My mother moved to Phoenix this past October, lured by the dramatically cheaper real estate, warmer climate and chance for a natural tan in January. I finally got a chance to visit The Five Paragraph Bitter Food Mom this past week, and lived out the Paul Simon classic, Mother and Child Reunion, just without the Chinese food. I was hoping to get some quality Southwestern or even Native American food; Mom figured she’d use me as excuse to try places in her new area. With the Super Bowl being held this weekend in the Phoenix suburb of Glendale, and one of our local sportswriters recovering from a heart attack (get well soon!), Arizona is in the press. Here’s my recent four-day eating guide to the newest of the Lower 48 states.
Our first meal was at Black Angus Steakhouse, a place she’d heard good reviews from her coworkers, but had yet to try herself. Black Angus is a regional chain that (thankfully) has not migrated further east than Colorado and New Mexico. The food was mediocre and the portions were massive – the culinary equivalent of speaking louder to a foreigner who doesn’t speak English. Given the praise at Mom’s work, I’d be willing to grant that maybe we caught it on a bad night, but the prime rib was more like a sub-prime mortgage – I’d need the Government’s help to get out from under that thing. Mom’s steak was tougher than a Navy SEAL. Arizona cuisine was not starting off well.
We swung by a couple of grocery stores near her house. The first was Fry’s Marketplace. Tech geeks who’ve been out West know of the legendary Fry’s Electronics stores – many of them are the size of shopping malls and are loaded with all sorts obscure computer parts. While the two Fry’s are run by entirely different companies, the Marketplace version of their food stores mirror the spirit of their electronics’ namesakes by stocking a ridiculously varied amount of products. Fresh produce, locally-supplied beef and a well-stocked deli may not be anything special, but any grocery store with a full Tully’s Coffeeshop, patio furniture section and several rows of vacuum cleaners is kind of unique. The prices were about 5 to 10% less than what we pay out here at a Safeway or Wegman’s, but the noticeable exception was the seafood – about 25% more. If you want fresh seafood in Arizona, you’re gonna pay.
The next grocery store we went to was A.J.’s, a Phoenix-centric chain similar to a Dean and Deluca or Sutton Place Gourmet/Balducci’s. The place drips with a mix of Napa Valley class and Southwestern cool. Rows and rows of wine, spirits and microbrews are placed next to a large high-end cafeteria section. AJ’s prime rib looked a lot better than the refried Barbaro I had the night before. A small outdoor dining area offers gourmet burgers and Mexican snacks next to a bakery that looks like a diabetic’s nightmare – freshly made donuts, cheesecakes, petit-fours, butter cakes. Mom’s sweet tooth took over, and we bought a sampling of their wares, while I enjoyed a prickly pear juice ice tea. The desserts were definitely on the too-sweet side, but they sure did look nice. I’m curious if they tailor their recipes to the influx of snowbirds coming down from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa this time of year with their love of overly-sweet foods.

That night we ate at a local family Italian place, Cucina Tagliani. They have three locations on the west side of the metro area, and are the kind of fun, reasonably priced Italian places we don’t seem to have out here much anymore. The portions were generous, the prices were fine, and the food was quite good. I had the house specialty, the Pasta Tagliani – chicken, bacon, prosciutto, broccoli sautéed with garlic oil, with fettuccine alfredo. I ordered the small size and didn’t dare finish it, as it appeared to be a heart attack on the plate, but it was well worth it. Unique to Tagliani’s is their offering of low-carb pasta options – whole wheat pasta, spinach dishes, spaghetti squash, roasted vegetables. However, any illusions to Dr. Atkins were thrown out the window when Mom ordered a massive slice of a raspberry and chocolate mascarpone cake.
Once we hit the road to tour the state from the Grand Canyon to the Mexico border, we saw that Arizona is much more than strip malls and golf courses. Sedona, Bisbee, Flagstaff – all are areas much more scenic and interesting than expected. As for the Grand Canyon itself – no movie, no documentary, no painting, no picture – nothing at all can adequately describe the amazing mix of colors, geology and weather located in that park. It’s easy to see why it’s one of the most popular tourist attractions in the world. The small town near the South Rim entrance has a couple of fast food places, an overpriced (but tasty) pizza parlor but nothing to get excited about. However, the dining options in Flagstaff were much more reasonable. It’s an Old West railroad stop with a downtown full of pubs, grills and theaters, and the Northern Arizona University makes sure that plenty of cultural opportunities are around. In fact, I just missed G. Love and Special Sauce, and tickets are on sale for an upcoming Pink Martini show. We found the Old Town Shops in Flagstaff, full of funky boutiques, a spa, and two great little places – Bigfoot BBQ and Brookside Chocolates. Nothing prepares you for a hike through the Canyon than overdosing on beef brisket, ribs and chocolate-caramel covered apples. The snow-capped peaks of the San Francisco Mountains to the north provide a great backdrop for a nice day spent in a charming little town.
The next day, we traveled south through Tucson to Tombstone, Ft. Huachuca and Bisbee. Pretty much anybody who’s ever watched a Western has heard of Tombstone, the town “Too Tough To Die.” While I’ve never been a huge fan of the whole “Cowboys and Indians” genre, I did get a kick from walking through the O.K. Corral and seeing all the gunfight reenactments. There is a certain romance that clings to names like Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp, and Tombstone cashes in on this by keeping the old town center looking like it did 100 years ago. However, it’s less of a historic area and more of a tourist trap, almost like Gettysburg. Mom was prepared, though – instead of getting ice cream in Tombstone, she got some Dairy Queen in Benson, AZ, on the way there. Still, if you’re inclined, you can get pub food at the same saloon that some of the West’s most colorful characters patronized.
Down the road about 30 miles away is Bisbee, an old mining town about 20 minutes north of the Mexico border. Nestled high up in the mountains, it looks a lot like old Ellicott City, Maryland, or Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia. The mine has long closed, and the area is now mostly an art commune full of young and old hippies and food co-ops. Bisbee used to have that wild-n-woolly reputation of Tombstone, but is now unofficially sloganed “The Town Too High to Care.” The high altitude keeps the temperatures much more reasonable than in Tucson, about 100 miles away…and I certainly detected smells of patchouli and incense associated with other definitions of “high.”
One of my old California friends recently moved there, and I can see why. The people were nice, friendly, but not disgusting about it. They were all just…cool. Plus, you can walk to almost everything in Old Bisbee. The Bisbee Coffee Company is everything an indie coffee shop should be – warm, inviting and offering really good coffee. Mom and I both tried their in-house brews; mine topped with spicy Mexican cinnamon and her following with a fudge brownie chaser. After one bite, she looked at me, thought of our family’s long and proud baking heritage stretching from our roots in Pennsylvania to our German ancestors, and humbly said “this is the best brownie I’ve ever had.” I took a small bite, and was hard-pressed to disagree. Good coffee and great baked goods? Combined with the Bisbee Grille in the same plaza building, it made for a nice little trip. You rock on, Bisbee.
As a self-proclaimed burger nut, no trip to the American Southwest is complete without a stop at an In-n-Out Burger. My brief stint working in Los Angeles turned me into an In-n-Out junkie, and I was hardly alone in my jonesin’. There’s a reason why Five Guys and Elevation Burger cook their burgers like they do – they mirror In-n-Out’s way of cooking burgers to order. Yeah, you wait a couple of minutes extra, but after trying one, you’ll consider it time well spent. As my mom’s as much of a burger fan as me, it was fun introducing her to a new addiction.
Our last day was spent in a form of detox – lots of water and salad. I had forgotten how powerful mom’s sweet tooth is, and I was not used to so much sugar running through my veins. After touring the Biltmore Arizona (I do love me the Frank Lloyd Wright), we ended up checking out Arizona Mills, the much-smaller cousin to Potomac and Arundel Mills in our region, to get some shopping done. I grabbed a couple of souvenirs and walked past KuKuRuZa, a store offering freshly-prepared gourmet popcorn mixes, a sort of Cold Stone Creamery/popcorn hybrid. Flavors like “s’mores” and “cappuccino caramel” might have whetted my appetite at a different time, but something else caught my eye – a kiosk had margarita-flavored gelato made with Patron.
I’ll let that sink in – margarita-flavored gelato made with Patron.
I had to have a sample; and it was like I had the best-tasting frozen margarita ever. Creamy, smooth, but with that familiar kick. You can definitely taste the Patron – the clerk said that a lot of the alcohol is removed, but there’s still plenty in each serving. I could believe it. Don’t know if they serve it in a cactus glass with a salted rim, but, I now have a new recipe to try to figure out. Why has that not come East yet? I like gelato fine, but it’s always “tiramisu-this” or “black cherry-that” or “spumante-surprise.”
Our last meal on this vacation was at Sweet Tomatoes, a soup-and-salad bar that would be fairly unremarkable except for the fact that their soups are legitimately good. These are not reconstituted cafeteria soups from school, but hearty meals-in-a-bowl made with really fresh ingredients. The chicken noodle had large chunks of white breast meat and dark thigh meat, the vegetarian chili looked like it could pass muster in Texas, and the Congressional Bean Soup was a fairly good interpretation of a Capitol Hill classic.
I’m planning on going back to Phoenix in the fall, though only after I come down from the sugar high…and the Bisbee high.
If you’re curious, I’ll be posting pictures of the trip on my Picasa page.

-AMG