‘Arizona’
There’s something about state fairs that brings out the best America has to offer in terms of food creativity. Screw molecular gastronomy, I want to know what the latest in fried, bacon-wrapped and Flaming Hot Cheetos is in the world. And while the Arizona State Fair isn’t known as well as some others, there was still room for some interesting bites. One thing I didn’t bite, by the way, was a turkey leg, because, well, booooring.
My lack of any sort of need for dessert has been pretty well-chronicled on this blog by now. Yet, there is one dessert that I have a hard time passing up and that dessert is pie. So, when I found out that Arizona’s best pies were on the way to Prescott before taking a quick trip to, uh, Prescott, I knew we had to make a stop at Rock Springs Cafe in Black Canyon City.
One thing that will make the transition from Pasadena to Phoenix doable is the fact that La Grande Orange and its family of restaurants originated there. There’s no Luggage Room yet, but hopefully some day…
Nonetheless, there is a spot called Chelsea’s Kitchen that I hoped would please me and ease me. The menu even sported the same font and design as the aforementioned restaurants, almost as though to get me excited about Chelsea’s Kitchen.
Breweries are the best, right? And they typically have awesome food. That’s why I was pretty excited to find out Phoenix was getting a new brewery called Helio Basin and tried to make my way there at the first opportunity. Plus, it didn’t hurt that I had a connection at the place and wanted to show some support.
As a good unvegan, I pretty much refuse to eat at True Food. I say that having paid them a visit before, and knowing nothing good could come of a repeat. Thus, when I found out we had lunch plans at True Food in Scottsdale Quarter I immediately made moves to incite a revolution and head to Zinburger instead. It was successful enough to get a buddy to join me and so it began.
When you name a restaurant Grassroots, you have to assume that meat lovers will be fearful. Aside from awesome 60s music, the name evokes a hippy dippy vegan spot. Yet, it is anything but. Sure, this Scottsdale spot caters to the veggie-loving crowd, but it caters to unvegans no less so. Plus, let’s not forget that it does harken to the 60s music crowd.
In a land of perpetual drought (Arizona), there is a place that dares put cucumber slices in its water, thus ruining its precious resource. That place is O.H.S.O. in Arcadia, Scottsdale and while scholars maintain that the meaning behind O.H.S.O. was lost thousands of years ago, today it means a few things. One is biking, another is dogs, yet another is brewery and finally it also represents brunch.
Sedona isn’t exactly a fancy-pants place. It’s more for new agers and outdoorsy people than those who prefer to put on a suit and tie every day. So when we told a couple different people we were celebrating our marriage up there, they all suggested eating at Cucina Rustica in the Village of Oak Creek, which was apparently the place to go for such things. As evidenced by its name, Cucina Rustica is an Italian place with a fair variety of options at slightly pricey, but mostly reasonable prices considering the place is for tourists.
Pretty much since I first started visiting my fiancee’s parents in Carefree, I’ve had Brisam’s and their supposedly amazing burger pointed out to me on nearly every trip through Cave Creek. Finally, I had enough and demanded we go so I could check out the burger for myself.
Brisam’s is essentially a sports bar and things probably get pretty crowded at night, but we ended up going for lunch and got a quick seat and a quick look at the menu. While their signature Brisam’s Burger probably attracts the most eaters, I couldn’t get into it due to the pile of mushrooms it claimed to have. Instead, I opted for the Blackened Burger, which had some Cajun-style spices and was topped with blue cheese. It came with lettuce, tomato and onion on the side to add to the burger, but I told the waitress that they didn’t need to waste those veggies on me. On the side I had a choice of a couple salads, cole slaw and fries and went with the obvious choice of salad. Err…I mean fries.
Friends, Romans, unvegans…what is true food to you? Is it gluten-free? Is it meaty? Is it kale? The answer is likely all of the above, because true food is what you make of it. Yet, a growing restaurant chain is trying to change all that. Calling itself True Food, it already has an air of pretension about itself. True Food tries to follow Dr. Weil’s anti-inflammatory diet, which actually isn’t as bad as it sounds. Yes, it mistakenly loads a ton of vegetables into foods, but at least the menu at True Food had some remotely meaty options, even a Bison Burger.