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Favorite Restaurant, in AZ?


MJLO

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Dude, that's Deer Valley. Pretty swanky. Actually one of my favorite residential areas of the Valley.

Not sure on restaurants except for what's around the MetroCenter (pretty far), but I believe that it's almost exclusively chains. There's a big shopping complex on the southwest side of the interchange (I think).

That certainly doesn't help your commute though.

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  • 1 month later...

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How about some more restaurant advice?

There's my post in the off-topic (which probably should have gone here but I forgot about it), but a couple of Tucson places that have come up recently:

Local Dough. It's mostly focused on pizza (which is excellent) but mainly has probably the best selection of draft beer in town. Not just the typical West Coast fare (Sierra, Red Hook, Stone, etc) plus a couple of novelties: all of it is good. They don't have crappy beers on tap. No Budweiser anywhere to be found.

It's run by UA grads (they're usually in there, very willing to talk about food or beer or whatever else) and is right by campus: on Speedway just west of Campbell. Good stuff.

Another strange entry recently (also in the campus area) is Bakerzin. This is a Singapore-based upscale desert shop that has decided to put its first US location in Tucson. I haven't tried it yet but wanted to mention it because I think it's just so strange.

It's on University in the Main Gate corridor between Park and Tyndall.

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colin with his finger on the pulse of southeast asian happenings....

i think a dessert place is a smart way for an exotic restaurant to make its first forray into an untested dining culture. people who aren't adventurous enough to try an ethnic or otherwise culturally-exotic main dish are probably not going to be so reluctant to dabble in sweets, so maybe this place can get good traffic early on. that's my impromptu theory on how to succeed in the weird food biz, anyway. fly, little bird; fly!

main gate's a good location for something like that (say you're in the area and you've only got a few minutes to stop and get something sweet - you gonna go to penguin's...or the singaporean place nearby?! i mean, what would you do?)

haven't been to main gate square in months. i had gotten into a habit of going to that coffee shop near the southeast corner (the one with the staircase; not the one-story empty-room house down the block) just about every day when we first moved out here. i can't even remember the name of that place now.

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and on the topic of dessert...

what are some good pastry / confectionery shops? people we know kept raving about ghini's off campbell and...ft. lowell? prince? - somewhere up there, anyway - so of course we broke down and went. the entree food was pretty bad, imho. it seemed it was mostly all about the words on the menu and not the food on the table. judging from the lunchtime clientele, i could see how that might be. anyway, the sweet stuff at ghini's has just been average. we've gotten dessert there more than once, making sure to try different things - but it's all no better and no worse than you'd expect. serviceable - yeah; that's the word. the kind of place office people go when there's an office party and someone has to supply a cake.

as a matter of fact, office people are pretty much responsible for every bad tip we've gotten. i think i'm gonna start using the advice of office people as a sort of reverse-compass for everything that requires judgment. ask where some good apartments are and they'll say the foothills - so that rules out that area. ask where a good place to get dessert is and they'll say ghini's or the bakery at AJ's - scratch them off my list. ask them what they're doing this weekend and they'll invite you to desert diamond because last weekend they were on a roll - note to self: avoid desert diamond and start avoiding this douchebag.

whoa...stop the rant. anyway - there's gotta be something better than ghini's, but i just haven't noticed anything.

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That's funny, but I see where you're coming from. People in offices are not always the most interesting, so I think you're just getting advice from people who live in their bubble and rarely get outside to see and try different things. These are the same people that will think any wine is good if they read about in a magazine, regardless of how it really tastes. You could feature Boone's Farm in "Country Living" and people would rave about it's "texture".

I've actually gotten good advice from co-workers though. At UA, I worked with a lot of Mexicans and they were always knowledgable on the best Sonoran food in town. Also, my boss was very into beer and generally had his pulse on new beer-oriented bars and restaurants.

But, by confectionary, do you mean cake shop, donuts, or just desserts? (I can't believe I wrote "desert" in that last post, I won't edit it so that I have to live with the shame)

Donuts I've been really disappointed by here. Le Caves is probably the best in town (that I've found), but it's in a really weird location on South Sixth Avenue near 22nd Street. Other than that, Safeway seems to be the best for donuts.

For cakes, I've only had what I've gotten at those ridiculous office parties because I just don't eat them much. I know that Safeway cakes are generally better, but Maribelle on Grant is also supposed to be good (but maybe more event-oriented).

For desserts though, probably The Cup inside the Congress has the best. They have some master bakers back there (you can see them usually on the NW side of the building). Something Sweet on Speedway is also supposed to be very good. But I also love the desserts at The Grill and Daggwood on Fort Lowell has some insane cakes (huge!). You can also get lots of delicious vegan desserts at Epic on Fourth. They usually don't taste vegan either.

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People in offices are not always the most interesting, so I think you're just getting advice from people who live in their bubble and rarely get outside to see and try different things. These are the same people that will think any wine is good if they read about in a magazine, regardless of how it really tastes. You could feature Boone's Farm in "Country Living" and people would rave about it's "texture".
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  • 2 weeks later...

Arizona is getting Culvers, the Wisconsin based restaurant group is planning on opening the fast food chain in the valley this year. They are famous for their butter burgers. Which in my opinion taste an awful lot like any other burger i've ever eaten. What we used to do in MI before eating there is, schedule bypass surgery at two, and go for lunch at noon.

the link, should anyone be interested.

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I like in n out better, it's more traditional in the fast food sense. Culvers, has more that mom n pop sense. It caters to the same class of people who view Cracker Barrel with cult like reverence.

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  • 2 weeks later...

my limited experience in tucson thus far has led me to favor zivaz mexican bistro for the mid-priced semi-table-service locally-owned restaurant (similar in feel to chopped, beyond bread or baggins). it's located on broadway just east of swan (south side of the road).

there is surely better authentic mexican in tucson, of all places, but zivaz gets its so-called new-wave menu just right. their carnitas are not typical of other places', and very good. i fear pork in mexican places much as i fear beef in chinese joints, but zivaz has disabused me of my trepidation.

restaurants like zivaz (or chopped, or beyond bread) in any town are a little too...conflicted?...in their attempt to appeal to upmarket pretensions while trying to be affordable - at least for me - but i can't argue with the actual food. that, and the co-owner, felipe valenzuela jr., is super-nice and unpretentious. it's clear that, whether you like his wannabe fru-fru chipotle-style restaurant or not, he's sincerely trying. the food is very good.

i may be partial to this place, too, because they opened just a few days before we moved here last year, and this was our first restaurant experience...no, wait...there was also a sh!thole burrito stand off valencia road that had the best chorizo i've ever had (a burritto that drips oil? better than it sounds) - complete with local color hanging around the outside tables, lighting up leaf in broad daylight and not noticing the year's worth of joint butts they'd already scattered on the patio. but that's that part of town for you - i prefer a good sheethole.

anyhell, we routinely get pints of zivaz salsa to go - they have the best 'fresh' style tomato salsa i've tried here (which isn't exactly saying much - i'm no gastronome.) not for fans of the dark red tomato salsa (the hot, almost pepper-based kind); just garden fresh.

garden fresh? what a cliche factory i am. i should do ad copy.

since i mentioned baggins, i gotta say that their unforgettable baggins is downright sextastic. i've ordered everything on their menu, and this sandwich is great - strikes that delicate balance between a vegan's wet dream (sprouts, avocado slices) and a club sandwich (bacon) to die for (cliche!). everything else on baggins' menu is...i'm looking for a word...forgettable.

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Krispy Kremes were owned by a franchise company out of Omaha. It shut down a whole bunch accross the board. I do believe that KK Got to big for their britches to fast, lost that exclusivity they used to have. They've been struggling ever since this whole low carb thing started a few years back. That company owned a whole bunch of them in the West, not just AZ.

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