In which the author proves that it’s possible to eat both healthily and unhealthily in Tucson, whether cooking or not cooking.
I mean, we have these great local farmer’s markets including the awesome one at St. Philips Plaza on Sundays where you can get everything from grass-fed beef from Double Check Ranch and good eggs to goat cheese to fresh veggies from farms like Sleeping Frog. As if that weren’t enough, we have community-supported agriculture!
Plus the Food Conspiracy Co-Op, Aqua Vita and New Life for good raw milk, 17th Street Farmer’s Market and semi-chains like Whole Paycheck and Trader Joe’s for everything else. There’s a local Weston Price chapter that at least used to have potlucks.
The restaurants are too numerous to list, but I’ll try to describe my favorites.
For breakfast, you can’t beat Blue Willow’s delicious omelets. I love the avocado/chicken/Swiss combo, but they will even let you select your own. Their lunches and dinners also rock. You can eat outside (yay misters!) and hang out in their very funky gift shop to buy very reasonably priced knick knacks and gadgets and jewelry, or just peruse the selection of magnets, greeting cards, wallets, buttons and other assorted items. Garland is a close second choice for breakfast; we ended up there once when we accidentally went out on Mother’s Day without realizing it.
4th Ave. is just packed with good restaraunts. B-Line has great healthy options like steak salad, and they actually throw the order down a real B-line in the store. La Indita has amazing Mexican food and even some Tohono O’odham recipes like the beef with red chile. Maya Quetzal is also a great choice, and they sell funky weird handbags and things too. The Casbah, which is now closed, was the best place for overpriced hippy food with notoriously slow service.
Hippie food off of 4th Ave. includes Gandhi’s, where you can get all-you-can-eat Indian lunch buffet for the low price of $6 (though it used to be 5). They have the best samosas ever, rice pudding and lots of delicious dishes for your carb overload. Govinda’s also sold hippie food for $3 on Sundays, but you’d sometimes have to listen to the tail end of Krishna chanting to get it.
Tucson really has something for every type of food craving. Even the New York Times wrote about the legendary Sonoran hot dogs, which you can find at El Guerro Canelo, among other places. Want steak? Go to Pinnacle Peak where you can have your tie cut and hung on the ceiling, and watch a stunt show (with all the bells and whistles…and smoke and acrobatics) to boot. Miss Saigon features Vietnamese food at a very reasonable price, including some weird soup with tendons and ligaments which acupuncturists swear is good in the winter. Char Thai is hands down the best Thai in town, and Guilin has great Chinese. And then there’s Joe’s Crab Shack, where Laurie took me after I got dumped. Sometimes seafood and margaritas really do cure an ailing heart, and I found the perfect break-up t-shirt to boot. Xoom is the perfect place for smoothies after summer gardening. Want fancy expensive food? Montana Ave. and the Dish are both to die for. Want carbs? Beyond Bread, Baggins and Brueggers are all over the place. Bad diners? We’ve got Grill, where I got turned down for a part-time dishwashing job once (though I had a connection). That was truly rock bottom for me, but a friend of mine was a cook there and ended up getting staph, so I guess it can always be worse. For a good time, ask them to put cheese on your fries and get kicked out–I heard about this through the grapevine and it really is true. Who would want cheese on their fries anyway is beyond me.
What else am I missing? Chipotle is a huge chain, so I can’t write about them…In ‘n’out or however it’s spelled isn’t exactly local. Time Market is a nice, weird place to hang out. And although the cafe on Mt. Lemmon that sold pie sadly closed down, you can still get empanadas from Mamma Llama’s, gourmet ice cream with stuff in it at Cold Stone, and various deserts til way past midnight at Something Sweet.
Cafes? Although I used to live at Epic, and hang out at Ike’s a lot (chicken bacon avocado!) and spent my fair share of time at the spelling and definition bee at Cafe Passe (formerly Itl), Raging Sage is my favorite for their ambience and supernatural brownies. Want tea? Seven Cups is to die for–a Chinese tea house that looks like it came straight out of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. I mean, they have tea culture classes. They even do traditional tea ceremonies–I’ve had friends come with me to celebrate my birthdays there twice.
For harder drinks, we’ve got the best bars ever. Nimbus Brewery and Gentle Ben’s both have great microbrew. Plush (where I saw Blind Pilot one night after hearing them on NPR) and Club Congress are my favorite local clubs. (Club Congress also has an excellent restaraunt with pennies on the floor.) Kon Tiki is the best place to get shit-faced without realizing what is going on, and there is a diner in walking distance to sober up at afterwords… Rusty’s isn’t the best restaraunt/bar, but it’s probably the best place to watch UFC in town other than Dan’s house. And if you want to make your own brew, you can buy all of the supplies at Brew Your Own Brew on Campbell. Or buy any type of alcohol you can think of at Rumrunner. The possibilities are endless.
There is good food everywhere, but I think I will miss Tucson’s delectables most of all.
