Ring of tostadas at Las Cazuelas del Don at the weekly market in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico
The organic market in San Jose del Cabo is held on Saturdays, in an open field, down a rough dirt road northeast of downtown (it’s not far from the Mexican resort of Cabo san Lucas). It attracts a mix of locals and laid-back tourists, who casually peruse produce, hand-crafted jewelry, lotions and clothing. You know, something to fill the stalls between the important stuff: the fresh meals.
Excellent seafood fare at Bahia Restaurant & Bar in Todos Santos, Mexico
Tired of the tourist hordes, traffic jams and general clamour of Cabo San Lucas, Mexico? Just head an hour north, on excellent Highway 19, up the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula. Stop first for a long, sandy stroll at Cerritos Beach, where you can watch surfers and families frolic in the waves. Then continue north a little ways to Todos Santos, a true oasis in the otherwise parched landscape.
Breakfast is your best value meal while road tripping
On an intense, road-food research trip, I forage like a shark. In a typical day, I’ll eat three restaurant meals, sip two high-end coffees, hit a bakery and finish things off with a pint or 22-ounce bomber of craft beer. I can stuff all this down for an average daily cost of $40, what many folks would spend on a single meal.
Here how I do it:
A pint of beer is often your best booze value when dining out
These fabulous three appetizers, at Restaurant 415 in Fort Collins, Colorado, set me back only $15
You know it’s not good for your wallet or blood-sugar levels. But can you resist this divine slice of pie at Hilltop Diner Cafe in Langley, B.C.?
After swallowing this flavourful, full-on breakfast at Village Smithy in Carbondale, Colorado, I’m good to go for the whole day
This wonderful, healthy lunch at Point No Point, near Sooke B.C., would be a more expensive dinner at most places
The happy-hour deals are on seven days a week at Gallo Blanco Cafe & Bar in Phoenix.
There’s a lot of sugar dumped into every food imaginable in the average restaurant
In recent years, much of the restaurant industry has been quick to embrace food trends based on health. Gluten free? Sign us up. Vegetarian choices? We’ve got you covered. Less salt? Not so much, but we’ll try to accommodate.
But less sugar? I’ve hardly seen the needle bulge. Good luck trying to find, say, pancakes that aren’t topped with sweet sauces and accompanied by syrups, to say nothing of the sugar that went into the batter. Watch Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives or its Canadian version, You Gotta Eat Here, and it’s shocking, at least to me, how much “hidden” sugar is dumped into meat rubs, salad dressings and any bread products. Dessert? You might as well just be eating it by the spoonful.
I wonder how much sugar is packed into this monster blueberry pancake, especially if the syrup and sauce (rear) is ladled on
Diabetes is supposed to be a North American epidemic. Yet I can’t recall eating at a single restaurant that catered to folks wanting menu items with less or no sugar or that were low on the glycemic index—a rating system that estimates how quickly different foods are converted to blood stream sugars; white bread, white rice and most breakfast cereals fare particularly badly here.
Maybe it’s this way because celiac disease or a food allergy can provoke an immediate reaction. Diabetes, on the other hand, is a long-term disease, and sufferers aren’t likely to suddenly pitch forward into their bowl of honey-laced granola topped with a sugary fruit yogurt. And for many people, sugar makes things taste better, at least in moderation.
I’m a Type 2 diabetic and find it extremely challenging when road-trip dining to navigate these sugary waters. I abstain from desserts and sweet drinks. But I do like a good burger or pulled-pork sandwich, and it troubles me how much sugar is tossed into the meat, the bun and any toppings and sauces. I suspect I’d only draw blank stares if I asked for low-sugar versions of these dishes.
So while it’s bad news, perhaps the latest revelation that excess sugar consumption can significantly increase the risk of heart disease will help push the food and restaurant business into offering more low- and no-sugar choices. Now, that would be sweet.
Even the hard-working cooks have fun at Pete’s Breakfast House in Ventura, California
What happens when you hit a couple of hundred independent diners, cafes, coffeehouses, bakeries and breweries in the western U.S./Canada in one year? An ambulance ride to emergency? Fortunately, no. Instead, I got to discover some great places to eat and drink, run by some seriously committed, wonderful people. Here are the best of 2013, in two parts.
Best Breakfasts
My best 2013 breakfast is the day’s locovore omelette at Chow in Bend, Oregon. Perfectly prepared, it features chicken-apple sausage, caramelized onions and local chanterelle mushrooms and cheese. What puts it over the top is the choice of three bottles of house-made sauce of varying intensity, so good I buy two bottles to go.
My best 2013 breakfast is the locovore omelette at lovely Chow in Bend, Oregon
Pancakes: The pancake sandwich—bacon atop buttermilk blueberry cakes and, underneath, two over-easy eggs—at Pete’s Breakfast House in Ventura, California. Great vibe ups the ante.
Delicious blueberry pancakes over eggs at Pete’s Breakfast House in Ventura, California
Breakfast Sandwich: Sometimes, all you want for breakfast is an egg or two between two slices of a bready product. But at Tweets Cafe in tiny Edison, Washington, the breakfast sandwich is a work of art, with a mini salad on top, a slice of melon bursting with flavour and perfectly cooked eggs and ham atop a home-baked biscuit.
The breakfast sandwich in the hands of an artist at Tweet’s Cafe in Edison, Washington
Off the Radar: How about a breakfast burrito of smoked turkey, avocado, egg whites and a hash patty, chased by an invigorating iced drink of protein powder, espresso, peanut butter, banana and chocolate? It’s all on the healthy menu at D’Lish Drive Thru in Scottsdale, Arizona, along with a free dose of off-the-wall friendliness.
This excellent AZ Burro is one of many creative, healthy breakfast choices at D’Lish Drive-Thru in Scottsdale, Arizona
Best Coffee
In a year when I visit the coffee meccas of Seattle and Portland, it’s a roaster/coffeehouse in little Lethbridge, Alberta that serves my two best cups of coffee, one by Chemex, the other by Aeropress. Cupper’s Coffee & Tea‘s slightly darker roasts are so good, I’ve been ordering their shipped beans instead of just roasting my own.
Cupper’s owner Al Anctil and the sophisticated roaster he helped build in Lethbridge, Alberta
Honourable Mentions: The espresso at Portland hole-in-the-wall Spella Caffee holds my tongue in a lingering, smoky embrace. My best coffee experiences are in Seattle’s also tiny Moore Coffee Shop—where I sink into a leather chair and savour a fine Americano served with a square of complimentary chocolate—and the funky vibe of Lux Central in Phoenix. I also have to include Nobrow Coffee Werks, in the coffee mecca of Salt Lake City (just joking) for the most sophisticated brewing machine, the Steampunk, I’ve ever seen.
Joe Evans and the very latest in custom-brewed coffee at Nobrow Coffee Works; I’d say this is high brow
Best Bakery/Café Santa Fe’s Clafoutis has a full-fledged menu, but it’s the ethereal croissants, brioche and baguettes, along with great coffee, that bring me back for more at this elegant, oh-so-French café.
A stack of baguettes amidst all the creative elements at Clafoutis in Santa Fe, New Mexico
Honourable Mentions: Last year’s pick, La Baguette, in Revelstoke, B.C., keeps knocking it out of the park with things as simple but outstanding as Healthy Bread, its take on toast. San Francisco’s famed Tartine Bakery & Cafe lives up to the hype with brioche bread pudding and gorgeous gougère.
Gorgeously gooey gougere at Tartine Bakery & Cafe in San Francisco
Best Sandwich The sandwich is a road-trip lunch staple, but it’s rarely raised to an art form like the Oxacan— shredded mole chicken, avocado, goat cheese and apple, served on lovely seed-crusted ciabatta—that I’m served at the fantastic Curious Kumquat, way out in Silver City, New Mexico.
This shredded mole chicken sandwich makes the drive to Silver City, New Mexico well worthwhile
Honourable Mentions: My steak sandwich at Longview Steakhouse, in the ranch country of Longview, Alberta, is really a huge, superb strip loin on an overwhelmed single piece of bread, though the latter does soak up all the juices. In the heavyweight sandwich battle, my mortadella with all the fixings at Compagno’s Delicatessen, in Monterey Bay, California, reaches a sleep-inducing draw with the turkey-bacon monster at Sandwich Spot, in Palm Springs, California.
I gave half of this monster, fab $8 creation from the Sandwich Spot to a passing street person in Palm Springs, California. Kept us both fed for a day
Best Burger
A tie: Bobcat Bite has left its character-filled old adobe building and morphed into Santa Fe Bite, but it’s still pumping out its signature green chile cheeseburgers. Diablo Burger sources its natural, lean meats from open-range ranches near Flagstaff, Arizona. Both places offer their thick patties medium-rare.
This fantastic, medium-rare green chile cheeseburger, at Santa Fe Bite, is at least three inches thick
Honourable Mentions: In the Asian fusion category, my fine wagyu burger at Bachi Burger in Las Vegas is edged by the Loco Moco—a Kobe patty over rice and Japanese mushrooms and topped with a sunny-side egg—at Carino Bistro in Calgary, Alberta.
Who needs a bun when you can have a Kobe patty atop rice and Japanese mushrooms at Carino Bistro in Calgary, Alberta?
Best Vegetarian
Yes, I probably eat more burgers than salads on the road, but I’m by no means averse to vegetarian or even vegan so long as it’s tasty. It’s no surprise that in the running capital of Eugene, Oregon, healthy folks head to Morning Glory Cafe for tofu scrambles, black-bean burgers or my baked squash mounded with chanterelle mushrooms, brown rice and goat feta.
This baked squash mounded with goodies makes for a healthy lunch at Morning Glory Cafe in Eugene, Oregon
Best Pizza
Among the many contenders, my top pick is Pizzeria Seven Twelve, in Orem, Utah, where the focus is on fresh and simple but creative ingredients like hand-pulled mozzarella, house-made sausage, roasted fennel and a thin, bubbly crust with a nice tangy flavour from the sourdough starter.
Simple, house-made ingredients make this sausage and fennel pie a standout at Pizzeria Seven Twelve in Orem, Utah
Honourable Mention: At neighbourhood pub The Flying Goat, in Spokane, Washington, my Kiernan pie is layered with Italian sausage, heavy cream, an over-medium egg and some truffle-oil tossed arugula.
Italian sausage, heavy cream and truffle-oil tossed arugula add up to a winner at The Flying Goat in Spokane, Washington
Best Salad
Salt Lake City’s gorgeous Finca creates a work-of-art beet salad, with a velvety house ricotta base, a ring of beet chunks and a middle tower of argula topped by macerated strawberries and toasted almonds.
This arranged beet salad, at Finca, is almost too pretty to eat… almost
Fantastic, monster chicken wings with an Asian twist at Pok Pok
As a follow-up to my recent post on the legendary Portland restaurant Pok Pok, owner Andy Ricker has just published a book of the same name on his unique take on northern Thai cooking. After reading this recipe from the book on phat thai, though, you might agree with me that it’s easier just heading to the restaurant than making it yourself.
Marathon Mouth 