Urban Campfire: Yay, it's still there!

A couple of days ago, the Arizona Republic's Howard Seftel ran a story that both the Scottsdale eatery Twisted and one of my personal favorites, Urban Campfire down in Tempe, were both a couple of higher profile restaurants to recently bite the dust.  While it is true that Twisted is no more, Urban Campfire is still going strong.  I went recently and everything is as delicious as ever.  Nearsighted people will be happy that they don't have to crane their neck to see the menu written on the wall, as they have now changed over to printed menus.  The yam planks are being cut thinner now, definitely into the realm of chips rather than the chip/fry hybrid that I enjoyed, but still extremely delicious.  They're also baking all of their own breads on-site now.  While the breads tend to be dominated by anything that goes on them (it's barbecue, what did you expect?), they still hold up a lot better than anything store-bought ever would.

So... if you haven't been there, GO.  It's still the same terrific value it was when they first opened.

A Short Treatise on the Perfect Hamburger

I recently was going through articles on a food site when I came across a video describing what the editors of the site considered the "perfect hamburger". In the video, I saw a number of things done to the burger that I considered to be complete atrocities. This is my response to their video.


The perfect burger starts with ground chuck. It has enough fat in it that it's not dry when it comes off the grill, but not so much fat that the burger is greasy. It's best if you grind it yourself. you can do this in a food processor with minimal fuss. The burger should be cooked over a searing hot flame, no further than medium unless you enjoy eating hockey pucks. It should only be turned once, and never, ever pressed. The only thing that pressing will accomplish is drying out the burger. If you choose to add cheese, it should go on the burger before the burger itself is finished cooking so it has time to melt without giving the meat a chance to overcook. The cheese should have a personality of its own; American, Colby, and Monterey Jack all melt nicely but are quite bland. Better to go with sharp Cheddar, Swiss, or even crumbles of your favorite blue cheese.

The bun must not be an afterthought. The ones in the bread aisle at the supermarket are almost always flavorless, waifish things that can't hold their own once loaded down with toppings. Find yourself a good bakery and buy their hamburger buns. They should have some flavor of their own, and be big enough to hold up through the entire burger without collapsing, but not so big that all you taste is the bread. Toasting the buns is mandatory. Buttering the buns before toasting is highly recommended.

Toppings are up to you. Some people prefer the clean, minimalist lines of only burger and bun. Daniel Boulud lavishly tops the signature burger at his restaurant with braised short ribs, foie gras, and black truffles. I believe that a burger should come with a standard set of green leaf lettuce, ripe tomato, sliced red onion, and slices of pickle unless such things are not complementary to other special toppings. A dollop of a spreadable condiment is always welcome even on the simplest burger creation. Mustard, mayonnaise, or ketchup are all classic standards. More inventive creations may include Thousand Island dressing (or for that matter, any creamy salad dressing, blue cheese is especially wonderful), homemade aïoli, a red wine pan sauce if you happened to pan-sear the burgers... Really, anything in the kitchen that's savory and spreadable. From there, the sky is the limit for toppings. Bacon is ubiquitous; the excellent bacon from Niman Ranch can elevate an otherwise normal burger to ethereal status. One of my favorite toppings that is often overlooked is a fried egg. Any manner of roasted vegetables do well on burgers too. Look over the topping list at fancy burger joints, such as Burger Bar in Las Vegas, for some terrific ideas. Don't limit yourself to just those lists; if you think it sounds like it's going to be good on a burger, it almost certainly is going to be delicious.

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 ;-)

Review: My Big Fat Greek Restaurant, Scottsdale AZ

Something I recently noticed is that absolutely *nobody* on the Chowhound message board makes much mention of the local chain My Big Fat Greek Restaurant.  Maybe it's the cheesy name, maybe it's that they have enough locations around town to look like they've already gone national, maybe it's that they use sigmas in their signage so that the name actually reads "My Big Fat Grssk Restaurant".  Who knows.  All I knew was that I was getting hungry, and a couple of friends had just invited me along for the trip.  Who was I to refuse good company?

The decor of the restaurant is generic, with standard-issue laminate topped tables, silverware rolled in Aegean blue napkins (have I mentioned how much I despise rolled silver?  I'm coming to your restaurant to have you do the work, SET THE TABLE!) and a mural of a Greek village along one wall.  Don't look at the mural too long, you'll realize the artist had no idea how to do perspective drawing.  Or maybe they wanted to get the picture from lots of different viewpoints at once.  But I digress, this is about the food, not the art on the walls.  Perusing the menu, I noticed they had a decent number of classic Greek dishes such as spanakopita, moussaka, bacon cheeseburgers, BBQ chicken pizza, and fish & chips.  I'm used to seeing one or two out-of-left-field American items at ethnic restaurants to appease the poor fool who doesn't like eating interesting food but got dragged along anyway, but when well over a dozen items on the menu are American, it's time to start thinking about changing the name of the restaurant.  I also noticed a number of typos peppered about the menu, including a drink "fit for the GOD'S" (their capital lettering, not mine) and an "Agaen" wrap that I'm pretty sure was supposed to be Aegean, but instead was a clear lack of attention to detail all over Agaen.

We got things started off with a bunch of appetizers.  The first to arrive were dolmades (stuffed grape leaves) and fried calamari.  The calamari was one of the better ones I've had.  The meat was for once succulent and tender, and the breading was light enough that it didn't overshadow the calamari.  The dolmades left something to be desired.  Four tiny dolmades came on the plate (they were the size of nigiri sushi, to give you a frame of reference) and were quickly devoured, mostly because there wasn't all that much on the plate.  These were... bland.  You could tell there was seasoning in there, but apparently downtown Scottsdalians are either frightened by proper levels of seasoning, or haven't realized yet that eating garlic on a date is taboo only if done by one person.  A moment later, the waiter arrives with our saganaki (kefalograviera cheese flamed tableside).  An "Opa!" from the staff and a quite impressive fireball later, we dug in.  This is one of those dishes that no matter what you do to it, it's exactly what you expect.  It's cheese, they set it on fire, what more could you ask?

We were almost done with the appetizers when out from the kitchen come our Greek salads.  We move our appetizer plates over to the side, and see in front of us a plate of Romaine lettuce topped with chopped tomato, feta, and green bell peppers.  The lettuce was glistening from the dressing, but the dressing just didn't taste like anything.  I searched the dish high and low for some kind of flavor at all, and all I got was a little sweet from the tomatoes and bite of the peppers.  The feta and dressing just sort of snuck around hoping that they wouldn't get noticed.

After a short wait which would have been unnoticeable had the waitstaff not rushed our salads out of the kitchen, our main courses arrived.  It would have been nice if the waitstaff had thought to clear the appetizer and salad plates before the mains came.  With their full hands, they ran into quite the traffic jam as we moved our first course plates off to adjacent empty tables so they could put our main course down.  My choice tonight was the Aegean Spaghetti, pasta with olive oil, garlic and a blend of mizithra, feta, and parmesan cheeses.  As far as pasta dishes go, this one was a disappointment.  The spaghetti was overcooked, the feta melted into a congealed blob at the bottom of the dish, and again everything was just bland, bland, bland.  There should have been the nuttiness of the mizithra, the sharp tang of the feta, but instead it might as well have been just noodles in olive oil.  I've had better versions of this dish at Old Spaghetti Factory, seriously.  It isn't that hard of a dish to make.  Everyone seemed halfway pleased with their dishes, but there certainly wasn't any rampant enthusiasm for any of the dishes on the table.

The dinner for four came out to about $96.  For what we got, it seemed like it was right where it should be.  However, there are much better choices for Greek food in town, namely just about any mom-n-pop joint you can think of.  My Big Fat Grssk, er, I mean, Greek Restaurant just glides along in its mediocrity, refusing to pay attention to the small details that would make it great, almost proud to be as dull and mainstream as any other chain restaurant out there.

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.

Ah yes, back at the Peppermill...

If there was ever a reason for me to move to Las Vegas, I think that this:

would be it.  This is the Fresh Fruit served up at the Peppermill on the Las Vegas Strip.  Of all the amazing places up and down the strip, this is absolutely THE place that I must visit.  Most places have a place that they have to hit the moment they get back from vacation, I have a place that I have to hit the moment I arrive at my destination.  The Fresh Fruit is a ridiculously huge pile of fruit, with nine different kinds of fruit all piled up in a fashion that reminds diners of Carmen Miranda's hat.  It is accompanied by a small loaf of banana bread, and a choice of ice cream, rainbow sherbet, or cottage cheese.  As fun as it is to get rainbow sherbet with a breakfast item, I'd have to say to get the cottage cheese unless you're ordering this as a side to split between four people.  With the ice cream or sherbet, it's just all sweet and your palate suffers from overload.

We ended up back at the Peppermill after a rough night for me at the Flamingo (I really want to know how on earth their engineering department thought it would be a good idea to leave the room completely devoid of functional reading lights!), slurping down a Scorpion (completely different from the Trader Vic's recipe but still darn tasty) and nibbling an appetizer platter in their iconic Fireside Lounge.  I've now decided that not only am I replicating a Peppermill booth in my dining room, I'm making a flaming fountain like the Peppermill one in my backyard.  I just love everything about the Peppermill.  It's not the best food you'll find on the strip, there are literally scores of places that offer up better food.  The Peppermill is just a simple little coffee shop done right, by people who care about what they serve up.  I sort of wish that there was a Peppermill around here somewhere, but then it might not have quite the same special cachet of the Las Vegas one.

Review: Ranch House Grille, Phoenix AZ

The recent buzz on the Chowhound board has been about a new breakfast place in the Arcadia district called Overeasy.  I was all set to go and try it this morning... and whoever told me that they open at 6 AM is a dirty stinker.  We got there a little after 6 and saw that the chairs were still up on the tables.  My roommate and I were a little downtrodden, until he remembered that Ranch House Grille was definitely open.

I was looking over the menu, trying to figure out what to try this time, when I remembered the words of the great Seth Chadwick the last time we spoke.  Those words were to get the green chili covered chicken fried steak.  I'm already a fan of Ranch House's CFS; it's seriously one of the best in town.  Little did I know, with their pork green chili stew instead of gravy, it's even better.  The cooks turn out a damn fine green chili, with a nice blend of spice and herbaceousness, and it complements the chicken fried steak incredibly well.  I got pancakes instead of toast, and was certainly pleased with them.  My roommate decided to get biscuits and gravy with his meal, and as we chatted with the waitress I found out that the cooks changed up the biscuit recipe so they weren't the dry mammoth clunkers they were serving before.  This is a good thing; something about those biscuits seemed like they were made somewhere else and trucked in.  The new biscuits... still need work.  They need to bring in a Southern grandma to show the proper light touch with biscuits.  These ones were a little tough, but they were still a minor improvement over the previous biscuits.

I'm finding more and more that Ranch House is one of my favorite regular stops for breakfast.  The food is excellent and hearty, the cooks know how to cook an over easy egg (really, I'm amazed at the hit-to-miss ratio on something that they'd have to do dozens of times daily), the waitress is down-home and friendly, the prices are right, and it just has that right feel that makes you want to come back time and time again.

Now to wait until 6:30 next time so I can at least try Overeasy next time.

First Visit: Fresh & Easy, Mesa AZ

I just went to Fresh and Easy and I would say I like it quite a bit. It is indeed bigger than a Trader Joe's by a good margin; the one I visited was formerly a Walgreens-type drugstore. The one I went to was over on Alma School and University. They showed a definite slant toward the predominantly Hispanic population in that neighborhood, with things like bolillo rolls, tres leches cake, and pig trotters (that last one with a primarily Spanish bilingual label). The British influence of Tesco is subtle, mainly through the tea being MUCH more prominent at the sample station than the coffee, a glut of Indian items in the heat-and-eat fridge and freezer cases, and a small handful of quintessentially British items scattered about, including Stilton cheese, back bacon, and shortbread. So you get an idea of prices, here's what I got:

10 oz Mint creme sandwich cookies, 1.99
12 oz Fig bars, 1.99
5 oz Jalapeño Cheddar potato chips, 1.19
10 oz Cheddar cheese crackers, 1.69
1 pound frozen edamame, 1.39
24 oz Frozen mac & cheese, 2.99
24 oz frozen Beef Bourguignonne dinner with veggies and mashed potatoes, 4.99
8 inch frozen pepperoni pizza, 3.89
20 oz Tomato basil soup, 2.99
Pint mango sorbet, 1.98
25 oz Puttanesca sauce, 2.39
16 oz organic ginger limeade, 1.98
16 oz peppermint infused water, .79
1 bottle Big Kahuna (store brand) Australian Cab/Shiraz blend, 2.99

for a grand total of 33 dollars and change. Not bad, about what I'd expect to pay, maybe a little less. Thank goodness they don't have those damn frequency cards, I despise those with a passion.

So far I have tasted the ginger limeade and the fig bars, and I think both of them are very high quality. The limeade is a good balance of sweet and tart, citrus and ginger. The filling of the fig bars is VERY figgy; now that I've tasted these ones, I know that the ones I've had up until now always had plenty of sugar. I wish the fig bars were whole wheat ones, but that's just personal preference coming into play. Next time, I'm tempted to pick up one of their chickens for roasting; butterflied and marinated, ready to pop in the oven, $2.99.

There are a number of things I noticed around the store that I was very happy to see. One big one is that the produce is very fresh; I don't remember the last time I was in a grocery store that the lemons actually SMELLED like fresh lemons off the tree! They have plenty of organic items, often at the same price as a similar non-organic item. And the ingredient lists on the house brand items (which is about 60 percent of the store, and 100 percent of what I bought today) are almost entirely things that I would use if I was making the same thing from scratch; no polysorbate 80 to be found anywhere, as far as I can tell.

There were some bugs that needed to be worked out. One puzzling thing was that the carts had little cupholders built into them, but they were practically useless since the beverages available in the store were all in straight-sided bottles that fit all the way through the cupholder. The self check-out is a bit different than I've seen, with a conveyor belt that scoots your goods down to the end of a regular length checkout counter to make it easier to bag them. Sometimes the conveyor belt would get a bit confused and not take the item all the way down to the end of the conveyor belt, or not even notice that a particularly light item was merrily sitting there, ready for its journey down the counter. I have a feeling that at least the technological issues will be taken care of in fairly short order.

The whole experience of shopping at Fresh & Easy is much like the food they serve... just a little bit different. Shopping carts are smaller, much of what they offer is ready to eat with minimal prep at home, and the check-out lanes are entirely self-check out. I got the sense that it really lives up to the name of "Neighborhood Market" a lot more than the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Markets that dot the east Valley; the staff was courteous enough to make me feel right at home, and the large amount of prepared perishables would mean that you'd make two or three small trips to the grocery store every week instead of one really big one. I would have been comfortable bicycling my purchases home, something I certainly couldn't say when I go to Super Target or even Trader Joe's. I'm looking forward to the ones closer to my place opening soon... Mesa is a lonnnnng way to go to pick up lunch supplies!

The Thanksgiving Menu

Whew.  The groceries have all been bought, and soon it shall be time to transform them into an amazing feast.  Here's what's on the table this year:

Crudités with Caesar dip

The Morton Thompson Black Turkey (and here's a second version of the same recipe) 

Morton Thompson's Turkey Stuffing

Creamy Mashed Potatoes with Turkey Gravy

Cranberry Sauce

Cream Biscuits

Dinner Rolls

Creamed Spinach

Green Beans with Toasted Hazelnuts and Brown Butter

Bellana's Loaded Mashed Potatoes

Maple-Bacon Glazed Carrots

African Spiced Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Frisée Salad with Cranberry-Bacon Vinaigrette and Blue Cheese Pastries

and then for dessert in case my guests haven't popped yet...

Classic Pumpkin Pie

Pumpkin-Whisky Cheesecake with Brown Sugar-Whisky Cream

Classic Pecan Pie

It should be a fun few days of cooking.  Everything is from scratch; I wouldn't have things any other way.

Quickie

There are better times to find out that one's oven sits off-kilter than after baking the first half of a wedding cake.

Incidentally, the cake itself is red velvet, with (what else?) cream cheese frosting.  It will be decorated with blue and silver ribbon, and dotted with silver dragees.  I'm sure that sticking the eighty kabillion dragees on the cake will drive me to utter madness.  But then, it's hard to be driven somewhere when you're already there, isn't it?

Late Night Notes from a Waffle House

First off, the Waffle House in east Mesa on Mckellips and Higley now offers green chiles as an addition to your doubled covered and smothered hash browns. Second, the much anticipated Fresh And Easy stores by British company Tesco are on the way, I saw one in construction on Kyrene and Ray in front of the old Madstone theatre. Now, back to my bacon patty melt and covered smothered green chiled hash browns. Mmmm.

Central Phoenicians, rejoice!

See the red sign on the left? It says "now open". That's right, the new Super Target on 19th Ave and Bethany Home is open for business. You have no idea how excited this makes me.

Review: Urban Campfire, Tempe AZ

There are certain times that it's really hard to write a review of a restaurant I've been meaning to try once I have been there. Sometimes, things just don't go the least bit like you would expect. My recent (massively disappointing) trip to Grilled Expedition was one of them. This review is hard to write for a different reason entirely. You see, Urban Campfire is a brand new restaurant in the space on the southeast corner of Rural and University that was home to Greasy Tony's since before I was born. The owner of Urban Campfire, Robert Stempkowski, has worked in a number of restaurants around town. You may have heard of one or two... Richardson's, Christopher's, Michael's at the Citadel, Binkley's, Mary Elaine's... and the list still goes on. Robert decided to open up his own little place, and offer up grub that the kids at ASU could not only afford, but also truly enjoy. So, he rolled up his sleeves, cleaned up the old Greasy Tony's (turns out the name was accurate; according to reports from our waitress, it looked like Tony stopped caring about the kitchen some time in the late 80's. Judging by what I remember of the dining room, that sounded about right), and opened up Urban Campfire a couple of months ago. The reason I'm so reluctant to write about this place is because once word gets out as to how utterly amazing Urban Campfire is, those eight tables in the restaurant are going to be a hell of a lot harder to come by.

The whole shebang started out when I met my friend Jeff at the restaurant. The moment he walked in the door, my friend Geena (a true urban gypsy if ever I knew one) called to let me know she got out of work early and was all set to go dancing. So, off I went to pick up Geena, leaving poor Jeff all by his lonesome. Well, not completely by his lonesome... I think he plotted with the waitress to have some kind of errand pop up just as I returned. Once I came back with Geena in tow, he had memorized most (OK, all) of the menu. I had already perused the menu online, so I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted. I got a half-rack of spare ribs ($11.95) with their Yam Planks (yes ladies and gentlemen, it's another place with sweet potato fries!) and baked beans. Jeff got their Cobb Sandwich ($7.95) on marble rye, a creation that put the classic salad between bread, with turkey, ham, bacon (all three of which are smoked in-house, as were my ribs), blue cheese, and other accoutrements. Geena... just ate before she got off work, and got to watch me and Jeff eat. We also decided to split a one-liter carafe of kiwi-basil white sangría ($15.99). The sangría came along pretty quickly, accompanied by Mason jar mugs full of ice, certainly a nice homey touch. It was a fairly simple sangría... maybe a little too simple. I would have liked the kiwi and basil to be a bit more evident; you could pick them up, but they weren't immediately obvious, at least with the first glass. The second glass was a lot sweeter and more obvious with the kiwi and basil (which work very well together, I should say), meaning that next time I get the sangría, I should likely give it a more vigorous stir before pouring.

We waited for a few moments, and our waitress picked up some tiny plates from the expo window. I see the plates coming and my first thought was "No way... they didn't..." When the plates were set on the table, my suspicions were confirmed. They brought out an amuse bouche. Needless to say, I completely did not expect it; usually amuse bouches are something served at places that cost four or five times what Urban Campfire costs. On the plate was a deviled egg, and a few bites of romaine lettuce with a creamy red tomato vinaigrette. The deviled egg was exemplary, with a little bit of horseradish and something else mixed in... I'm not sure what it was, but I'll do my best to catch it next time. Atop the egg was a little bit of minced red onion. The tastes melded together very nicely, and the egg itself was done perfectly, with a just-firm-enough white holding a silky, creamy yolk mixture. The tomato vinagrette was also outstanding, with a bit of tartness to keep the sweetness of the tomatoes in check. With a vinaigrette this good, who needs ketchup for fry dunking? I mentioned to our waitress how much I loved it and she mentioned that in a few months, they'll start bottling it. I have one thing to say about this... Good call.

Shortly after we polished off the amuse bouche, the entrees came along. I was very glad that I didn't attempt to polish off a full rack. The half rack brought a pile of about six or seven spare ribs, very nicely charred on the outside, napped with a slightly thin barbecue sauce that smelled oh so nice and tangy. The beans were in a small ramekin, and the Yam Planks were in a small basket on the side since there was no more room left on the plate. Since I know everyone here is crazy for sweet potato fries, I started out on those. These are wonderful. They aren't your typical fry; they're long sticks about an inch wide and maybe 1/8 inch thick. They're too thick to be potato chips, but too skinny to really be fries. You end up with the best of both; a whisper of a tender interior, with lots of crisp, caramelized exterior. To further enhance the Yam Planks, they are tossed with thyme and black pepper. The seasonings brought out the best of the yams, making them taste more sweet potato-y than just about any other sweet potato fry that I've had. After nibbling a couple of those, I dove into the ribs. This is some serious, serious barbecue. The ribs themselves were nearly falling off the bone and perfectly smoky, and the sauce on top was just the right balance of sweet, tangy, and spicy, with the tangy just barely ahead of the other tastes. The beans were no slouch either, with good smokiness from the bacon added to them and a little sweetness from brown sugar. Jeff greatly enjoyed his Cobb Sandwich; the smokiness of the meats worked well with the blue cheese on the sandwich, and the smoked turkey was so tender it melted in your mouth like it was paté. The fries were classic American hand-cut fries, tossed in grated Parmesan for extra dimension. These were quite nice, but were a bit on the limp side; they would do well to do as the Europeans have done for ages and fry them twice to amp up the crispness. Still, I'd take these over the ones that come out of freezer bags everywhere else; it's rare to find a place that does real fries anymore.

We almost licked our plates clean, and by some miracle still had room for dessert. They have one item for dessert on the menu: Haystack cookies ($1.25 each). You may have made something like these when you were a kid, using chow mein noodles and chocolate. Urban Campfire's are made from pretzel sticks and mini marshmallows, held together by a thick peanut butter and butterscotch sauce. The use of pretzel sticks gave them a little bit of a salty kick, much like with sea salt caramels. It's a good thing they did that; if they used something else, it might have been too sweet. Other than that, these seemed fairly pedestrian (like I said, sort of like something you'd make at home for or with kids), but I'll probably end up getting one every time I go there just because they're still darn tasty. I was talking to some friends about Urban Campfire before I wrote this, and a couple of them thought that some kind of s'mores would be a more appropriate dessert; I'm not quite sure how successfully s'mores could be made in a restaurant kitchen, but it would certainly be something interesting to see on the menu. Before the check arrived, here came our waitress with three more small plates, this time with ramekins of watermelon chunks as a palate cleanser. While I was happily munching away on the fresh fruit, Geena noticed something that didn't even cross my mind- the watermelon got a squeeze of lime before it went out of the kitchen. Considering how much I enjoyed it, I would have to say that the combination worked very well indeed.

Our server then brought the check, which came to just a hair over $42. For the outstanding quality of everything and all of the additional thoughtful touches by both the kitchen and our server (I am going to guess that she's been in the business for a while and is glad to work somewhere casual again), I would have to say that this was an absolutely outstanding deal. This is the kind of place that makes me wish I didn't work during the dinner shift so that I could take friends out to eat here more often. Jeff had other plans for the evening, so we had said our goodbyes and went out the door to our respective cars. Just as we were about to part company, the owner came out the front door with a big grin and a handful of long, brightly colored sticks of something in plastic... Otter Pops! We each got our choice of flavors, got to chat with Robert some as he nibbled the end bits from cutting the Otter Pops open (one of the benefits of being the boss), and found that an Otter Pop on a balmy late summer evening here in Phoenix is a darn near perfect ending to a meal. In all... I think it was five courses in all (every single one a home run, no less) plus a carafe of sangría for just over twenty bucks a head? I'm sold. I can barely wait to return again.

Review: Grilled Expedition, Phoenix AZ

There are some places that I have walked past more times than I would care to remember, and Grilled Expedition is one of them. They have been on my radar since they opened at Desert Ridge Marketplace. I was in the mood for something a little different tonight, so off I went to the Expedition.

With a name like that, there are many different directions that the designers of the restaurant could have taken. They went with "austere". There were green walls with a triptych of slices of logs that evoked, oh, a woodpile. The tables, chairs, and non-wall architecture were wood or wood tones. I appreciate that they split the dining room into two separate sections (dramatic reduction in noise and it makes the place feel more intimate), but the usual high ceilings and open kitchen mean that if it were busy, the place would likely be quite loud. After waiting an inordinately long time for ice water to arrive when the place is slow (seriously, if it was another 15 seconds we would have left), my friend and I both decided to start out with the X-Ale, apparently created at the turn of the millennium when EVERYTHING was Extreme-this and X-that. Still, it's a decent beer. The server described it as "really dark... like Fat Tire". I shudder to think what would happen if he ever tasted Guinness. Along with the X-Ale, we had some of the Expedition Dip, described on the menu as "a hot blend of cheeses and roasted vegetables with grilled flatbread for dipping". I'm not entirely sure how one manages to screw up hot cheese dip, but they sure as hell did. The portion of dip looked meager and dull, a scant cup of dip that was mostly white with a few flecks of red pepper and an unidentifiable green, likely chopped spinach. The roasted vegetables only provided texture and color, and the primary dairy ingredients we noticed seemed to be sour cream and mild white cheddar. The grilled flatbread was good and tasted like it was made in-house, but would have been better if it was served warm. Also with the dip were a handful of stale-tasting corn chip crumbs from the bottom of the bag. Whoever put the chips on the plate really should have noticed that what they were putting out there was not something people would want to dip with, much less actually eat. The spinach dip over at TGI Friday's was vastly preferable to this... stuff. And at $8.50, this already lackluster appetizer was a very poor value.

For our main courses, I went with the Firewheel pizza (hot sauce, mozzarella, Andouille sausage, beef, red onion) while my friend got the Shrimp Pesto (shrimp, pesto sauce, mozzarella, feta, sun-dried tomato). While waiting for our dinner, I excused myself to the restroom, and was very displeased. The main scent in the restroom once past the bank of sinks was stale pee. I am more accustomed to noticing this in a busy truck stop, not so much in a halfway decent restaurant. It would also be nice if they took the time to brush out the insides of the urinals a little more often.* I likely should have cancelled the order at this point, but hunger makes people do strange things, so we pressed on, despite my wondering if we'd fare as well as Katharine Hepburn when she acted in The African Queen.**

The pizzas came pretty quickly. Mine was the definite winner of the two. The hot sauce had a bit of tanginess and a little sweetness, almost like wing sauce cut with a little bit of BBQ sauce. The andouille reminded me more of plain old smoked sausage, but the beef chunks were very nice, little steak-y bits all over the pizza. The crust was fantastic, picking up just enough of the wood fire smoke to give it some great depth. The guys at Patsy Grimaldi's would do well to take some notes from Grilled Expedition. My friend's Shrimp Pesto pizza was OK, but completely unoriginal. I think I had something similar from Wolfgang Puck's line of frozen pizzas when they first came out in the mid-90's.

After two beers, appetizer, and two pizzas, the bill was about $45. It had the potential to be worth this, but the combination of dull service (it was hard to tell if he was just green, or bored; there were times it sounded like he was reading from cue cards) and abysmal housekeeping left a less than pleasant taste in my mouth. The pizzas were quite good, but beyond that I have no reason to recommend the Desert Ridge location of Grilled Expedition to anyone. I may still try out the one in Tempe to see if it fares better. Or, if you've tried out the Tempe location, let me know.


*In case you're wondering, it turns out yes, the old adage how you can tell the cleanliness of the kitchen by the cleanliness of the restroom is completely true. I just checked their most recent inspection report from the beginning of July, and there were reports of "black slimy mold" in the ice machine, more "black mold" in a container of running water for holding scoops, and "food debris on floors" in the dry storage and kitchen itself. All of the problems were corrected upon the follow-up visit three days later.


**I sure love my footnotes, huh? When Hepburn did The African Queen, they actually filmed it in Africa. You know how when you go traveling overseas you shouldn't drink the water? She did.

Review: Cafe Zuzu, Hotel Valley Ho, Scottsdale AZ

(In interests of full disclosure, I work at Hotel Valley Ho, but in a different department. I stayed objective as possible, and yes, they did know I work at the hotel.)

I have been working at the Hotel Valley Ho for over a year now. It's a great place. However, due to my weird schedule from working the dinner shift, I haven't been able to partake in the offerings at the hotel's other restaurant, Cafe Zuzu. I'm always either in bed or at work when Zuzu is open. I do have a friend who joins me regularly for breakfast, and we love going all over the place. We've been to Matt's Big Breakfast, Butterfield's, Au Petit Four, and a host of other breakfast places. There are some great places for breakfast in town, but I would have to say that Zuzu blows everything else clean out of the water. The atmosphere is delightfully retro, with oranges and browns all over the place, and plenty of curvaceous furniture. The waitress, Sharon, did a wonderful job of keeping our coffee and juice full and the table clean (she's one of the few I've seen who regularly picked up empty sugar packets) and was just the right level of cheerful warmth to make you feel right at home. The food is serious stuff, too. I had the daily special, a Seafood Newburg omelette loaded with crab and shrimp; my friend Mike got their breakfast sandwich, consisting of a fried egg, bacon, lettuce, tomato, and veggie cream cheese smear on toasted white bread. My roomie came along too, and he tried the strawberry waffle. I truly love how everything was perfectly done familiar comfort-style food with just enough of a twist to make it interesting. That's a tricky balance; too familiar and it tastes just like everything else out there, too unique and almost every breakfast diner out there will turn up their nose at it. I'm very hard pressed to pick a stand-out dish; all three were winners. I think that Mike's breakfast sandwich was the winner by a nose. It was something about the veggie smear that just brought everything together. Roomie's waffle had lemon-orange curd on top, which somehow went brilliantly well with maple syrup. My seafood omelette was very rich, but not *too* much so. It knew right where that line was and came as close to it as possible. House-made apricot preserves were a very delicious touch to top my toast.

Before tax and tip, the full breakfast for three was around 42 dollars. I would say it's a very solid value; a little pricier than most breakfast places, but you will certainly be well-fed with very high-quality grub. I've spent a long time searching, but I may just have myself a regular weekend breakfast spot. And to think, it's been right under my nose all this time.

The Ratings Explained

This post has been a long time coming, and finally here it is. I do my reviews mostly on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Well, actually, it's more of a 0 to 6 scale, but zeros and sixes are quite rare. I start off each overview with the basic information, like this:

The Peppermill Restaurant and Fireside Lounge
2985 Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas NV 89109
(702) 735-4177

Open for: 24 Hours a Day- Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner, Late Night

Then comes the numerical bits of Atmosphere, Service, and Food:

Atmosphere: 5 (A testament to how tacky everything was in the 80s. I wouldn't want it any other way.)
Service: 4 (this time you could tell the waitresses got slammed at 3 AM, but everyone was friendly. And thank goodness, they still said good night when I left at 4!)
Food: 4 (Competent, generous, and for heavens' sakes get the coffee!)

Each of these goes off of the same scale:
6: Wow, this is the best I've ever had!
5: I loved it
4: I liked it
3: It's OK
2: I didn't like it
1: I hated it
0: Not Acceptable

The 0 rating happens when something happens that just plain should not exist in the course of dining. Two notable occurences were an atmosphere 0 for a bathroom that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a week, and a service 0 when the counter person took something I had returned and put it back under the heat lamps. In both cases, there was just one thing to say: Eew. I always include a brief description to explain just why I gave that particular number.

Next up is:

Value 3 (Looks kind of pricey, but quality is good and portions can be gigantic)

This measures the kind of bang you get for your buck.
5: An absolute steal
4: Prices are a little low
3: Prices are reasonable
2: Prices are a little high
1: Rip-off!

I also mention a couple of special dining cases:

Kid Friendly: 4 (Kids will be very happy here)
Veg Friendly: 3 (With a menu this expansive, there are quite a few veg choices, but more on the breakfast menu than dinner. Vegan options are limited but do exist)

Both of these work pretty much the same way:
5: The restaurant specifically caters to this clientele (Chuck E Cheese and Green, respectively)
4: The restaurant put forth good effort to accomodate this clientele (Oregano's and Pita Jungle)
3: The restaurant has basic amenities for this clientele (Most restaurants)
2: The restaurant has limited options for this clientele (Delux and Texas Roadhouse)
1: The restaurant does not cater to this clientele (Mary Elaine's and Durant's)


Last is the Overall score, which works the same way as the Food/Service/Atmosphere rankings. Note that this is not an average! A place could have 4s across the board but still get a 3 or 5 just as easily due to those little unseen touches that bring everything together or pull everything apart.

From the mailbag

I just got a question from one of my readers through the nifty little Meebo box on the right hand side of the page. Since they left the page before I could respond, here's my reply.

meeboguest950458: I am looking for rock candy syrup for a mai tai recipe. Can I use grenadine?


The Jester Sez: Nope. Grenadine and rock candy syrup are completely separate ingredients; grenadine is (or at least is supposed to be) pomegranate flavor, rock candy syrup is a neutral flavor. Rock Candy syrup is more commonly known as simple syrup, which is available for sale at most liquor stores. Don't bother buying it, as it's incredibly easy to make at home. To make rock candy syrup, mix 1 pound of sugar (a little more than 2 cups) and a cup of water and heat either in the microwave or on the stove until the solution is completely clear. Store it in a bottle in the fridge. It keeps indefinitely. I don't know when grenadine found its way into the Mai Tai; I have a theory that a bartender somewhere used creme de noyaux (a pink almond liqueur) as a substitution for orgeat, and someone who watched him thought the red liquid was grenadine. However it happened, grenadine should not go in a Mai Tai.



If you ever have any questions, whether about cooking something you see here, local restaurants, or food in general, meebo me! If I'm not around, you can always leave a message. Hint: If you want to catch me live, I'm usually on late at night.

Dinner for that movie coming out

As you may well know by now, Pixar is releasing the movie Ratatouille at the end of this month. After watching a clip on the movie's site, I have a feeling this is going to be every bit as much of a joy to watch as other classic food films such as Like Water for Chocolate and Big Night. This could very well be a good occasion to go to see this at a drive-in, since that way we can bring our own food. And with a movie featuring French cooking enough that the name of the movie is a Provençale dish, I'm putting together a menu of deliciousness from southeastern France.

Appetizer
Pissaladière (onion tart with anchovy and olives)

Main course
Poulet Provençal (chicken braised in tomato, garlic, and herbs)
served with baguettes, roasted red potatoes, and ratatouille (of course!)

Dessert
Raspberry gratin

There's strong temptation to do some kind of salad after the main, but I think three courses for a drive-in movie dinner should be more than enough.

Burger Bar- Mandalay Bay

forgot to take pic. damn. Burger Bar serves up without a doubt THE best burger I have had. Wow. My favorite was Delux until I tried this burger. Delux is no slouch and this is head and shoulders above Delux. The menu is much more expansive than that of Delux, with three different kinds of beef to select (including American Kobe, but what's the point of American Kobe when it's ground anyway?), turkey and veggie options, five bread choices, and a list of toppings that ranges from classic (Cheddar cheese, sauteed mushrooms) to eccentric (grilled asparagus, beetroot pickle), to extravagant (black truffles, lobster, foie gras). I had a burger of Ridgefield Farms beef ($8) on ciabatta with blue cheese ($0.50), grilled onion ($0.95), peppered bacon ($0.95) (Did I mention they offer four different kinds of bacon?), and truffle sauce ($5), cooked medium-rare. For sides, my friend and I got some of their sweet potato fries ($2.50) and onion rings ($3.25).

Yeah, I was pushing close to 20 bucks for a burger and fries. I blame the truffle sauce. It was easily worth every last dime. Everything came together brilliantly well, and you could still taste the beef under the rich ingredients. The ciabatta did its job marvelously, offering support without collapsing halfway through, adding its own note the the taste without dominating the bite like those ciabatta burgers at Jack In The Box. The sides were both exemplary; the sweet potato fries were the crispest that I've had, and the onion rings were a rare example of the thick-breaded rings that didn't get pulled from a freezer bag. Everything was just marvelous; the food was perfect, the servers amazingly attentive without being obtrusive, and the design of the place allowed for a raucous crowd and fairly loud music but still let you converse at normal volumes. I just got word down the pipe that there's a new burger place at Fashion Show Mall called Stripburger, but they're going to have an awfully hard time pulling me away from repeated visits to Burger Bar every time I'm in Vegas.

Burger Bar
3930 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89119
702-632-7777

Atmosphere: 5 (Very nice looking, and perfect acoustic design)
Service: 5 (The whole package, outgoing, friendly, attentive without being obtrusive)
Food: 6! (Seriously the best burger I have had)
Value: 3 (Prices can sneak up on you with added toppings, but worth it)
Kid Friendly: 2 (It's a sports bar atmosphere, I didn't see many kids at all)
Veg friendly: 3 (They do have a vegan veggie burger on the menu)
Overall: 5 (If you enjoy a great burger, you simply have to go to Burger Bar)

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.