Arizona Eats

On my journey to go on a semi-ironic pilgrimage to all of Guy Fieri’s recommended restaurants in Arizona, I stopped at Tacos Chiwas on 20th Street and McDowell. During my first visit, I stuck to Guy’s recommendation of the Taco Chiwas, and also decided to try out their pastor taco, and they asada taco. All three tacos were wrapped in homemade tortillas and topped with a unique garnish to help accentuate each meat’s flavor. The pastor and asada was delicious and well seasoned, both of them were gone in a flash. The Taco Chiwas was topped with a unique mix of Beef, Ham, Jalapeño, Anaheim Chiles, Asadero Cheese. The ham and the texture of the beef created a pleasantly salty and savory meat combo. The peppers added a slight kick that was cooled down by the Asadero. Together they formed one of my new favorite taco combinations.  

On my next visit I decided to try their Asadero Quesadilla with beef. This opened my eyes to the mouth watering goodness of Asadero cheese. The tacos are pretty good at Tacos Chiwas, but the quesadillas keep me coming back. I would highly recommend a visit, just to try out these greasy and gooey half circles.

Press is one of Arizona’s largest coffee roasters and has been in the valley since 2008 when original owner Steve Kraus opened their first location. Since then, co-owners Alex Mason and Jason Kyle have joined Kraus, and the company is still owned and operated in Arizona. There are roughly 8 locations across Arizona: 2 in Tempe, 2 in Scottsdale, 3 in Phoenix, and 1 in Chandler. They just recently opened their new flagship location, The Roastery, on 32nd Street and Shea Boulevard in Phoenix. 

Press has a strong emphasis on educating its customers about the various coffees they offer. Every bag includes a list of the growing region, elevation, varietal, process, tasting notes and roasting date. The company also offers coffee tasting 101 classes, and after going to one, I would highly recommend it to anyone even vaguely interested in knowing more about coffee. 

They are constantly releasing new roasts and blends, including collaborations with local companies like their Pura Vida roast that they made with The Phoenix Zoo. 

Overall, Press provides a friendly no fuss coffee experience with some quality beans.

Provision coffee started as a wholesale coffee roaster in 2011, and around 2015 co-owners Lawrence Jarvey and Dan Suh opened Provision’s first retail location. That location in Chandler has since closed down, and Provision’s new location on 32nd Street and East Campbell Ave. opened in July of 2018. Their new location is a sleek and modern coffee shop/ cocktail lounge that (for better or for worse) feels at home in the Arcadia area. While Provision offers a wide variety of hand crafted cocktails at this location, it’s the amount of care that goes into their coffee that keeps me coming back.

In addition to the typical coffee shop staples, Provision’s menu features a variety of coffee drinks that sounds like the punchline of a fussy coffee shop joke. Despite the borderline comical idea of getting a glass of cold brew with mole bitters topped with aromatic tobacco smoke, all the flavors manage to come together to create a beverage that is truly worth the fuss. After one sip of their drip coffee, you can tell these complex cocktails are used to compliment the hard work of their coffee roasters, and were not simply created to separate upper-class hipsters from their money.

While Provision offers some of the finest coffee in the valley, I do feel that the coffee shop is leaning a little too hard into its bourgeois surroundings. The clean aesthetic of the Arcadia location mixed with the complex menu, well dressed baristas, and overdressed customers creates a feeling of upper-class exclusivity. It doesn’t help that the coffee shop’s Instagram uses photos of a Lamborghini to advertise its Car Meet event. It’s probably smart to cater to clients that are near your locations (and have large amounts of expendable cash), but because of this atmosphere, I don’t really recommend Provision to people who are just craving a quality cup of coffee. While it can be said that other roasters in the valley come off as coffee snobs (Cartel), you typically just need to learn more about coffee to feel more welcome in those shops.  For Arizona locals a stop at Provision feels like going to the Biltmore for the first time, when you typically shop at Arrowhead or Metrocenter Mall. 

Cucara Macara is located on 32nd street just north of Oak, in Phoenix and has been around for a couple months. The interior is was nice and welcoming with a cute little sign with the shops name, over the case holding the ice cream. The shop features a couple basic ice cream flavors, but in an effort to be adventurous I tried out some of their more unique offerings. A decent amount of reviews for Cucara Macara say that the cheese, and pine nut ice cream were delightful, but I was craving something sweeter. While looking through the reviews, I had also read that some people described the ice cream as being more ice then cream. The person behind the counter must have heard this complaint before, because before I tasted my first sample, they let me know that because the ice cream was homemade, it would have a texture that I might not be accustomed to. 

After tasting my way through the ice cream case, I settled on Soursop (Graviola) and Mammee Fruit. Both flavors had a very subtle sweetness and tasted like a combination of guava and vanilla. While the flavor was nice, the texture of the ice cream didn’t have much body and the combo left me feeling thoroughly whelmed. 

While I have never made ice cream myself, I have eaten ice cream all across the world (several US states, plus Canada and Japan). With my ice cream credentials laid out on the table, I will make the bold claim that Cucara Macara’s ice cream texture issue isn’t from being homemade. If I had to take a guess (not an expert), I would say that they’re not using enough butterfat, or they scaled up homemade recipes that require some extra work to prevent from icing up. I don’t say this because I think I could do better, I say this because it’s a crutch to blame the disappointing texture on the ice cream being “homemade”. Many other local ice cream shops make their own ice cream daily, and don’t have this issue. 

Cucara Macara is a local and family owned ice cream shop, in a city filled with ice cream shops. Currently they have pretty of glowing reviews on Yelp and Google. As time goes on, there is a good chance that if they don’t change their ice cream recipe, other picky reviewers will express similar concerns. I really want them to succeed, because the ice cream world could use more fun flavors. Currently, I would only recommend visiting them if you want to see what cheese ice cream would taste like, or you live nearby.  

Who are you: My name is Patrick. I live in Arizona.

Why do this?: I like food and I’m kind of a judgmental person, so I figured that a food blog would be a fun idea. I also use food to deal with my emotions (and I’m likely not alone in this behavior), so for my own mental health, it’s probably a good idea to understand why it’s my drug of choice.

What is this?: This blog will mostly focus on food related articles based in Arizona, but if I ever get to go on vacation, I’ll do my best to share some food from my travels.

Are you an expert?: Nope, but I like to read about food in my free time, so I know a little more than the typical person. With that in mind, I’m pretty sure most food reviewers/ journalists weren’t experts at writing about food until they plopped out a couple hundred articles.

Any extra info?: These are all my opinions, sometimes I’ll try and use science to back up my claims but for the most part, taste is subjective. I will likely contradict myself many times in this blog, and you should feel to call me out. For example, I hate mayonnaise but love aioli, even though they are pretty much the same thing.