List #15: Arizona Eats

After taking a well-deserved* week-long** hiatus, I'm back!  I know you had all assumed that I had already lost interest and moved on to other passing interests.  Ha!  I bet I can keep at this for at least another week or two before giving up.  So there!

* Hey, I've been doing this for like three weeks now!  I need a break!  One man can only do so much!!


** Plus a day.  Hey, you know that first day back from vacation is always a bitch, right?  Besides, maybe I'm going with a Tuesday/Thursday publishing schedule now, huh?  You don't know.  You think you know, but you don't.  Thppppt.

Today's list is the best food I had while in Arizona last week with a bunch of people that you've all never met, ranked by....um.....how much I liked the meal?

(5) Garlic Knots at Salt River Fields by Talking Stick.  Simply put, you cannot go wrong with garlic knots.  You particularly cannot go wrong with eating garlic knots 8 rows from the field on a beautiful day in the shade.  While these knots were nice and garlicky, I have to acknowledge that their placement on the list over the also-yummy garlic fries at the Peoria Sports Complex is likely due to the feeling of accomplishment at actually entering Salt River Fields after a series of comical mishaps that resulted in a certain stoat and myself lingering outside the park with non-functional tickets for an extended period.

(4) Tonto Bar & Grill.  Excellent onion-crusted walleye.  Apparently, walleye is a highly-respected culinary fish, and not some kind of scroungy bottom-feeder as I had previously thought.  I love living in the future - it used to be that if you had a question about something on the menu you had to actually (gasp) ask the wait staff.  In 2011 there is no need to interact with other pesky humans - just pull out your portable supercomputer and look it up on the intertubes.

(3) Chino Bandito.  Shockingly low placement on the list for my old friend, but the top two were just that good.  Regardless, Chino would unquestionably be my top recommendation to someone coming to Phoenix for the first time.  The unholy fusion of Tex-Mex and Chinese was as excellent as ever (mmmmmm, Jade Red Chicken Quesadillas), and the snickerdoodles fresh and gooey.  Great, great stuff.

(2) Cowboy Ciao.  Excellent food, topped off by remarkable bacon caramel corn.*  While my salmon was yummy, in retrospect we should've stuck with just ordering plate after plate of appetizers, as the dungeness crab enchiladas were the best thing I tasted and the buffalo carpaccio and wild boar meatballs were also exquisite.

(1) Culinary Dropout.   A little trendier than I'm used to, but easily made up for by, well, everything else about the place.  The drink menu alone would've made it a highlight,* but the food was also well above expectations.  Nothing particularly outrageous in concept, but exceptionally well done semi-hoity versions of pub food.  Of special note, the soft pretzels with provolone fondue were a big hit at the table, disappearing almost before the plate hit the table.  The restaurant's remarkable talent level was also remarked on more than once, which always helps.

* Really, you can't go wrong with a Dirty Schoolgirl,** but Eric's Blue Ribbon Rhubarb was my favorite.


** I was then, am now, and will always be bitterly disappointed that Papa Funk didn't order a Virgin Dirty Schoolgirl.