Peoria: A Lee Lee That's New, and Churros, Too!

Over the last few weeks, I have embarked on the adventure of home ownership. There's so much to do! One of the things I have recently done is upgrade the audio in the living room to a 5.1 surround system. To do this, I ended up going out to Arrowhead Towne Center on the northwest end of town. I decided to go have a little adventure on the way back and take arterial streets instead of hopping on the freeway.

As I ambled down 75th Avenue, I was most pleased find on the southwest corner of 75th Ave and Cactus the second location of Lee Lee Oriental Supermarket. They are already a favorite destination of mine when I'm in Chandler; it's great to know there's a new one just as far from my house in the other direction. That night, the only thing I really needed to stock up on was soy sauce. My favorite brand right now is Lee Kum Kee Double Deluxe, and I was thrilled to see that they carry it in the 500 milliliter bottles for $2.99. If you haven't tried the Double Deluxe, it's a great product. Only five ingredients: Water, salt, soy, sugar, and wheat. The depth of flavor is noticeable compared to, say, Kikkoman. I also picked up some great looking lemons and limes (20 cents each! Take that, Fry's and Safeway!), and nearly bought some flank steak and beef tenderloin for a song ($3-something and $5-something a pound, respectively), but the kitchen here at the new place isn't quite up to having people over for dinner yet.

Once I was done at Lee Lee, I continued south on 75th Avenue. My eyes scanned the horizon in search of new culinary delights in what is considered foodie wasteland by quite a few chowhounds. If things didn't pan out in search of dinner, there was always a decend sandwich to be had Which Wich? at Westgate. I didn't make it that far. There, on the southwest corner of 75th Avenue and Peoria, was a new place called Churro Station. A new eatery that specializes in churros? Count me in!

A scan of the menu told me that this was a pretty simple operation. The two main items are churros, and sandwiches. They do also have ceviche tostadas and smoothies. While I wasn't in the mood for a sandwich, they should be pretty good... the meat is from Boar's Head, the bread is from Simply Bread, how can you go wrong with a combination like that? I had myself a ceviche tostada, a regular churro, and a churro filled with cajeta. Everything was nice. The tostada was quite messy to eat since the tortilla cracked, and the shredded cabbage base tried to keep everything together, but I'd almost certainly order one again. The churros were decent. The batter was lighter and crunchier than the garden-variety frozen churros, but I'd love to see them come fresh out of the fryer instead of from under a heat lamp. All told, it was well worth the six bucks, and if I was in the area again I'd almost certainly stop in for at least a churro.

Now that my appetite had been sated, it was time to head back to the house. I don't know when I'll be back in the Arrowhead area, but at least now I have a good excuse to go that way with the new Lee Lee location up there.

Went to Sprinkles today

One of these days I'll write another real article, I swear.

One of the managerial folk at work had his last day today, so I couldn't resist springing a mess of cupcakes from Sprinkles on the whole gang.  I figured it would be a good excuse to try out the cupcakes that chowhounds all over town have been swooning over.  The setup in the store is simple.  Behind a wall of glass are wooden cupcake racks holding the day's 11 flavors of the 21 that they make throughout the week.  To the right of that is the counter where you place your order, and to the far right is the cash register hiding behind wood paneling.  On the side wall is a selection of retail items, including DIY cupcake mix ($14 for enough to make a dozen) and T-shirts ($25 to $40, ouch!)  Six flavors are made all week long, and the rest have a regular rotation, always appearing the same days every week.  So far, I have tried the Cinnamon Sugar, Red Velvet, and Peanut Butter Chip, and can say that these are some of the best retail cupcakes around. Their Red Velvet borders on legendary.  They're very moist cupcakes, almost *too* moist: After a couple of hours in the box, the fat in the cupcakes managed to soak through not only the wax paper cupcake liner, but also the waxed paper lining the box, and the cardboard box itself.  I'm starting to think that their recipe starts with lots of butter, adds just enough sugar to make it sweet, and then only adds enough flour to keep everything held together through the oven.  A few minutes after eating one, I feel sort of like I just ate a stick of butter.

Alas, Sprinkles falls squarely into the same trap as gourmet peanut butter sandwich purveyor PB Loco: The price is absolutely ridiculous.  It's $3.25 for *one* cupcake.  If you get a whole dozen, they have the decency to drop the price to $36, only $3 each!  If it was, say, $2.50, you would likely find me there two or three times weekly.  At their prices, once a month tops.  I'll leave Sprinkles to the chichi Scottsdale Desperate Housewives crowd with their bleached blonde hair and oversized sunglasses with white plastic rims, and just make my own cupcakes at home.

Review: Chill, Tempe AZ

If you've been reading the blog for a while now, you might remember my recent trip to Las Vegas, where I got the chance to try frozen yogurt from Red Mango, the company responsible for starting the renaissance in frozen yogurt.  Gone are the variety of sweet flavors, replaced by just two flavors:  Regular yogurt, and yogurt with green tea added to it.  The regular yogurt isn't nearly as sweet as the frozen yogurt that you're used to, and it has a bit more twang to it, a bit like the popular Greek style yogurts that grace the dairy case at Trader Joe's.  Think of this new frozen yogurt as... yogurt flavored frozen yogurt.  There are a couple of places up in north Scottsdale that have offered this treat for a little while, chief among them Ice Tango just off the 101 at Frank Lloyd Wright.  I've been meaning to get up there and try it, but that part of town just isn't on my regular rotation.  Somehow driving half an hour just for frozen yogurt seems kind of silly, but planning a trip to Vegas with getting my hands on more Red Mango in mind is easily justifiable.  While I am planning on heading up to Vegas again soon, I was very happy to hear that a new fro-yo place just opened in Tempe, and they even offer gelato.

The new place is Chill, located in the same strip mall that houses Pita Jungle on Apache in between Rural and McClintock in Tempe, a veritable stone's throw from campus.  The interior certainly takes its cues from the industry big shots, with warm colors and modern looking furnishings.  The frozen yogurt machine has the regular yogurt, plus something I haven't seen anywhere else:  Non-dairy frozen soymilk.  Vegans, rejoice!  The yogurt can be topped with a variety of fresh fruits sliced up in-house and small candies such as chocolate chips.  Something you might want to try for a topping is mochi, a Japanese treat made of glutinous rice pounded into cakes.  It has a chewy texture and a lightly sweet flavor that pairs nicely with the smooth tanginess of the yogurt.  The gelato at first bite is better than average.  I'm happy that I didn't see any way out of season flavors that indicate the use of canned bases instead of real fruit (Gelato Spot, I'm looking at you), but I'll have to try more of the gelato before I can say for sure whether it's truly top-notch stuff.  However, the sheer deliciousness of the frozen yogurt may keep that from ever happening.  Stay tuned to find out ;-)

Also while in Vegas: Red Mango

UPDATE: I just found out that the Las Vegas location has closed. If you're up in Vegas, there's one over in Henderson on Eastern just south of the 215.

I almost can't believe I'm writing up a frozen yogurt place.  I've been eating frozen yogurt for decades now, and for the most part it really doesn't deviate from a pretty basic standard no matter where you are.  Some places (like Mesa Frozen Yogurt over on Gilbert and Southern in Mesa AZ) become noteworthy by an extensive list of flavors, but in the end... it's just frozen yogurt.

Until I went to Red Mango in Las Vegas, off the strip across the street from the Hard Rock Hotel.

Red Mango is the first of a new wave of frozen yogurt places.  The most well-known of these is Pinkberry, a chain that is all the rage in southern California.  The Pink may be the most well-known, but they got their idea from Red Mango.  This yogurt is different from other frozen yogurts you've had.  It's not as sweet, and there's a good hit of tanginess that makes it taste more like, well, yogurt.  Red Mango only has two flavors: a plain Original, and the same laced with matcha green tea (a $1 upcharge regardless of size).  They offer a variety of fruit and not-too-sugary sweet things (including breakfast cereals like Cap'n Crunch) to top the yogurt.  And that's it.  Perfectly simple.  And oh, so delicious.  My friend and I both found it to be a perfect pit-stop from excessive running amuck on the Strip; a couple of bites and we both went from worn out to ready for more action.  Better still, as far as frozen desserts go this stuff is darn near virtuous, with just 90 wee calories in a half-cup small.  For comparison's sake, 90 calories of Ben & Jerry's is a hair over three tablespoons.  And Red Mango's yogurt is somehow every bit as satisfying.

I'll be damned if this isn't the best frozen yogurt I've had anywhere.  It's quite possibly the best frozen dessert I've ever eaten.  I love my Lombardo's Gelato down here in Phoenix, but all the gelato I've had doesn't come close to the deliciousness that is Red Mango yogurt.  We're talking not so much "Wow, this is good, how much is another cup?", we're talking "Wow, this is good, how much are the franchise rights?"  I can hardly wait for one to open down here in Phoenix.  Until then, I hope a craving doesn't strike, otherwise I'll find myself in Vegas practically before I can blink.

chocolat at the wynn

the feuillante (hazelnut) is very good, the earl grey tea one is almost too good for words. such swirling flavors in one little bite! you have to stop and try one when you are at the wynn.

What The Jester Had For Dessert: Melt Gelato, Phoenix AZ

I have been to a godawful lot of gelaterias in the Phoenix area. They certainly are prolific. I can think of seven different companies, and close to a dozen total locations of said companies. There is now yet another player in this hot market, namely a Southern California based franchise operation called Melt (no relation to the bath and body product company of the same name). Their first location is open in Paradise Valley Mall, with a second location set to open soon in Superstition Springs Mall in Mesa.

I went over there to try it today, and was vastly underwhelmed. I was impressed by their selection, with what looked like about 32 different flavors. They offer three sizes of gelato; a one-flavor small, a two-flavor large, and the Bambino, a selection of eight mini-scoops. They do also offer espresso drinks and a variety of sweet and savory crepes; these were not tasted on this trip. Since I wanted to get as big of a taste of their product line as possible, my friend Bellana and I naturally split the Bambino. We got the double dark chocolate, strawberry cheesecake, burgundy cherry, açai mixed berry sorbet, raspberry sorbet, butter pecan, cookies & cream, and Tropical (piña colada). I also tried samples of the tequila lime gelato and pomegranate sorbet. The best of them was the açai mixed berry, but it was plagued with an iciness that often comes from the product being taken in and out of a hard freeze. Many of the gelati had a very gummy, almost gluey texture that just didn't give the right mouthfeel. On top of this, the flavors just weren't deep enough. I could barely notice a difference between the cookies & cream and the burgundy cherry if it wasn't for the telltale bits of cherry in the latter. It is one of the slicker looking gelaterias in town, coming close to rivaling the cheerful colors of Arlecchino, and the service is personable and friendly, but those will only get you so far when the product itself is lacking so much. In retrospect, I shouldn't be all that surprised. I looked at their website, and most of it is about franchis opportunities. This is definitely a Chowhound's red flag; the company shows this way that they care more about opening new locations than about creating a great product.


Melt Gelato
4568 E Cactus Road
Phoenix, AZ
Paradise Valley Mall Food Court

Open For: Lunch, Dinner
Food: 2 (textures were off, flavors need to be stronger)
Service: 3 (Nice people, and they didn't mind us sampling several flavors while we made up our minds)
Atmosphere: 4 (Clean, modern, and metallic)
Value: 3 (Right around what everyone else is charging)
Kid Friendly? 4 (Come on, it's ice cream!)
Price: 1 (inexpensive)
Overall: 3 (It was OK, certainly nothing to go out of one's way for)