were skimpy with the toppings, and there were only 4 choices out a time while we were there, a huge lack in variety for a "pizza buffet." If you are vegetarian, like Owen's brother Jarom, you'll pretty much be stuck with cheese - only 1 veggie pizza came out while we were there, and it's a race to get a slice. The only pizza that was somewhat tolerable was the buffalo chicken pizza, probably because the buffalo sauce actually gave it some flavor.

What You Should Do: Don't go here. There are many other better choices for pizza buffets in the area for the same price (even Pizza Factory is doing a lunch buffet special now), and you will be so much better off avoiding this inflexible and flavorless pizza.

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