When 95 degrees was not hot enough for us, my wife and I made the decision to travel to Arizona and hang out in 117 degree heat.  However, we had a great time and had some wonderful food and some really bad food.  Our trip to Los Reyes De La Torta can be found here, otherwise I will lump the rest under this post.  When we arrived, we went straight to:

Dick’s Hideaway
6008 N 16th St
Phoenix, AZ 85016
http://www.burningembersphoenix.com

Based on the picture above, I get the “hideaway” part.   The entrance is between those two bushes, there is no signage…  The place smelled great and was really cool inside as it was someplace I could hang out here for a while.

What I Ate:  Rellenos and Eggs. I chose one duck and one pork and had it with green sauce. It was served with two eggs any style, potatoes and pinto beans, for around $11.

I really liked this.  Their green sauce is amongst the best that I have ever had.  My wife had the Huevos Rancheros with red sauce and neither of us liked it. If you go to Dick’s, remember…go green!!

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, though I am not sure it is a must have. The green sauce is great and I really liked this place.  I would feel comfortable recommending this to a friend.

Hotel Valley Ho, Trader Vic’s and Café ZuZu
6850 East Main Street
Scottsdale, AZ 85251

We stayed at the Hotel Valley Ho for a night as it was soooo cheap and has a retro vibe to it that I thought was cool.  We visited happy hours at both restaurants ( Cafe ZuZu for earlier happy hour and Trader Vic’s for late night menu) that are at the hotel and both were horrible.  It is not worth even going into.

Would I Buy It Again?  No. Horrible food, bad service a train wreck.

Cafe ZuZu:

Trader Vic’s:

Because our food was so bad and the service was horrible, we went to:

Metro Brasserie & Bar
7114 E Stetson Dr #105
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
http://www.metrosouthbridge.com

Because it is 117 degrees and no one is around, there are happy hours everywhere.  At Metro, we had the poutine and a carmelized onion flatbread. The poutine was really really good and the flat bread was tasty as well.  The gravy was thinner on this version, but it was really, really, really good.  Then again, what did I expect out of putting all these awesome ingredients together?

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, easily.  Great food, good service and I would like to go back the next time I am there.  I can’t help but think this place would do lights out in Indy.

Cowboy Ciao
7133 E Stetson Dr
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
http://www.cowboyciao.com

This place is influential in defining modern southwest food.  Their signature dish is a mushroom stir fry for $12.95. They have over six or seven different types of mushrooms in a cream sauce served with polenta.

I really liked this quite a bit.  It was really rich and I couldn’t imagine eating more than a lunch portion, but it was pretty tasty.  My wife had a roasted duck sandwich that we didn’t care for that much.

Would I Buy it Again?  No. I enjoyed the mushroom dish, but the sandwich was a mess.  I just didn’t love the place.  However, if someone really wanted to go, I would give it another try, but it is not making my “must have” list.

Meals without pictures:

Spotted Donkey – A cool little place with upscale Mexican food.  They make a mean margarita (of which I consumed many) and have a great happy hour.  Since it is so close to my in-laws house, I will definitely go again.  The food is ok, but there is something about it that I just like being there.

Would I Buy it Again? Yes, for drinks and chilling out.

A Different Pointe of View – A Four Diamond Award winner that is perched on a mountain top, this is knows to be one of Scottsdale’s best.   However, it wasn’t that night.  The five course tasting menu was a major disappointment.  With wine pairing, the bill was around $240 without the tip.  Again, a major disappointment. However, the service was great and you really can’t beat the view.

Would I Buy It Again? No.

Binkley’s - Another Four Diamond Award winner.  This meal was unlike any other I have had.  Seven amuse bouches throughout the five course tasting menu.  I enjoyed the service and it was just a constant onslaught of food.  Extremely creative food and presentations.  For two people, it was around $215 without the tip, but I thought it was well worth it.  A great meal.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes and I would like to go there the next time I am in Arizona.

I think that is it. Some really good food and we had a great time.  If you have never been, you should go…and I hope this list helps you.

-wibia

Best Bet Breakfast & Lunch
14300 Mundy Drive
Noblesville, Indiana  46060

This place has been around for a couple years now and I have been a few times pre-blog, but this was my first visit since the blog started and I figured that a review was in order.  The place is a little hole in the wall at the end of a strip shopping center and the whole place is done up in a Las Vegas/gambling motif (which is hilarious by the way).

On my prior visits, this place was kind of hit or miss.  My first visit was outstanding, my second visit was awful and my third visit was mediocre, so the real question is if Best Bet is still unpredictable and I still can’t answer that definitively after my most recent visit.

What I Got:  The Flop (playing up the gambling angle); eggs, sausage patties, potatoes and two pancakes.  Also comes with unlimited toast basket.  $7.25

In this visit, I tried hitting all the different varieties of breakfast foods available as I took a trip to the proteins (meats and eggs) and starches (pancakes, bread and potatoes).  In order to make this easy, let’s tackle this by individual menu item.

Eggs:  I got mine scrambled and it was pretty standard stuff.  They offered to make them with cheese (a nice touch), but I declined.  The taste was pretty much what you would expect of scrambled eggs with no real huge positives or negatives.

Sausage patties:  I saw somewhere on the web that Best Bet uses locally grown pork for their sausage and I could definitely taste a freshness here.  I also have to give them kudos for cooking the sausage so that it maintained some sort of tenderness.  That may not seem like a big thing, but I’ve been to far too many breakfast places that serve you sausage patties that are about as hard as a hockey pucks.  My only gripe was that the patties were fairly thin.

Potatoes:  They certainly don’t win any presentation points with these.  When they came to me, you could tell that they just took the potatoes out of a large batch of potato mush on the griddle (I verified this on my way out) with an ice cream scoop and dumped it on the plate.  Despite the lack of visual attractiveness, these actually did taste pretty good.  They were seasoned with a peppery taste and that did a lot for them because potatoes at a lot of places are usually very bland.

Pancakes:  Again, pretty standard stuff here.  I got the buttermilk variety pancakes (blueberry pancakes were an option) and all I can say is that they made them right.  They were perfectly cooked and fluffy.

Would I Buy It Again?  Yes, I would, although I will continue to be leery of their up-and-down nature.  There’s not a ton of non-chain, locally owned breakfast places in the Fishers/Noblesville area, so Best Bet kind of wins by default.  Still, the food on my most recent visit was tasty and it was enough to bring me back.  The price was a bit higher than I would like for breakfast, but when you balance that with the HUGE amount of food that they give you with this order, it actually turns out to be a good deal.

One more thing:  As part of their unlimited toast basket,  Best Bet has these little homemade cinnamon and sugar covered donut balls that they serve you (I have had them on prior visits) and they are delicious.  When they weren’t part of my basket on this past visit, I was very disappointed and asked the server what happened.  Turns out that the donuts are only part of the standard basket on the weekdays.  On the weekends, you have to actually request that they bring them to you.  The good news about that is that they are usually warm and fresh and that is huge.  So, my tip to you is to make sure that you ask your server to bring some out to you.  You will not regret it!

-IndianapolisEater

Eggs from Hell

In a season of near misses, the Indiana Hoosiers once again missed out on a victory over a stronger opponent in a 31-28 loss to the Wisconsin Badgers.

One thing that didn’t miss though was the tailgate food.  It was WIBIA’s first visit to our tailgate this season and he was in charge of our food and he certainly did not miss.  Since this was a noon kickoff, we highlighted our tailgate with two “meals.”

For “breakfast,” we had Eggs from Hell which were inspired from Mario Batali’s NASCAR cookbook and I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised at how AWESOME that they were.  I wasn’t expecting a lot of spice out of them, but they surprised me there as well.

For “lunch,” a Mexican twist on a pita sandwich recipe.  We used a whole chicken, an assortment of Mexican themed spices and some homemade roasted red pepper sauce that I would absolutely recommend making at home.

Now, onto this week’s video…

-IndianapolisEater