Shish Kebab House has FINALLY opened their new location!

(Pardon the picture quality. Low-light and the camera on my BlackBerry don't mix well.)

I decided to drive by Shish's new location today and they had the Grand Opening sign up and the Open sign lit. I went in and ordered a small hummus to go for Tara, as she was enjoying a rest day at home. I talked to the owner and he said they've been open four or five weeks now. The menu is the same as it was at their old location and from what I can tell prices are the same as well.

The new interior looks really nice. It's definitely different than the old location. Only the table and chairs are the same. I was there at about 5pm and there were three or four groups and more arrived while I waited. The hummus tasted the same as it used to, so that's a good sign. We'll probably go back in a few weeks for full meal.

One thing I did notice is there appear to be some waitstaff issues. They are obviously still training and the owner had some semi-harsh words to one of the waitresses while I was waiting. Service has been a recurring issue there for us, but we tend to overlook that because we like the food so much.

The new address is 5158 W. Olive Ave, Glendale, AZ 623-937-8757

You serve customers with that mouth?

I like to swear. Despite my parents raising me to be a good boy, I can have quite the potty mouth. My grandfather was the real-life inspiration for the Old Man in "A Christmas Story". Well, not actually, but he certainly could have been the dialogue coach on the NC-17 version. If you'd ever heard him, you'd understand. As creative as I can be, I'm still in awe of some of his Richard Pryor/Eddie Murphy/Dennis Leary levels of cursing. We'd have to leave the area because we didn't want to start laughing in front of him.

Anyways, I know there are times to be polite and watch myself. There's a reason I ALWAYS stay on mute during conference calls. Once bitten and all that.

So today I decided to try a different place for Vietnamese food. Tara was off enjoying a girls' day out with some friends, so I was on my own. Traditionally, that means Vietnamese cuisine, her least favorite of my favorites. I decided to try Tudo Vietnamese Restaurant on the SW corner of Northern and 19th Ave.

There were only a couple of other parties when I arrived and I was told I could sit anywhere. The youngish girl who was hostess/waitress/front room person brought me a menu and took my drink order. It's a typical seen better days type of Vietnamese place. Half the space is tables, the other half has a large stage for either bands or karoke.

I ordered fried egg rolls and bun (a bowl of noodles, veggies, and meat) with grilled pork. A little later, my egg rolls came out. Very darkly fried, like the oil was too hot or dirty. They tasted good, though, and reminded me a bit of the ones I had at a Vietnamese friend's house once, only not quite as good. My bun came and had pieces of egg rolls as well as pork, so I thought they gave me the wrong thing. However, when filling up my water, the waitress said they added them since they knew I must like them. A nice touch, as I can eat egg rolls like that all day. The bun was good as well, but nothing special. Avina's and Davang have nothing to fear.

As I was nearly finished, the waitress answered a phone. She spoke in Vietnamese for a while and would shift to English too. She hung up. The phone rang again, picked it up, and she started nearly shouting "What the F&*K is his problem" into the phone, over and over. Eventually a "motherf***er" was thrown in for good measure. Mind you, she's standing behind the counter and CLEARLY audible throughout the restaurant. I was the only customer at that point, so the others missed Little Miss Gangsta Mouth's performance. An older gentleman wandered into the seating area from the kitchen with a bowl of noodles and sat down to eat, blissfully ignoring the girl's tirade.

I can't imagine what would have happened if a group with kids had been in there. And I can't really recommend anyone with children go there. The food was ok, but that kind of extended blue streak isn't fit for a family restaurant. I won't be returning. Avina's always has good service and very friendly staff. Davang, well, it's typical competent but surly Vietnamese service, but at least they don't do this type of outburst.

Bye Bye Bill's

My brother, who has only called me once EVER and that was a drunk dial a few weeks ago, called me around 7:30 last night. That's 9:30 in Maine, so I was somewhat worried. It didn't start off well. He said he had some really bad news. My stomach clenched, as all of my family is in our small town there. He asked a couple times if I was ready. I said yes.

"Bill's has closed."

While not quite as bad as a family member passing away, Bill's Sandwich Shop (or Bill's Pizza) in Yarmouth, ME, has been an icon for our family for over 30 years. My first memory of it was during a Sunday drive decades ago. I'm not sure if I was even 10 yet. We saw a small sandwich shop along the road and stopped in. All I remember is one of us ordered a crabmeat rolls and instead of the roll being in a hotdog bun, it was on a full-sized italian roll. Pure crabmeat, mayo, salt and pepper, lay atop some lettuce on the roll. And it was beyond over-stuffed. We are all in awe. It was like unwrapping a bar of gold. Trumpets sounded, a heavenly light shone, and all of us were awestruck. Picture Ralphie getting his air rifle for Christmas. From that day, Bill's was a frequent stop whenever we went drove by on the highway. We'd go out of our way to stop in if we were even remotely near Freeport. Dad would drive to Portland for something and he bring home a couple crabmeat rolls so we could share. No place we ever found had anything to compare with Bill's.

But their crabmeat roll wasn't all they had. My brother doesn't eat seafood and he'd always get a Zappa. Cappicola, cheese, and spicy hot mustard. Bill's was one of those shops that has dozens of custom subs with wacky names. I don't know of any place like it in Phoenix or most places I've lived. During college, I'd ALWAYS grab a sandwich on my way by, be it coming or going. When college friends came up for the weekend with me, we'd stop in. To this day, some of them still ask about Bill's. My answer had always been the same: "They are still there and the crabmeat rolls are as good as ever."

Sadly, I now need a new answer.

Busy start of the year

We are in the process of moving to a new house, so this has been a busy month. Our landlords are letting their current home go into foreclosure and are moving back into this one since it's cheaper. Looking at new rentals, the whole application process, selling blood and gold fillings to come up with the earnest payment, security deposit, first month's rent, and packing has taken most of our time. The bright side is we have found a new place, it's only about a mile directly south as the vulture flies, and we move in next Monday. We have to come up with our own washer and dryer, but we're hoping my tax refund will be here by then so we can get one at a used appliance store not too far from here. One of our friends offered us a great deal on a floor model electric dryer he bought for his new home before he realized he needs a gas model, but even with the smoking deal he'd give us, it's still about double what we want to spend on the whole pair. We figure since it's a rental house, we just need some reliable used ones.

The new place is a few hundred square feet smaller, but we have a great room now that we only use for storage, so it's not a huge loss. The house is 4 or 5 years newer, so it should be more efficient and cheaper to heat/cool. The kitchen has a larger island and more cabinet room, but we lose our walk-in pantry. It's on a cul-de-sac and separated from busy Bell Road by a new condo development. The back yard is huge and has what looks like a sand volleyball court. We actually haven't seen the whole yard in daylight (it was full dark when we looked at the house) so that should be interesting. We really like our current place, but the new one is still nice.

At least we won't have to deal with the damn pig grunting and oinking across our current cul-de-sac. Just make it bacon already.

Last Post Of The Year

December has been a pretty slow month, food-wise. We haven't really tried any new places for the most part. We did do lunch with some fellow foodies at Indulge Burger at Scottsdale and Shea last weekend and it was pretty good. We're going to try dim sum at Great Wall tomorrow. We tried it there a couple years ago and weren't impressed, but they've gotten some good marks lately, so we're giving it another try.

We found out we need to move out of our rental house at the end of our lease in January. We hate moving, but apparently the owners are moving back in. Luckily Tara still has some realtor contacts from her days in the mortgage business, and one of them is helping us look. We're kinda bummed, because we love the open floor plan of our current house and the quiet set-back cul-de-sac we live in. We're basically looking in the corridor between our current place (UH/Cave Creek Rd) and Tara's work (Raintree/101). Since I work from home, location isn't really an issue for me. We hope to start looking at places this weekend.

Tara's sister arrived in Arizona this past week to start a 2-month internship in Tucson. She's staying with some relatives down there. She spent Christmas with us (AWESOME apple cider-brined turkey) and will probably spend some weekends here as well. She goes to college in Florida so Tara rarely sees her. They are enjoying the bonding time. Theresa seems to have some OCD issues, as she feels the need to rearrange our kitchen cabinets and pantry. We're still looking for some stuff.

My family in Maine is enjoying the brutal winter so far. No power for days after the ice storm in Dec and tons of snow. We're planning on seeing them in Hatteras, NC, in April. My parents and aunt and uncle are renting a beach house. We're looking forward to it.

Hopefully 2009 will be less eventful than 2008 for us. I'm sure we'll find out soon.

Satara Thai Restaurant - Peoria

Last night we tried Satara Thai in Arrowhead. I had bought a gift certificate for it from Restaurant.Com during their $25 gift cert for $2 sale back in October. They bill themselves as being a higher-end Thai place than normal and their prices reflect that. The quality of the food, however, does not. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

They are located in the restaurant row around 83rd Ave and Bell. They are set back from 83rd Ave south of Bell and are a bit hard to find. We eventually found them and entered. The space is very modern, with black-painted walls, a large section of waterfall glass, wine racks, and a stained glass window. It looks like they also have a patio in the back, but it was hard to see it after dark.

We were seated in the dining room and it was just under 1/3 full. It's not a huge space. We were given menus and wine lists to look over. The prices are almost shockingly high for a Thai restaurant. Tom Kha Gai is $14 and only in a bowl. Noodle dishes range from $13 to $17, salads $10 to $14, entrees $13 to $16, and even the fried rice dishes were $13 to $17.

We eventually settled on an order of chicken satay ($8.95), fried rice with crispy beef and basil ($12.95) for Tara, and musamun gai (chicken in a coconut milk, red curry sauce) ($14.95) for me.

We ordered the satay before we'd decided on our entrees, but it still took a while for it to come out. When it arrived, it was four large pieces of chicken on skewers, with small bowls of peanuts sauce and a sweet/spicy sauce. We each took a piece and dug in. Or tried to. I noticed I had a hard time cutting it. I turned my piece over, and it was solid black on the bottom. I checked the other three pieces, and all were the same. Burnt. For $9, this was unacceptable. We're sure it was no fluke that all the pieces had the nicely grilled side up when it was brought out. This dish should never have been put on our table. Tara said she wouldn't serve something like this at home. I shaved off the burnt bottom and the meat wasn't bad. A bit dried out, as you'd expect. The peanut sauce was really good, but didn't save the dish as a whole. I even turned all the meat I'd cut off so the black side was up, but the server made no mention of it when she took our plates away.

A little while later, our entrees came out. Tara's fried rice had a nice flavor, but the bits of beef seemed small to me. Overall she liked it, but felt it definitely wasn't worth $13.

My chicken was a bit aggravating. The square white plate had a colorful orange sauce covering the chicken, potatoes, carrots, and onions, with whole peanuts sprinkled over the top. The peanuts weren't mentioned on the menu, and I'm glad that while I can't eat them, I'm not actually allergic to them. I was able to eat around them fine. I noticed that the once piece of chicken I could see was a whole drumstick. As I dug in, I realized that ALL the chicken was in drumstick form, as three of them were lined up on the plate. This irritated me, as I felt really ripped off paying $15 for three drumsticks and some paper-thin vegetables. I got it mild and there was some heat to it, but nothing near the full flavors that good Thai and the price should warrant.

Service was ok. For the early part of our meal, a waiter came by, bringing us drinks and checking a few times to see if we were ready to order yet. When we were finally ready, we had to wait and eventually the waitress came over and took care of us for the rest of the meal. This seemed odd, as the waiter was still servicing other tables.

Satara serves their glasses of water with thin slices of cucumber in them. They said it gives them a crisper flavor. To me, it tasted like cucumber water. I like cucumber well enough, but not in my water.

Overall, we found Satara very over-priced and not worth the extra money compared to the alternatives. The burnt satay was completely unacceptable for nearly $10. The other items were good, but certainly nothing special. The bill came to $40, but with our gift certificate, it came to $15 plus tip. I would feel taken advantage of if I had actually paid full price for the meal. Osha, Thai House, Thai Basil, and Thai Pan are much better choices and far better deals.

Chocolate Grand Marnier Balls Recipe

My first year in Dallas, I found this recipe in the paper. It seemed pretty easy so decided to try them. The first attempt burnt out a brand new Hamilton Beach food processor I grabbed at Wal-Mart. I returned it (love their return policy) and grabbed a Black & Decker model that lasted me nearly a decade before the cover to it's bowl melted in a dishwasher accident. I currently use my nice and brawny, yet slightly homicidal, bright red KitchenAid food pro. Despite the accident with the blade that sliced my finger open and also saved my life, I love it. Tara is scared of it and if you'd seen the amount of blood in the sink and bathroom at my old apartment, you'd understand. But I digress...

This recipe is incredibly easy, but does more or less require a beefy food processor. A direct drive model, nothing with a belt. You basically just mix all the ingredients together, roll them into balls, roll them in powdered sugar, and put them in an air-tight container for 5-7 days. They aren't baked, so the Grand Marnier (or other orange liqueur) permeates the balls. They were usually a hit among my coworkers, but productivity declined as consumption increased.

Triple Sec orange liqueur works great in this recipe and is in fact the one I used nearly all the times I've made it. I found that I still had my Grand Marnier bottle, so I used it for this batch.

Chocolate Grand Marnier Balls

One 9 ounce box of chocolate wafers
1 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 cup almonds
2 tablespoons Karo
1/2 cup Grande Marnier

In a food processor:
Process wafers and almonds. Add powdered sugar. Add the rest. Mix till
moist mass. Roll into balls and roll in some more powdered sugar. Pack
them lightly in an air-tight container. For best results, let them sit for
5-7 days.