Flora and Food

My son is settled in Tempe, and my renovations have leapt forward. I do have just a bit more to share about Tempe before returning to the kitchen, although food is on my mind.

There is soooooo much good food in Tempe!!! My first meal was at Snooze – an A.M. Eatery. It was the perfect post-flight meal. Lox, cream cheese and artisan bread, and a sparkling strawberry mimosa. We even ate outside because the terrace was lined with misters to cool the air. Most of the upscale outside spots had misters. Definitely not tolerable without misters and huge umbrellas for shade.

After that it was a combination of simply finding whatever sounded good or heading for specific restaurants. There are so many choices available – pretty much any kind of cuisine you can imagine and many you might not. There were fusions of Mexican/Asian and Mexican/everything else. Truly a foodie’s paradise. We had yummy Thai food for dinner my first night and it was the perfect meal for such a long day.

The next morning I woke up early and decided to plan out part of our day. I found what sounded like a great restaurant 5 minutes from the hotel – Biscuits. Absolutely fabulous biscuits and everything else was tasty as well. The service was wonderful and warm. That night we treated ourselves to a “known” experience by heading up to Tommy Bahama restaurant in Scottsdale. TB had always been one of our meals when I went down to Florida. Friday breakfast was back to Biscuits because it was too good not to do it again.

We spent a lot of Friday meeting people and looking at places. We were in downtown Tempe and we thought we’d just walk a bit and see what looked good. We ended up at Rula Bula, which was fantastic. It’s an Irish pub and has all the traditional food and drink. I indulged in a traditional Pimms cup. 🙂 Once again the atmosphere was warm and upbeat and the waitstaff was great. Saturday morning we headed back to downtown Tempe to try somewhere new for breakfast, even though we’d no complaints about Biscuits. It simply seemed we OUGHT to be trying new things. We went back to downtown Tempe for First Watch. My son had some fabulous egg concoction. I’m very boring in my breakfast choices but what I remember about that breakfast was the phenomenal bread and the delicious coffee, and the helpful, pleasant waitress.

We ran MORE errands on Saturday and didn’t have time to eat until nearly 2:30p. We thought we’d try downtown Tempe again but once we saw Rula Bula we knew that was the place for us. We sat at the bar and chatted with the bartender, Vinny. Vinny told us his views on where we should be looking for apartments, and other key things to know about the area. He was of the opinion that the room we’d just seen before lunch was in a great location and would be a great choice. We were coming to that conclusion ourselves. As we sat there chatting, my son got a text that one of those 2 available rooms had just been taken. He texted back that he would take the other, even though we had one more meet-up to do that day. We made arrangements to do the paperwork Sunday morning. (That would be after the night in the inferno of a hotel room.) We stopped for dinner at an Indian restaurant, the Curry Corner.We found it using search and it was 10 minutes from our location. Once again we had a tasty, filling meal. I’m beginning to think that there is NO bad food in Tempe area. 🙂

Sunday morning we fled the hotel, did the room rental paperwork and went back to Snooze. Wow, does that place get crowded for Sunday brunch! Especially since school was going to be starting in a week or so. They have a seating concept I’ve not encountered before: open seating. This was a high table with stools, with seats for 8. There were 6 people there already (3 groups of 2).We took the last 2 seats, facing each other. It was like eating at a bar, instead of sitting at a private table. It was fine, and it meant we got seated immediately instead of a 40 minutes wait. Worked for us. 🙂

As we drove about and around Tempe, I made my son stop the car so I could take pictures of flowers and trees and cacti. Unlike some with whom I’ve traveled, he was very tolerant and WOULD pull over and indulge my attempts at being a photographer. The cactus with the face is only a few houses away from his new lodgings. We cruised the neighborhood noticing the artistic touches on many of the houses. I’m not sure how comfortable that flamingo can be in the desert, but there it is. I took photos of the iron work art on the houses as well. I kept waiting for a police car to come by and check out the “suspicious car, occupants taking photos of residences”.

I took many photos of things that appealed, only to deny them a place in this blog. When I looked at what else was in the picture, I’d see green grass. I consider growing grass in this area to be a ridiculous (or even, perhaps, obscene) waste of water and effort. Since no one has asked my opinion on this matter, I am indulging in my own private rebellion by refusing to display grass. 🙂 Sunday night we spent at the hotel, as mentioned in a prior post. Monday we treated ourselves to a fine steak dinner at The Keg Steakhouse – a reward for 1st day of work for him and birthday for me. 🙂