Arizona - Good Eats

Whenever I travel to a new city, I like to ask the locals where to eat. Now, this can be a little awkward, because I'm looking for gems, not just restaurants. Calvin Trillin wrote a lot about traveling and eating and he wrote that he never wanted to go to the place you'd take your in-laws for their anniversary (which he referred to as "La Maison de la Casa House"), but the place you went to when you returned home from 3 years overseas with the armed forces. Arizona has a wealth of those great places that the locals really don't want to share with you. On this trip, Maureen and I enjoyed several of them.

1. The Roaring Fork - Robert McGrath's homage to cowboy food with an amazing foodie twist. Imagine campfire food that's designed by the best chefs and with the imagination of a true culinary master. Very unique. Braised beef short ribs with Dr. Pepper barbecue sauce on cheesy grits....sigh. www.roaringfork.com
2. Alice Cooperstown - Yup, THAT Alice Cooper. He's created the perfect sports bar, rock memorabilia, BBQ joint mash-up that somehow just works. Sure, it's a little touristy, but it's a great place to go on game night. Just don't expect to see a hockey game ("You mean ICE hockey?!?"). This is a place that's decorated with Alice's own memorabilia, so you'll get signed guitars by the Beatles, Led Zeppelin and the Who. Signed photos of Alice with Salvador Dali and Frank Sinatra. Not the signed drum skin for some flash-in-the-pan one-hit wonder you never heard of, like at the Hard Rock Cafe. Oh, and real food, also not like the Hard Rock cafe. www.alicecooperstown.com
3. Crazy Ed's Satisfied Frog - This is in Cave Creek, a great town north of Scottsdale. This is one of those places that you have to temporarily suspend your amateur health inspector's license for the day and just go with the flow. This is a JOINT. This is THE JOINT, in fact. Real southwest BBQ. In an authentic western town. There are so many additions to the original building, it's hard to figure out what the place used to look like. The best appetizer - whole, fried, green chilies. And they brew their own beer - chili beer. It's a crisp lager with a chili pepper in the bottle (slogan: "Limes are for wimps!"). It's refreshing and the heat makes you thirsty for another -- brilliant. http://www.satisfiedfrog.com.

Tonight we ate at Roy's. Hawaiian fusion. Great fish. This is NOT a joint. There are a few throughout Texas, Nevada and Arizona. A very nice place for a romantic dinner for two. A bottle of bubbly, a very nice piece of fish, and their famous chocolate souffle for dessert, makes for a very different kind of happy mouth. http://www.roysrestaurant.com/

Not really a restaurant review, but places that folks in the know should know about... Yum.