Food Items We've Seen Along the Way

As we travel around the country we, on occasion, stop in a restaurant or cafe, or joint of some type for a bite of lunch. Here are images of some of the items we have consumed at the eateries we have visited. All of these tasted really, really good.

This wonderful looking delicacy is called a "Krunchizona" and can be found at the "Kountry Kafe" in Elfrida, AZ. It consists of tender roast beef covered with pepper jack cheese between house battered bell peppers and onion rings on a buttered and grilled hoagie with a Horsey Sauce. The little green things in the picture are deep fried jalapeno slices. This is a great sandwich but eating one every three years or so is probably a little more than the recommended dietary allowance.

In reality the only healthy thing in this image is the coleslaw which was great.

This is a "Rodger's Special" named after our good friend. It is a large hamburger patty with some slices of bacon on top. Of course there is cheese and a decent amount of fries. There is also the healthy additives of lettuce and tomato with a pickle thrown in for good measure. You will note that the bun is nicely toasted. This is a large, wonderfully concocted burger that we had in the Main Street Cafe in Hurricane, Utah. Great stuff.

Switching over to Mexican cuisine, here we have a nice bowl of soup. This is Menudo, extremely well prepared and craftily presented. Hominy, lime, onions, garlic, black pepper, and oregano are used to season the broth with the hominy cooked into the broth and the remaining items served on the side so you can season it as you wish.

Menudo is often considered a hangover cure and is generally prepared in a clear broth, which is the traditional preparation, but sometimes a red broth which is created by adding red chili peppers. Menudo is also know as Pancita meaning little stomach as it is made from honeycomb tripe also known as beef stomach, in case you didn't know.

We do on occasion happen on an establishment that has breakfast. There is a superbly seasoned hash mixture concocted from various items hiding under the two eggs. The jalapeño peppers add a nice zing to the hash and egg dish. Some of us like our eggs sunny side up while others find that presentation not so desirable.

Someone gave us a gift card to Applebees and so we used it. We went there on a Monday and found it was Hamburger special day. Any burger on the menu for $7.99. This is called a "Quesadilla Burger". Essentially a large burger cooked and contained in a crispy flour tortilla and smothered in a pico de gallo sauce. It was rather tasty and we brought half home for a later lunch. The Monday special was a great way to extend the gift card purchasing power.

At the Main Street Cafe in Hurricane, which we mentioned earlier, they would give you an option as to salad, fries, or fruit cup to accompany your entree. Here is the delicious fruit cup. It was all fresh fruit, not canned, and larger and more appealing than most fruit dishes we had seen served on the side.

This was a lunch Deanna had at "Mi Casa", a fabulous hole in the wall Mexican Restaurant in Benson Arizona. The bird like critters are made from the chips that come with most Mexican meals and they were a clever, edible part of the presentation. The shrimp tacos that are seen to the right hand side here were also fabulous.

Staying with the Mexican Food Theme we stopped for lunch in Wilcox at Isabels South of the Border. They have wonderful food. Here are the fish tacos and the fish was Mahi Mahi. The pinto beans sometimes called ranch beans are the whole beans as opposed to the refried beans most often served with Mexican dishes. We will definitely stop there again when in Wilcox looking for birds or going to Chiracahua National Monument.

Seafood is very appealing to us for lunch though often difficult to find here in Southern Arizona. Recently, we happened across an establishment in Benson City at the golf course, The Benson City Grill. They have a great view from the restaurant and wonderful food. This meal is the Seafood Special and consists of two large fish fillets, three jumbo shrimp, sweet potato waffle fries, and coleslaw. The seafood was really lightly battered and not in the least bit greasy. The taste was fabulous. Great place to eat in Benson.

What good is a decent meal without a dollop of desert. They may have called this desert "Death by Chocolate" or some such moniker and certainly they could have. I am also certain that you won't believe me if I try to say the ice cream was low fat, the chocolate sugar free, and the syrup made with Splenda? Yeah right.

Since we had more than one entree we thought we should show more than one desert. This is a conservative lemon cake we had following one lunch. It has very limited ice cream, a nice raspberry syrup for color and flavor, and a big spoonful of whipped cream. It is very creatively presented and readily consumed by both of us.

This gives you a brief pictorial view of some of the myriad of dishes we eaten during our travels. They all were wonderful and these and similar dishes are readily available at many establishments if you just get out and travel and stop for lunch along the way.

We hope you have enjoyed this post and let us know if you have any comments or questions or would like any recipes.
All the best
George and Deanna