Indian Fry Bread has a tragic, complicated history. Yet, it has also grown beyond that to shine a somewhat positive light on the Native Americans of the Southwest as the bread has made its way beyond the reservations. The Fry Bread Truck is proudly sling the bread around the Valley of the Sun with some interesting twists.
Kosher restaurants are a conundrum for me. I want to embrace them because of my Jewish heritage, but I also really want to mix dairy and meat, or throw in some bacon. But, Kosher restaurants have figured out a way to make the food palatable and I went to Kitchen18 in Scottsdale to find out just how palatable they could be.
Everybody just looooves the Fox Restaurant Group in Phoenix. But can there ever be too many Fox restaurants? I headed to The Greene House in Scottsdale’s Kierland Commons in my continuing quest to find out. The Greene House is a modern American restaurant showcasing things like salads, sandwiches, fish and chicken. As in most similar situations, my eyes went right for the burger.
I am a big fan of all you can eat Korean BBQ. After, what kind of a horrible person wouldn’t be a big fan of that? But, since moving to Phoenix I’m pretty much down for Korean in any way I can get it, even if I have to pay for individual dishes. Thus, when I had the chance to pay a visit to Gogi, a Korean spot in Chandler I jumped on it.
How many agaves are too many? 10, 100, 1000? Cien Agaves seems to have settled on 100 as the right number. And, people seemed so happy with that number of agaves at the Old Town Scottsdale location that they decided to open a second location in north Scottsdale, technically bringing the total to doscientos agaves. But whatever, I was there for Mexican beer and Mexican food, not Mexican math.
It’s really hard to say enough good things about pub food, but I’m about to say some more. Because for my last meal in Salem, I made my way to the Olde Main Street Pub in the hopes that this Irish place would have food fit for an unvegan. After a bunch of seafood, beef and pork, it was time to taste the what Salem had to offer from the poultry realm.
Boston is definitely known as a melting pot of a city. But I didn’t know the same could be said for Salem, a town much better known for witches than food.. That was, of course, until I made my way to Village Tavern. I figured it would be like a typical village tavern, but this one had a little something hidden up its sleeve.
Last week the Phoenix area hit 100 degrees for the first time this year and it was the fourth earliest date on record. Thus, one would think that the season for outdoor events would be coming to an end. One would be wrong, as this past weekend brought in the Scottsdale Culinary Fest and the Scottsdale Civic Center Mall, an outdoor Taste of Chicago-esque festival showcasing food from all over the area and of all types.
Some were household names with tons of locations around the Valley of the Sun, like Grimaldi’s and Zoe’s, but others seemed a bit more special and I sought them out (along with some booze, of course).
I’d been hearing murmurings of how great this place was for a while now, and its victory at Burger Battle 2018 further cemented my desire to get there. This burger wasn’t perfect, nor would I expect it to be in such a situation, but the combination of mozzarella, bacon, basil garlic aioli, balsamic reduction and a discarded tomato made me more eager to seek out the real deal.
Coffee shops have come a long way since the days of Friends and Seattle grunge. Now, they serve different teas, crazy concoctions and a bunch of quickie foods. And that’s just the chains. The indie spots take things a step further, like Brew Box in Salem, Massachusetts. And it’s not just hippy dippy and hipster stuff, they even had food fit for an unvegan like me.
Some time in the ’90s it became cool (kewl?) to replace the letter “S” with the letter “Z.” Finz in Salem, Massachusetts arrived at the tail end (get it?!) of that decade, so they still get a pass. And while the ambiance could not be further from the divey lunch that day, the them was the same – seafood.