In the hotbed of food culture known as Palm Desert, California, we went off to dinner with my aunt and uncle, who were craving some Thai food. After some extensive searching using the newfangled interwebs, we found a place called Le Basil. Rather than being confined to Thai food, Le Basil expanded to another area of Southeast Asia and integrated Vietnamese food into their menu. Although this only covered 2 of the 11 sovereign nations of Southeast Asia, it was enough for Le Basil’s menu to claim Southeast Asian cuisine (come on, where’s the balut?).

Although I adhere strongly to my unvegan ideals, for the sake of togetherness and trying multiple things, I am sometimes willing to allow vegetables to make contact with my food. Le Basil was one of these places as my girlfriend and I decided to split two dishes. One of these was called the Le Basil Beef Massaman Curry (14.95) and the other was Pad See You (12.95). The curry was made with coconut milk, tamarind, potatoes, onions and roasted peanuts and although I would have ordered without onions, I knew they were necessary to keep said girlfriend happy. As for the Pad See You, this rice noodle dish was stir-fried with meat, egg, broccoli and a sweet soy sauce. We chose chicken as our meat and once again I would have ordered without broccoli, but opted not to for the sake of girlfriend happiness.

The noodles came out first and aside from the broccoli looked awesome. Fortunately the broccoli was in huge, gas-inducing stalks that were easy to avoid. The noodles themselves were deliciously wide and thin, yet easy to pick up for eating. I am no expert on Pad See You, so I am not exactly qualified to compare those of Le Basil to any others, but I found them to be damn good. The sweet soy sauce melded perfectly with the egg and chicken to create a unique blend of flavors that is definitely a nice break from the more typical Pad Thai.

As for the Massaman Curry, I was disturbed to find that in addition to onions, Le Basil had managed to sneak some red pepper into the curry. But once again, I saw that both the pepper and onions were easily avoided. Have I ever mentioned how awesome coconut milk is? I’m not sure that I have, but really it is awesome. I have yet to find a dish that coconut milk degrades. I’m pretty sure I would eat it on a burger if I could find a place to serve it. With the Massaman Curry, it was no different. The coconut milk provided a delicious balance to the spicy curry and made the cubes of beef taste just great. And of course, the peanuts were a nice touch.

Le Basil was a great little “Southeast Asian” restaurant in Palm Desert that I would definitely head back to. My only issue (had I been paying) would have been the price. In the grand scheme of food, 13-15 bucks isn’t a ton of money for a plate, but some of the best Thai food I’ve eaten has cost me less than 10 bucks. Again, it is a small complaint, because you don’t exactly expect good ethnic food in the desert of palm, but a complaint nonetheless. Either way, it is some good food and worth checking out for any lover of noodles or curry who happens to find their self in Palm Desert.

Since there appears to be no Outback Steakhouse in LA (seriously LA?!), the last time I was in Palm Desert I managed to convince my grandparents to take me to Outback. Of course, I have had Outback in the past, but not since I’ve been writing my glorious meat blog. I’ve never had a bad experience at Outback and I hoped this one would be no different.

The place was set up just like any other Outback and although there was a short wait, we were seated soon and ready to order some beef. Of the delicious-sounding steaks, the Outback Special looked especially tasty. This special cut of steak, that I think is a sirloin, comes in 7 or 9 ounce cuts. It also comes with a choice of two sides. I went with the larger of the cuts and then decided to load up on carbs for my sides. I chose both the garlic mashed potatoes and the dressed baked potato. I’m sure this meal was an accurate reflection of the typical Australian diet.

Soon enough, my food was ready. Although the mashed potatoes were absent at first, the waitress soon brought them out to join the rest of my meat and potatoes. The steak looked just as delicious as I remembered and I salivated as I cut it open. It was cooked to a perfect medium and was longing to be in my mouth. When I ate, it was just as I remembered. This cut isn’t nearly as tender as a filet, but sometimes it’s nice when a steak needs a couple bites before swallowing. I’m not saying it was chewy, but it was just as I wanted it to be. The seasoning on the steak was nice, but could’ve used a bit less salt. Nonetheless, this steak definitely hit the spot. lovehub.ch

The sides were a pretty good complement to the steak although the skin of the baked potato added to the excessive sodium intake. I avoided the skin and tore apart the potato from the inside. The mashed potatoes were just as good as the baked potato, but without the need to deal with extra salt on the skin.

Although not a fancy place, Outback Steakhouse delivers a very reliable and modestly priced steak. The fancy steakhouses can be nice every once in a while, but places like Outback that stick to the meat-and-potatoes roots are always welcome for my meals.

For a little dinner break on the way back from Arizona, we stopped in Rancho Mirage to hit up the grandparents for a meal. They thought Chinese food sounded good, so we headed to Lotus Chinese Restaurant to see what they had to offer. The place was pretty full when we arrived, so I assumed it must be pretty good despite being in the middle of a desert. We grabbed our seats and got a look at the menu, which was pretty typical American Chinese fare.

After a short perusal, I decided to get the kung pao chicken. This is definitely an unvegan favorite that rarely seems to have vegetables. This one was a little unique, having water chestnuts in it, which I’ve always thought were awesome (despite not actually being a nut).

Unfortunately, rather than add a new dimension to this dish, these water chestnuts proved to be the undoing of my dinner. Hot damn there were a lot of them. So many, in fact, that they overwhelmed every other ingredient in this dish by at least 2-1. Not only that, the water chestnuts and chicken were cut so similarly it was hard to tell the difference just by looking. I found myself digging for chicken for lengthy periods of time and still coming up shorthanded. Then when I did actually find chicken, I was still disappointed because the sauce just wasn’t very good. It wasn’t very spicy and really had very little flavor aside from some saltiness.

Oh well, I’ve never really thought I could get good Chinese food in the desert and Lotus certainly has not changed my mind.

EDIT: Sadly, this location is extinct, but there are still other Elephant Bars living elsewhere.

As a child of 13, I went to the Elephant Bar in Palm Desert and loved the perpetually moving straw fans on the ceiling. Of course, that was all it took for me to like a restaurant at the age of 13. Now things are a little different. Those fans still cater to my easily distracted mind, but my taste buds require something more. A quick look at the menu made me feel like the Elephant Bar was suffering from mild schizophrenia. While most of the menu was filled with American fare, for some reason a whole page was devoted to Asian stir-fry-esque meals. This threw me off and made me feel like this place wasn’t made for Asian food. I flipped back to the American comfort zone and found what I wanted.

This was their Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger. It came with the usual unsightly veggies I have come to expect from a burger, so I ordered it without. I noticed that another burger on the menu came with a spicy ketchup, so I asked if they could put that on the burger and they said they could. The waiter also informed me that although this ketchup was good, it did not belong with fries. I listened, but it did pique my curiosity.

When the burger was ready, the spicy ketchup came on the side. My curiosity got the best of me and I tried a fry in it. He was right, it was no good. The combination wasn’t exactly bad, but the fries were simply better in regular ketchup. This was cool with me, so I tested out the burger with it. It was pretty good and basic. It had come cooked medium well, which I usually wouldn’t have gotten. The burger was a little overdone and lost out on some flavor because of it. The bun was actually quite good and well-toasted, which made me think about all the fancy burger buns that restaurants try to toss at you, while a bun like Elephant Bar’s does a great job.

Ultimately, the Ultimate Bacon Cheeseburger did a pretty good job. I didn’t expect the burger to be very good, but the spicy ketchup certainly helped the thing out. I wouldn’t call this burger ultimate, but it was certainly adequate and helped me realize that the Elephant Bar isn’t just some gimmicky restaurant with fans on the ceiling.

EDIT: This Mimi’s is gone, but not forgotten. Also, there are other Mimi’s that can drop you an early bird special.

Recently I paid a visit to the desert, aka Rancho Mirage, to visit my grandparents. For dinner one night we headed to Mimi’s Cafe, which is apparently a chain that I had never heard of and was very appropriate for a meal with the grandparents. This was all new to me, though, so I was excited to see an entirely new menu of good food. It was obviously prepared with the health-conscious in mind, since it had its own little healthy section. Some of this section was even unvegan, but I was not in the mood for health. Instead, I found my way to their seasonal menu and their Brie Chicken.

This was some chicken breast with melted brie and served with vegetables and a choice of potato. Being the difficult, yet correct person that I am, I asked if I could sub something in place of the seasonal vegetables. The only option was another potato, so I ended up ordering my chicken with a load of carbs known as french fries and mashed potatoes.

The chicken came pretty quickly, but was missing the mashed potatoes. I let the waitress know and she dashed back to the kitchen to bring me back a full plate of mashed taters. Now I was ready to attack. The chicken was pretty tasty, but a little dry. The brie was a nice touch for flavor, but it kind of seemed like a couple slices of brie had been tossed on the chicken as a sort of afterthought. Fries and mashed potatoes were standard, in a good way.

Mimi’s seemed to be a pretty reliable place for food. It’s not going to bring anything to the table that hasn’t been done before, but it does a good job of serving some decent, standard food.

One of the nights that I was visiting my grandparents in Rancho Mirage, we went to a restaurant called Thai Smile. There was a 20 minute wait, but I was assured that it would be worth it. Besides, I really had nothing better to do.

While waiting, we checked out the menu so we could order as soon as we got our table. It really took me a long time to decide what to order because the Chicken Spicy Peanut Sauce looked great except that it had green beans and peppers, while I could just create my own dish, but none of the customizable items looked as good as the chicken dish.

When we did eventually take our seats, I asked the waiter if I could get the Chicken

Spicy Peanut Sauce without the vegetables and he told me they couldn’t, because it was already mixed together. This was disheartening, but I took the chance anyway, hoping the vegetables would be big enough to avoid. My risk paid off, and when my food arrived I found it pretty easy to eat without the vegetables.

The chicken tasted really good and had just enough spice in it to make my nose run and my forehead sweat, but didn’t sacrifice any of the peanut flavor to do so.

Through my sweat and semi-runny nose, Thai Smile’s food really did make me smile. I would definitely go back next time I’m in Rancho.

While visiting my grandparents in Rancho Mirage, they took me to a great little breakfast place called Palms Cafe in Palm Desert. Knowing my grandparents would never lead me astray, I was pretty excited.

We took a seat outside and perused the menu. As most cafes go, they had a pretty good collection of food, but I sought out my favorite breakfast food, the omelet. Since I don’t think I had ever seen turkey offered in an omelet before, I ordered one with turkey and cheese. I also got some bacon on the side.

It came out pretty quickly and was one of the most interesting omelets I’ve ever seen. It almost looked like a breakfast burrito aside from the yellowish color the eggs produced. Inside, it was still similar to a burrito, with the ingredients kind of tossed in instead of cooked into the egg. This was actually pretty nice and a unique way of making an omelet. The turkey was good, although a bit salty and in chunks, rather than slices, which was also a nice change.

The best part, though, was the bacon. It was thick-cut and really crispy. It was so thick, actually, that it didn’t curl up like bacon seems to do when it gets really crispy.

I would definitely recommend the Palms Cafe for anyone looking for a good breakfast in Palms Springs. It offers a nice twist on the norm, but delivers it pretty well.