EDIT: This location is a goner, but you can still find Coney Grills in Tempe and Phoenix.

My wise wife once said, “You can take the man out of Detroit, but you can’t take the Detroit out of the man.” When I was living in LA, one of the most exciting things to happen was the opening of Coney Dog, a Detroit-style chili dog spot. Due to probably a number of circumstances, that business failed. In Phoenix, however, a spot called Detroit Coney Grill seems to have made all the right decisions because it now has THREE locations in the area. And for some reason the Tempe location closes at 7:00, so I made my way out to Mesa to try it out for myself.

I found it in the Superstition Springs Center, which is a mall, because everything here is a mall. But unexpectedly it was part of a food court and not a sit down dining situation like most coneys in the Detroit area.  Nonetheless, the menu had everything Detroiter could ask for. I went for my usual, a loose burger, a coney dog and a side of cheese fries. I ordered the burger and dog without mustard and onions because they are stupid, and looked forward to seeing how the chili would turn out.

Everything came out in perfect order. The loose burger was fully loaded with ground beef way beyond expectations, and the chili on it was as good as I could have hoped. The coney dog was strangely easy to eat with my hands, as opposed to with a fork and knife, but that was nothing to complain about. After all, the dog was snappy and while I can’t confirm if it was actually Koegel’s hot dog, it served its purpose just fine. Finally, the cheese fries were above and beyond my expectations. Detroit Coney Grill nailed the chunkiness of the cheese that is somehow the trademark of cheese fries at coneys around Detroit.

As you can probably tell, the Detroit Coney Grill made me a happy man. Probably what I loved best was that they kept things simple. There was no attempt to re-imagine items or put a spin on classics. This place excelled in its simplistic execution and is a whole lot cheaper and easier to get to than a flight to Detroit.

For a pre-movie dinner, I found myself at the Century City food court once again and looking for something new. Some of the competitors in the food court have found the best way to bring in new customers: sampling.

I will sample almost anything put in front of me, as long as it has no vegetable qualities. You wouldn’t buy a car without giving it a test drive, so why buy a meal without knowing how it will taste? Well obviously, this isn’t always possible, but when it is I think it’s great to take advantage.

The Rotisserie Works offered me a sample of their Hawaiian BBQ chicken and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It had a nice sweet BBQ taste with the hint of some pineapple-like fruit. After a few other tastes, I decided the Hawaiian chicken would be filling my belly that evening. The order of chicken came with two sides, and I looked at the menu with mild distaste. All but two of the sides had words like “squash,” and “spinach,” so I ordered their mashed potatoes and mac and cheese.

The guy behind the counter scooped out dollops of all my dishes, and I was please to see he wasn’t stingy. In fact, my plate ended up having sides bigger than the main course. This is not to say that the main course was small, just that the sides were even bigger.

I started eating and really enjoyed. The sides, although nothing amazing, complemented the Hawaiian chicken. As I continued eating, I became increasingly happy with the sizes of the sides, because the Hawaiian chicken became a little too sweet, but the sides were always there to bail me out. Herein lies the only trouble with ordering a food based on a sample. The initial taste might be great, but it could become increasingly intense. For a big example of this, read up on the Pepsi Challenge.

No doubt my meal was an enjoyable one, only not as good as I had hoped upon first sampling.

EDIT: This location is closed, but I mean, you can find one of these elsewhere and they’re all the same.

Though rare in Southern California, Fuddrucker’s is a pretty common burger chain with an uncanny name. The Fuddrucker’s I found was in the Century City mall’s food court, sandwiched among many fancier looking places. After a short perusal of the other restaurants, Fuddrucker’s became my top unvegan option.

One thing that is unique to Fuddrucker’s is that that they put no toppings or condiments on your burger. I ordered the bacon cheeseburger knowing that they wouldn’t be putting any terrible vegetables on it. Rather, once the burger is served, there is a virtual cornucopia of toppings to add to the burger. Sadly, most of these were vegetables and no good to me.

I added only ketchup, but I also found that they had a pump full of cheese sauce. I assumed (rightly so) that this would be a good addition to my the fries and burger in my meal.

The burger itself was really just decent. It was freshly prepared, which was nice, but didn’t compare to a place like Fatburger. The main selling point was the choice of toppings or, in my case, the choice to not use toppings.