It's All About the Food, July 2009

Oh yes, it is...

Yesterday, Mrs. Swanie and I needed to go shopping for some supplies for our half- and/or full-marathon training. With Kids Club Captain Bob and Security Patrol/LifeGuard Macey by his side, we left the children with our missions in mind.

Our first stop was Whataburger. Last year as we prepared for our family trip to Arizona, davidrperry suggested we try Whataburger. Unfortunately the only Whataburger we encountered was not open and we never found one that was. Mrs. Swanie had never been to a Whataburger either. We took this opportunity to track one down. This particular location is in Tempe near Arizona State University.

Deanna was working at the cash register inside and there was no one else inside, so we had plenty of time to ask questions and decide what to order. Deanna said that the Whataburger Jr was the same as the regular Whataburger but smaller so we each ordered those. I decided to try the onion rings and Mrs. Swanie opted for french fries. We both filled up on Diet Dr. Pepper from the soda fountain.

When our food arrived we were able to choose ketchup and/or picante sauce. I did not ask if they had barbecue or ranch dip, but the tray, even if it was orange, was cute.

We had erroneously assumed that our burgers came with cheese so we did not order them with cheese. That was ok. The onion rings were beer batter rings and I was very excited to see that they were not the eh bread crumb kind.

Mrs. Swanie and I decided that Whataburgers were pretty good and the onion rings were great. 

Yeah, I ate them all... (Well, Mrs. Swanie helped a little.)

Sunday night we had to check out Cracker Barrel to make sure I was still "right" about it.

The Swanies like to visit for breakfast but have not eaten other meals there before. I shared that my experience with the chicken and dumplings was disappointing (dumplings are too pasty) and that the turnip greens were a bit bitter and disappointing. 

We all ordered and three of the children selected pancakes for dinner. I was very happy to be at Cracker Barrel on a Sunday because their Sunday chicken was excellent last year when DaddyDoc ordered it. I ordered Sunday chicken with a green salad with buttermilk ranch dressing and, on the advice of Cabana Boy/Kids Club Captain/Concierge Bob, the hashbrown casserole.

Our waitress was an absolute doll in the face of a big party of 8 with five kids. I asked if the green salad came with croutons and explained that as a Californian, I do not get Cracker Barrel often and I really like their croutons. Amber covered my salad with croutons!

Captain Stubborn's pancakes came with his own little, warm bottle of maple syrup! How cute is that?

And Sweet But Sneaky ordered the Cracker Barrel mac and cheese as his cheeseburger's side dish.

Mrs. Swanie and I agreed that while we prefer my own special potato casserole, this one was mighty fine. It's always nice to have something in a restaurant that you need to add salt do yourself rather than have to have it be too salty out of the kitchen. The Sunday chicken - boneless skinless fried chicken breasts, was wonderful and I even brought one home for leftovers! We asked for honey for our biscuits although Mrs. Swanie thought her cornbread muffin was a little dry.

As a side note, my opinion of the chicken and dumplings was validated by Cabana Boy/Kids Club Captain/Concierge Bob, although the good news is that they were only part of a several item sampler dish he had.

In keeping with every trip to Cracker Barrel, we shopped a bit in the gift shop. The Swanie Girls wanted my boys to have a special dinosaur egg treat and Mrs. Swanie purchased sugar sticks for all the kids in their favorite colors. Cracker Barrel conveniently priced them specially when they're purchased in sets of 10 so each child took home two candy sticks.

It was a lovely dinner and no one went home hungry!

This afternoon for lunch we headed up to a mall in Scottsdale to PB Loco. I first saw this company featured on an episode of Food Network's Unwrapped and I have wanted to visit ever since. It was also the Swanie's first visit. PB Loco features flavored peanut butter made into sandwiches, smoothies or presented as dips. 

When we first arrived, Mrs. Swanie and I later agreed that the apparent manager was rather snarky. We told her that it was our first visit and we were overwhelmed with all of the choices. We asked for sample tastes of the peanut butter trying to decide what we would order. The choices were a bit overwhelming from dark chocolate to chocolate chip cookie dough to curry and even sun-dried tomato flavored peanut butters. The samples we received barely fit into the tip of the sample spoons and the woman helping us seemed rather impatient, trying to push us to order now even though we were the only people in the restaurant. Finally Sweet But Sneaky was ready to order, then Captain Stubborn. At about this point, Mrs. Swanie mentioned that I had been bugging her to try PB Loco for some time, that I had waited a long time to come try it myself because I was from California. I asked clarification, "Which show as it that you were on? Was it Unwrapped?" 

Suddenly we were the woman's best friends and her attitude towards us made a complete 180 degree turn! We were her new BFFs.

The kids meals came with 1/2 a sandwich with the peanut butter of their choice and either jam, honey or marshmallow fluff. CS and SBS choose chocolate chip cookie dough PB with raspberry jam for SBS and fluff for CS.

I was in the mood for something savory. The Asian curry pb tasted good but I the sun-dried tomato peanut butter pleasantly surprised me and the cucumbers looked so fresh and healthy. I ordered the sandwich with sun-dried tomato pb, cucumbers, lettuce and cheddar cheese in the panini press. Mrs. Swanie ordered the sandwich with white chocolate raspberry pb, bananas and marshmallow fluff.

We were both very pleased with our choices. Mine was tasty but nice because the peanut flavor remarkably blended into the sandwich. Mrs. Swanie feared hers might taste too sweet, but it was just right.

PB loco had a special offer: One free crunchy or creamy pb with the purchase of 4 jars. I selected a jar of white chocolate raspberry, one of dark chocolate and one sumatra raisin and cinnamon. Mrs. Swanie also selected a jar of dark chocolate.

PB loco was a definite success!

Tonight for dinner Mrs. Swanie wanted me to try Abuelo's Mexican restaurant. Quite frankly, Mrs. Swanie was pusher there's no other way to put it. 

I ordered Diet Coke and was told no, I must order a margarita or a sangria. I ordered a margarita while the Swanie adults ordered a carafe of sangria... and three glasses. In the end, the Sangria was really good and the margarita was so sweet that I barely finished half of it.

Their chips were lovely and light. Mrs. Swanie and Miss Genius shared bites of their papas with me: cheesy mashed potatoes with just the right enough bite that the 11-year-old would eat them but the adults enjoyed them, too. Very tasty. They also shared bites of an avocado enchilada with a cream sauce. Oh, that was so very good! Personally, I ordered shrimp and beef fajitas which were very good.

Oh, but wait, there's more. There's, apparently, dessert:

It would seem that Mr. and Mrs. Swanie really love the Abuelo's desserts and they insisted we order them. Plural. They love the chocolate cake with chocolate sauce (hmmm, chocolate...) and the margarita pie (so light but cream cheesy good), but I saw the sopapillas with honey special and it called my name - so we got them alllll. (And yes, we left some behind.)

Let me just say, there's a reason it is all about the food. And there is some gooooood food around here.