Steak sandwich

Phoenix, Arizona, December 21, 2016—

THE DRIVE HERE from Los Angeles is only six hours or so, but you lose an hour crossing the state line. I always forget about this. The result was that we were too spent — and, in truth, too pessimistic about what might be found — to investigate anything at all complicated when it came to dinner.

So we ate at the "restaurant" attached to the motel; and there I settled for this steak sandwich. There were other possibilities involving steak, chopped steak, chicken, trout, and various sandwiches. A surprising number of these involved cheese: Provolone; Pepper Jack; Parmesan; Swiss. The steak sandwich neglected this dairy component, thankfully. I am not a fan of cooking meat with cheese. There are exceptions, of course: but not many.

The open-faced steak sandwich came on a single slice of what we used to call "air bread," the kind of white bread that comes sliced and wrapped in decorative plastic — in my youth, Wonder Bread, or Langendorf. But the bread was a minor component, and lost beneath the mushrooms and onions and thin-sliced flank steak in a fairly rich gravy.

I liked the "tavern chips" that came alongside, consistently cut potatoes blanched, I'm sure, then quickly deep-fried in vegetable oil. The lettuce leaf and tomato slices were edible and perhaps nourishing.

Martini; Cabernet sauvignon, "Copper Ridge", okay

•Rodehouse Restaurant and Sports Lounge, 2425 South 24th Street, Phoenix; 802-275-3131

☛RESTAURANTS VISITED, with information and rating: 2016
(2015 restaurants)