Sonoran Restaurant Week Pairings

We’re right smack dab in the middle of Sonoran Restaurant Week, when around 100 (!) restaurants in Tucson and surrounding cities offer special prix fixe menus for $25, $35, or $45 (plus tax and tip). The price often includes several courses that would regularly cost more.

breakfast food
Breakfast at Maynard’s.

The idea is to encourage diners to try restaurants they haven’t been to, as well as revisiting old favorites. You many need to ask for the Sonoran Restaurant Week menu if you’re at a participating place and don’t see one. Find participating restaurants and menus on TucsonFoodie.com.

View of Tucson
View of the city from inside the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson.

I’ve paired 7 of these Tucson restaurants with something fun to do (relatively) nearby that complements them.
Continue reading “Sonoran Restaurant Week Pairings”

Bulletin Board: Loved and Loft

A mishmash of news about upcoming films, food, and free classes!

 Loft Cinema mural
Jessica Gonzales paints a mural outside The Loft Cinema.

Goodies

I’ve been posting this kind of good stuff as part of the Happenings List, but a few things popped up that I wanted to share with you sooner!

1. Love you.

MyIntent has created a 14-day series of journal prompts and challenges around the topic of Self-Love – specifically how you can cultivate a positive and healthy relationship with yourself.

2. Drink to this.

Next up in the Agave Renaissance series of free lectures and tastings (held monthly via Zoom): Tumamoc Agave with Suzy and Paul Fish on 2/10 + Sonoran Local Agave Spirits with Jesús Garcia on 2/11. (We met all three of them at past Agave Heritage Week events!)

3. “Buy out the 8 o’clock show… Let’s all go to the movies!”

For the month of February, you can rent out The Loft Cinema in Tucson for $150! The rental includes…

  • Up to two hours in-screen for 2-4 people.
  • 1 complementary glass of sparkling wine (or nonalcholic drink) + 1 medium popcorn for all attendees.

4. What’s Up, Docs?

Watch 15 short documentaries created by students at the UA School of Theatre, Film + Television free on The Loft Cinema’s YouTube channel!

 

Wolfwalkers image via Apple TV
Wolfwalkers image via Apple TV.

Hot Off the Press Releases

1. Walkers Lasso The Rocks

Apple TV would like you to know that they have received four Golden Globe nominations for Apple Originals programming. I haven’t seen any of the items on this list (I think you need an Apple TV+ subscription), but sounds like they may be good, so let me know if you have!

  • Wolfwalkers (Best Motion Picture, Animated): A young apprentice hunter journeys to Ireland with her father intending to wipe out the last wolf pack – until she befriends a member of a mysterious tribe rumored to have the ability to transform into wolves by night. Directed by Tomm Moore and Ross Stewart.
  • “Ted Lasso” (Best Television Series, Musical or Comedy + Best Actor in a TV Series, Musical or Comedy Series, Jason Sudeikis): a comedy about a college football coach from Kansas hired to coach a professional soccer team in England, despite having no experience coaching soccer. Starring Jason Sudeikis.
  •  On The Rocks (Best Performance By An Actor In A Supporting Role In Any Motion Picture, Bill Murray): a generation-clash comedy about a young New York mother faced with sudden doubts about her marriage, who teams up with her larger-than-life playboy father to tail her husband. Written and directed by Sofia Coppola and starring Bill Murray, Rashida Jones and Marlon Wayans.

2. Independents Cinema

Members of real-life band The Sweet Remains are starring in an upcoming musical comedy/drama. The Independents is about three solo artists who reluctantly join forces and journey across America for one last shot at musical glory. It will premiere February 26 to view on demand via Laemmle Theatres and Angelika Cinemas.

 

Cup of coffee
Decibel coffee

Tucson Chews On…

Food news in the Old Pueblo.

  • The Red Light Lounge (inside The Downtown Clifton hotel) is now open for lunch to go! Hours are Monday to Friday, 10am to 3pm. (They’ll continue serving dinner and drinks daily from 5-10pm.)
  • Decibel Coffee Works has started serving food. The kitchen is open daily, 7am-2pm with a limited, soon-to-be expanded menu.

30+ Ways to Travel Without Leaving Town

Sometimes you need to stay close to home. Maybe family or work responsibilities are keeping you grounded. Maybe it’s health or money issues.

There are still ways to see new things, experience other cultures, feel transported.

Norton Simon cafe

Recently, National Geographic featured a “travel photographer” who finds and composes interesting shots within Google Street View.

Navigating through the Street View of an area does give you a better sense of a place. So we’ll start there.

world-map-2

1. Use Google Street View to explore an area you’d like to visit or re-visit somewhere you’ve gone in the past.

Flamenco

2. Go to a local cultural center, performance, or festival.

3. Be a tourist in your own town.

  • See the cheesy stuff you’d normally skip and take photos.
  • Pick out postcards.
  • Visit the tourist information office or visitor bureau and find out what visitors are seeing or doing that you might’ve overlooked.

fremont-postcards-front

4. Watch some foreign films.

5. Try out any travel apps you’re interested in. See how well they work while you’re still at home.

papago-park-lake

6. Have you visited all the parks in your area?

travelexpo-dtphx

7. Take a different route home.

  • Skip the freeway.
  • Walk or ride your bike.
  • Try public transit or take a different line.
  • If you’re in Phoenix, have you ridden the light rail yet? End to end?

8. Get lost in a library.

cartel-mocha-art

9. Try a new restaurant, coffee shop, or bar.

10. Watch movies about travel.

  • The Secret Life of Walter Mitty comes to mind.
  • So does Already Tomorrow in Hong Kong, which I reviewed last year and is now on Netflix.
  • Phillip reminded me of The Motorcycle Diaries. So good. Definitely feels like you’ve been on a long journey through South America by the end.

Backyard

11. Set up a tent in your backyard or inside the house.

12. Sign up to host an international student.

p-drive

13. Go to another part of town and explore a neighborhood that’s usually not on your radar.

14. Get out photos and relive memories. Put them in albums or scrapbooks if you haven’t already.

Norton Simon museum

15. Visit a museum. Find out when they have voluntary admission days or other special events.

Pressed wildflowers.

16. Read a book set in a place you’d like to visit or that takes you on a journey. A few ideas:

  • Cheryl Strayed’s Wild.
  • In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson.
  • Riders of the Purple Sage, the Zane Grey novel that we recently saw an opera based on, really puts you inside the canyons and valleys of its setting.
  • Phillip loved Mitchner’s Iberia and said it made him feel like he’s been to Spain.

Mesa community garden

17. Ask friends for their favorite spots around town (to do, see, eat etc.) and try out their recommendations.

18. Wander around an international market. Buy something you’ve never seen before.

Patio

19. Bring a little of the places you love to visit into your regular life. Splurge on extra soft towels or have coffee on your patio.

20. Buy music from a place you’d like to travel. (Or borrow it – Phillip has found some great stuff at our local library.)

21. Make a friend from another country.

  • Volunteer with an international students’ group.
  • Adopt a refugee family.

star-over-desert

22. Explore the stars at a local planetarium or with a regular telescope.

23. Have you seen all the public art on display where you live?

Bag at sunset

24. Test out your travel gear. Make sure everything works, is comfortable to wear, etc. My dad used to fill his pack with encyclopedias and walk around the block to get ready for future backpacking trips.

25. Take photos of places or things you see every day. Use it as an opportunity to really look at what’s around you and maybe see it in a new light.

26. Watch travel shows or documentaries.

Processed with VSCOcam with g3 preset

27. Book a staycation at nearby hotel or resort. They probably offer discounted rates in the off-season.

28. Switch things up in your house.

  • Have dinner outside or spread out a blanket and “picnic” on the living room floor.
  • Build a fort.
  • Rearrange the furniture.

Riverside, CA

29. Go for a drive and see where you end up.

Tacos from Tacos Atoyac in Phoenix

30. Eat food from another culture. Go to a restaurant or try making it yourself with the help of a friend, cookbook, or a food blog….

31. Find the nearest places to camp.

Setting up camp at Lakeside

32. Learn another language. There are apps, podcasts, and resources at many libraries to help you with this.

  • MindSnacks has several free language learning apps. Their Learn Chinese app was great when I was attempting to do that, and the games were really fun.
  • There are lots of language learning podcasts if you just search on iTunes. I’ve been working on italiano on and off with Learn Italian from Italianpod101.com.

33. Plan your next trip or in-town adventure.

Maynards Market + Kitchen Garden

Maynard's in Tucson

Maynards historic

Cities + Railroads

The history of many western U.S. cities is tied to the railroads. Their stories run parallel, like two lengths of track. Sometimes railroad stops were built for cities and sometimes cities were built for railroad stops.

Tucson is an example of the former. By the time its depot was built in 1909, Tucson was the Southwest’s big city.

 

Good Roads map

The Arizona Good Roads book described it this way in 1913:

“Tucson is the metropolis of Arizona and New Mexico, and has a population according to the United States Census of 1910 of over 2000 more than any other city in either state. […] The modern Tucson is a growing city of some 22,000 inhabitants. Her rapid growth in the last few years may be attributed to her advantageous position as a distributing point for Southern Arizona and northern Mexico, and to the rich mining, agricultural and grazing country surrounding the city…”

Trains kept bringing passengers, and Tucson kept growing, buildings sprouting up throughout the downtown.

Maynards and hotel congress

By 1919, what you’d see as you exited the depot was Hotel Congress, one of the earliest Arizona hotels that’s still in operation. You can still stay there (we did!) and hear the train from your room.

As time passed, people continued arriving in Tucson but more came by car. The trains carried fewer passengers and more freight. Since freight doesn’t need a train station, part of the building was converted into restaurant space.

Maynards Patio

Market + Kitchen

In 2008, the owners of Hotel Congress opened Maynards Market + Kitchen inside the station building.

Maynards Market

Maynards Agave

The Market part of that equation is open all day with lots of patio seating and a take-out counter for items like coffee, sandwiches, and baked goods. They also sell wine and local gourmet food products. (If you’re from the Phoenix area, think Liberty Market or La Grande Orange, and you’re on the right track.)

Maynards Market wine

Next to it is the Kitchen, a sit-down restaurant open only for dinner, happy hour, and Sunday brunch. It is unfussy and elegant with salvaged train and rail parts repurposed seamlessly into the decor as subtle nods to the building’s history.

Maynards door

Brunch goes until 2pm, which is nice, especially since Hotel Congress is popping until the wee hours of the morning. Non-morning-person-ness aside, it gave us time to check out of the hotel and catch a film screening. (The Arizona International Film Festival happened to be going on that weeekend, as well.)

Maynards

From our table, we could see the window-level garden planted just outside and watch little white butterflies dance around the flowers.

I ordered the braised greens/lump crab/crème fraîche omelet – and enjoyed every bite. To really taste the flavors of the garden, I also had the (very, very lightly) dressed greens. Oh, and a delicious coffee from neighboring Caffe Luce Coffee Roasting Co.

Maynards Kitchen

Phillip ordered a macchiato (which he liked), baked eggs (which were good but not what he expected) and bacon (which was crazy crispy).

Maynards Coffee

The signature baked egg dish from sister restaurant Cup Cafe comes in a small cast iron skillet. Perhaps because the menu said “broiled,” Phillip thought they’d be more like fried eggs, but they are cooked solid all the way through. The eggs, spinach, mushrooms, and leeks are buried under a layer of cream, wine, and gruyère. He was surprised by it but liked it and said the flavors blended well.

Maynards Baked Eggs

As for the bacon, I don’t know if they always cook it to that level of crispness, but Phillip regretted not specifying how he liked it and ended up just crumbling it on top of his eggs.

Maynards Salad

Both of our dishes came with downright addictive breakfast potatoes, fruit, housemade English muffins, and this incredible orange-rhubarb jam.

Maynards Garden

Garden + Grove

The garden out the window is where Maynards Kitchen sources herbs, seasonal vegetables, edible flowers, and citrus. It’s hard to get more locally grown than that!

Maynards garden

Maynards Garden

Chef Brian Smith was kind enough to take us out to the garden and point out the citrus trees, cornstalks, three varieties of heirloom tomatoes, and colorful, diamond-shaped plantings of lettuces, kale, violas, nasturtiums, pansies, parsley, chives, basil, peppers, and probably other herbs and greens I’m forgetting.

Chef Brian

The garden is new, planted in an unused plot of ground earlier this year. And they are still experimenting, finding what works best where they are, incorporating what’s in season into their dishes in new ways. (Orange blossom dressing, anyone?)

image

Like Tucson, the garden is flourishing, and whether you get there by road or by rail, Maynards Market + Kitchen is worth a stop.

Maynards


Next Agave Heritage Festival events in Downtown Tucson:

  • May 4, 6pm: Tucson City of Gastronomy Seminar at Maynards Market & Kitchen Drawing Room. $15
  • May 4, 7pm: Mezcal and Chocolate Pairing Seminar at Maynards Market & Kitchen Drawing Room. $15
  • May 4, 7pm: Mezcrawl at participating bars in Downtown Tucson. $25-40



We were guests of Hotel Congress and Maynards Market + Kitchen.

Banh Mi

When we moved, we found ourselves near a place with great banh mi, which are Vietnamese sandwiches on French bread with these marinated vegetables and thinly sliced meats. It’s a beautiful blending of cultures.

Banh mi vietnamese sandwich

My brother Ian says the many banh mi places in Seattle all seem to charge exactly $3.98 for a sandwich. As with many things, they’re even cheaper here in Phoenix. It’s a lotta deliciousness for your buck.

Have you tried banh mi? Do you have a favorite spot near you?




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