I took a quick 5 day trip from Los Angeles to Scottsdale. This was for a wedding and I thought I’d have some freedom to eat where I wanted by taking my own car. There were 10 from my immediate family, a few cousins, aunts and uncles but only my mother and me in my car.
I started the day Wednesday with carbing up at Dupar’s. They’re a small chain in around town and I went to the location in Studio City, CA.
I ordered what they’re famous for… the pancakes and eggs. They serve a pitcher of melted butter along with the hot maple syrup. The pancakes were light and fluffy, but a little pasty. When I tried to picking up bites off of the plate the bottom half of the pancake stuck every time.
The eggs were perfect. The whites were completely cooked while the yolks were still soft.
Added coffee to the meal at it cost $12.00
After working during the day I picked up Mom for our ride to Joey’s for dinner. What should have taken 45 minutes took over 2 hours!
My order of beef ribs settled my angst from driving.
They were very meaty and not too fatty which beef ribs can be. The sauce was just right where I didn’t need to add any additional. The coleslaw was fair and I’m not sure I knew what to expect of yam fries. There was a little container of whipped cream fluff to dip the fries, but it was hard. I dug it out with a knife and applied it to the fries. Not great.
Been going to Joey’s for years and will continue to make that stop on the way to Rancho Mirage where we slept.
I wanted to get on the road to Scottsdale the next morning, but Mom wanted breakfast or at least coffee. She has a hard time deciding on anything so I told her that we’d stop on the next block at the Bristol Farms Grocery Store. They have a coffee counter in there and we could also get a Danish or something to eat with it in the car while we drove.
What we didn’t know was that Bristol Farms was having a breakfast special which is right up my Mom’s alley. She loves a deal. It was great!
Two eggs, two strips of thick bacon, some sort of potatoes, any type of bread, toast or bagel that we wanted…. And coffee. All for $3.99. My mother talked about it all weekend. It was very good for a simple breakfast.
Then we drove the six and a half hours to our hotel in Scottsdale. My cousins were already there and they wanted to have dinner across the street from the hotel. It was some new gourmet (???) Mexican place that I was so impressed with that I didn’t take any pictures or even remember the name. I had chicken mole enchiladas that were okay.
The next day was the day of the wedding. Food4me was great and gave me all kinds of places to go to. My cousins wanted to try out a new breakfast place that their cousins had told them about. It was in some commercial area of Scottsdale and away from all the popular places. It was not on my list!
I wanted to go to Dick's Hideaway but we heard that they had a fire there.
Over Easy is a brand new breakfast place and their food was quite good. So good that we ate everything before I even thought about taking any pictures. I had a malted waffle which came with real butter. The real maple syrup was in a squirt bottle on the table. I guess that’s the easiest way for them. The menu was all breakfast items and breakfast drinks. I had coffee. The hit of the meal was the Stuffed French Toast. It was stuffed with Marscapone cheese, bananas, pecans and caramel sauce. Then in the rinky dink hole in the wall that no one could easily find in walks Frankie Muniz. Guess it’s not that unknown. Well maybe he is.
The only thing missing at Over Easy was garnish on the plates. They looked incomplete without an orange slice or strawberry gracing the plate.
The rest of the day was spent with wedding stuff and dinner was a cold buffet.
The next morning I still couldn’t get anyone to even look at my list! Sorry Food4me. You went to the effort to find me all of those great looking places and we ended up at the coffee shop in the hotel.
However twelve of us the caravanned to Jerome, AZ for the sole purpose of eating at… Jerome Palace
I thought we were going to shop!
They are known for their burgers and there was a line proving that others also thought they were good.
I opted for the green chili burger. The meat was outstanding but I guess I don’t like green chili on my burgers. They weren’t perfectly skinned and that bothered me. They also kept falling out! There was a topping bar with lettuce, tomatoes, jalapenos and other interesting toppings but I just had lettuce and mayo. I didn’t want to take away from the taste of the chilies which I hardly tasted.
That night I was also at the mercy of family. I didn’t even take my camera with me I was so disgusted with their choice of dinner places.
We ate at Tommy Bahamas which is a fine representation of Arizona cooking. Everything that could go wrong did.
We were finally going to go to one of Jim’s suggestions for Sunday morning brunch. He recommended Tradiciones Restaurant for the buffet brunch. Finally! I called to make reservations and not only did they not open until 11AM, they also did not have a buffet.
So this was going to be our last meal before hitting the road. I suggested we go to touristy Old Town Scottsdale for breakfast. We found a gem of a restaurant.
CARUMBA! Well Café Carumba.
7303 E Indian School Rd.
Scottsdale
We split a bunch of meals. We had homemade corned beef hash, chorizo and eggs and… granola with yogurt and strawberries. My mother had a Denver Omelet.
All were outstanding and cooked just to our liking.
The granola was so good that we ordered another bowl for dessert before hitting the road.
Drove four uneventful hours to Indio where I had to stop at Shields for a date shake! I’ve been looking forward to this ever since reading EatingTheRoad’s blog.
Because of the heavy eating we did all weekend Mom and I decided to share a date shake. The girl behind the counter took our order and went to work. She had the individual fixings for the shake premeasured in the cups. She added ice cream and milk and did her thing.
When she was done mixing she divided it into two cups without our even asking. That way I’d get my fair share!
Let me say that everyone has told me that date shakes are way too sweet. I didn’t find that the case at all. What I found was heaven in a paper cup! I loved it!
Can’t wait to go back at Thanksgiving. That’s where we always have TG dinner.
To think that I’ve had a place so close to Indio for all of these years and never once had a date shake! I loved it!
Didn’t make any more stops on the way home and got there in time to watch Amazing Race!