Scottsdale85255
I have a hard time driving by burger places regularly without paying a visit. And yet, Lush Burger in Scottsdale evaded my belly for too long. This would have to be remedied and so I made my way there. I was amused by the naming of the burgers on the menu, ranging from Jay Does ‘Shrooms to Hello….?!?! Can Anyone Get Me A Bacon Cheeseburger Around Here?!? with amazingly lengthy descriptions.
Scottsdale goes on forever. I mean, like, you drive north and north and north and you think you’re in Flagstaff but you’r still not even at the end of Scottsdale. Somewhere up there is Local Bistro, which recently was named one of the 25 Best Burgers in Phoenix. Thus, while the menu had some intriguing options, I knew the burger had to be mine.
It’s not hard to appreciate a burger. And like many fine restaurants before it, The Herb Box in Scottsdale’s DC Ranch made the wise decision to include a burger on its menu surrounded by dishes like steak and free-range chicken. Often, the burger represents a cheaper alternative, but with the burger running $17 at The Herb Box one could hardly be called cheap for ordering it.
Green hatch chiles may be known as a New Mexican thing, but they are unquestionably popular in the Phoenix area as well. Case in point – Jalapeno Inferno. Despite the name, the restaurant is totally willing to bring in other peppers and the deliver on this with their annual Hatch Chile Harvest, in which they bring in hatch chiles from New Mexico and incorporate them into some special dishes until they run out. Unlike the green chiles in a can, these carry some burn.
The word “princess” does not exactly evoke words like “affordable,” down to earth” or “reasonable.” So, when I found out we were going out for Mexican food at a place called La Hacienda at the Fairmount Scottsdale Princess Hotel, I braced for the worse in terms of how expensive the meal would be. I truly just can’t understand the purpose of expensive Mexican food unless the place is blazing new trails. I hoped that La Hacienda would do just that.
Persian food is a special type of Middle Eastern food, and thus I was very excited to learn that Scottsdale has its own Persian restaurant, appropriately named the Persian Room, because it’s basically one big room. With Persian food. And like any Persian restaurant worth its salt, its menu was vast and filled with all sorts of meats and rice. Essentially it was the kind of place that was made for an unvegan.
While Phoenix has Pizzeria Bianco, it isn’t exactly a city known for its pizza. This may be because pizza isn’t exactly what you crave on a super-hot day, yet Phoenix has managed to import Chicago-style deep dish through Oregano’s and New York style pizza with Grimaldi’s. Grimaldi’s does coal brick oven pizza and actually started out in New York so I was expecting it to be pretty good.