Over in Old Town Scottsdale is a spot that has Scottsdale written all over it. It’s called Cowboy Ciao and is kind of a blend of the cowboy-ness of the area and the hoity-toity as well. After a quick look at the menu, I realized that with a few slight changes to the menu I would love to eat just about everything. That is, because just about everything had a hint of vegetable to please the “ciao” crowd in addition to the “cowboy” crowd.
Between my buddy and I we decided to split the Reuben Wishes He Was This Cool and Burger 2.0. The reuben was of the pastrami variety made from short rib and topped with a cabbage/shallot compote and “chipotle-ized” Russian dressing on grilled marble rye. We got it without the compote and it was nothing short of delicious, it even came with house-made chips. It was like the pastrami was made with crack, and was cut thick just how I like it.
The burger was almost as good, made from ground buffalo stuffed with duck confit and topped Irish cheddar, bacon jam, some sort of tomato stuff and smoked poblano aioli. It was served on an onion with fingerling potatoes on the side. We got this without those foolish potatoes, but were shocked to find arugula tainting the burger when it actually came out. I removed it as quickly as I could and got to work on the actual burger, which was quite good, but not nearly as special-tasting as the ingredients might have implied. It did, however, come with one of those snazzy mini bottles of Heinz, which please the Pittsburgh in me.
Overall, I was impressed by the blend of cowboy and ciao. It was oh so appropriate for the area and oh so good in my belly.
