Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Steak sandwich

IMG 3408
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)

No comments: