August 25, 2003

A.O.F. TOUR STOP NO. 8



The ball drop on the gastronomic roulette wheel that is The Asses of Fire Tour landed squarely on The Dogwater Cafe on West Hillsborough Avenue in Tampa.



This spot held promise, if only because of the sports pub's unique canine theme and resulting motto: We treat you like the dog you are.

Circa-1991 Andrew "Dice" Clay-isms notwithstanding, it seemed cool at first to consider eating chicken wings out of the pub's customary dog bowl serving trays. But after a while, and with very little dog-like at the bar except the waitress (did I say that out loud?) uniforms with the paw prints on the ass (oh, okay, that's better), the dog bowls seemed like a weak affectation. Oh, and the sign for the men's room read, "Pointers." How subtle. I'm surprised it didn't read "Humpers."

Bottom line: If I want to feel like a dog, I'll do the all-you-can-cram meatloaf buffet at Buddy Freddy's. Or go hit on a Hooter's waitress after three pitchers of beer.



As per the aforementioned wings, the heat level for ordering included honey barbeque, medium, hot and "Cujo." We split 10 of the honey, 10 of the hot and 10 Cujo.

As for taste, they were... eh. Not bad, but not great. They had a nice smoke flavor like they had been cooked on a grill instead of fried within an inch of their little chicken lives.

As for heat, they didn't come close to the Brewing Company's Hellfire Wings, but they did have a little zip in them. And of the various flavored wings we've tried (garlic, etc.), the honey barbecue were pretty good. Negative points were accrued, however, for the weak bleu cheese and celery portions and the crap songs someone kept playing on the jukebox. No lie, someone played what had to have been a 140-minute block of Yes. The song lasted longer than the band was together.



All in all it was a relatively successful jaunt. We didn't get killed getting there in a downpour. We didn't crash into anything in the horrendous West Tampa rush hour traffic. And there was no evidence that the mole on our waitress' upper lip had shed its exoskeleton in our food while she was busy chatting with friends and not serving us our wings, beverages and napkins.

Posted by Jeff at August 25, 2003 09:41 PM | TrackBack
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