Macaroni and cheese seems simple enough - the ingredients are listed in the name of the dish. However, as I have discovered over the last eight months, the varieties are endless.
Depending upon the pasta, cheese and toppings, it can have a gourmet, beer, Southern, Mexican or Texan spin. The dish goes with everything from bacon to lobster and truffles. Even the crust can vary - croutons or breadcrumbs can add exciting flavors, as well as a textural crunch, to the cheesy goodness.
At its core, two schools of macaroni-and-cheese philosophy exist: the artisanal, gorgonzola-gruyere-gouda kind and the one devoted to the blue box. This week's mac and cheese dish tips toward the box.
The Half Pint Pizza Pub, formerly Medi's, is a small, red sauce Italian pasta and pizza joint in Tacoma's Sixth Avenue neighborhood. Check that; it's a red sauce Italian pasta, pizza and craft beer joint. You can't miss the chalkboard proudly listing craft brews, including several local breweries. Half Pint's mac and cheese version fills a small, cast-iron skillet with small elbow noodles bathing in a bubbling, creamy Velveeta (a nearly 100-year-old Frankencheeese) and heavy whip sauce, freckled with tiny nubs of croutons. Two perfectly toasted garlic bread slices and a tiny cup of tangy marinara sauce were welcomed sidekicks. The small size makes a nice lunch.
Gooey and good, and no doubt artery clogging, may I suggest you can wash down this cheesy morsel with a pine-y and strongly bitter Breakside IPA, which, like all beers, is only $3 on Thursdays.
HALF PINT PIZZA PUB, 2710 Sixth Ave., Tacoma, 253.272.2531