Next morning we were supposed to leave for
Sedona, but weather.com showed solid rain
from Phoenix north for two hundred miles,
so we decided to bail and head south. Got
as far as Tucson, where we had a good but
expensive meal at the upscalized Cafe Poca
Cosa in the Clarion hotel. What made the
meal so costly was the tropical-fruit-
flavored sangria, which was the best Carol's
ever had; also the most expensive at $30 a
liter. Chips and salsa again were yummy, the
salsa quite limey and tart. We both had the
plato Poca Cosa, a chef's choice thingy with
three main dishes with rice, brown beans,
and salad for $11.

Carol's three were a nice picadillo, a tangy
chicken with tomato salsa, and a sweet and
strange pastel de elote with broccoli cream.

I had beef with scallions and serranos,
which was totally super, almost Chinese,
chicken with spinach and onions, and a dead
sweet, dessertlike pastel de elote with chile
amarillo. I'd have done well without that.

You're not supposed to be able to request
anything on these plates (chef's choice,
right?), but I'd asked the pleasant waiter if
he'd put in a good word for the carne asada
diabla, beef in cream sauce with chilpotles.
The chef said yes but forgot, so we ended up
with a little bowl of this on the side, and
you know what, I'd come back just for this
dish: like beef stroganoff with peppers. I
will try to duplicate it sometime.

As we'd blown a gazillion calories already,
we splurged and split a slice of flan, which
was kind of heavy but quite tasty.

We spent about $70, half of which was for the
sangria. By the way, should you go here, the
dishes all have really pretentious names, but
don't let that put you off.

I'd wanted to go to the ballgame at Electric
Park, but it was really raining quite hard,
so we abandoned that idea and decided to try
for Old Tucson, which turned out closed, and
the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, a most
felicitous choice as it turned out, even
though it's mostly outdoors, which is no
picnic when it's raining and in the 40s. I
can't recommend this museum too highly, and
we were fascinated for 3 hours. I especially
recommend the hummingbird house. We left
reluctantly at closing time; I had planned
another gala meal in Tucson, but we were
no way hungry, and it was pretty glowery, so
we decided to go back north before it got
really dark. A little sojourn at our room,
and then off to the Roaring Fork, where I'd
made reservations from the road. At 9 the
place was hopping.

By the way, Microsoft Streets '04 has this
restaurant in a completely wrong location.
We went to the supposed place and had to call
from there. Instead of being on Camelback,
it's at the SW corner of Chaparral and
Goldwater/Scottsdale.

We valeted the rental car and strolled in.
Seated immediately at a nice table and were
pleasantly greeted by a very intense and
peculiar waitress (if you have read M.F.K.
Fisher's story about Monsieur Paul's,
you'll know what I'm talking about). The
first things that come out are some rather
interesting breads including a yummy
jalapeno cornbread and a weird dinner roll
with blueberries; the butters are a good
unsalted and a chile-citrus one that I
found peculiar. Peculiar might describe the
entire experience here. Not bad, mostly,
just very odd.

We started off splitting the pot of green
chile appetizer with tortillas, which could
easily be a whole meal for two. This was at
the recommendation of flyer friend transworld
one. It was delicious but calorific. Carol
ate most of the cheese off the top, and I ate
most of the slightly fatty chili meat
underneath. The only cavil is that the dish
could have been quite a lot spicier.

Carol ordered a second appetizer as her main
course, the duck on flatbread, which was
tasty and abundant, with a side of excellent
garlicky spinach ($5 extra). I can't see this
as an appetizer: it's gotta be 1000 Calories
right there.

I ordered the cumin-crusted duck breast with
confit leg, sided with green chile macaroni
and cheese. The waitress asked how I'd like
it, was medium-rare okay, and I said I'd take
medium-rare but would prefer blood-rare. Ok.
and as the spinach sounded so good, an order
of that, too. Well, when the duck came not
only was it not medium-rare, there was not
a touch of pink at all. Tasted pretty good,
and I thought long and hard before sending it
back. I kept the mac and cheese and the
somewhat underconfit duck leg and sent the
breast back. What came back was a revenge
dish, just barely seared on the outside and
completely cold raw in the middle. I rather
enjoyed it, although the cumin had not been
tamed by the heat, so the balance of the
dish was off. In the background I heard the
chef arguing with the manager; the upshot
being that I was a tin-palate and the manager
saying, but it was overcooked in any case, I
saw it, it was gray. Oh, yes, a second mac
and cheese came out too: the stuff is pretty
tasty, made with a semi-soft cheese with an
almost brie-like consistency.

Eventually the manager came out, apologized,
and comped my main course. When the bill came
out, I had been charged twice for the dish,
with both of them taken off. With two giant
orders of spinach and the extra mac-cheese,
we had a good snack for the next day, and no
room for dessert.

Edmeades 2000 Zin (Mendocino) was delicious
and a bargain at $33, smoky and fruity (not
the usual berries, more grapes and tropical
stuff).

One other thing. Carol found a long blond
hair in the green chile and a long brown one
wrapped tightly around some of the greens in
the salad that topped her pizza. There is
something not quite right in the kitchen, I
am afraid, even though the experience on the
whole was not a bad one.

On the way out, I passed the guy who must
have cooked my meal; we scowled at each
other. I had fantasies of accosting him and
doing mayhem upon his person, so TW1, as you
said you might want to eat at this place with
me, be forewarned if we go there! Everyone
else, waitress, hostess, bus staff, was a
sweetheart though. The manager had been a tad
on the obsequious side, but of course he
saved the life of his cook thereby.