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| - I finally followed my beloved baseball Giants of San Francisco to their spring training home, and after consulting Scottsdale yelpers, Culinary Dropout seemed like a good place to eat a late dinner on the first night.
Living in the South Bay Area, I generally assumed that relatively low population density equates to nothing but stripmalls and chain restaurants. Going to Scottsdale has shown me that this doesn't have to be the case.
I do realize that the Fox group is a major presence in the food and nightlife scene in Scottsdale. This preeminence clearly isn't gained by aggressive annoying ad campaigns and stupid slogans...or by offering horrendously large portions to lure in lazy, poor, obese people.
They are successful, I imagine, because they take a good concept and consistently deliver it to locals and tourists alike at a reasonable price.
I likes me some swanky San Francisco restaurants, where you feel like you have to prove your worthiness to the server. And then you fork out $180 bucks and step over homeless people to get to your cab.
Culinary Dropout satisfies the swanky without the price or the pretentious service (not to mention the lack of homeless drug addicts passed-out in a puddle of their own excrement). Thank you Scottsdale PD police state!
I started with the 'nutty Irishman' cocktail, if I remember correctly. Jamison with Guiness reduction and some other stuff. Never heard of adding a Guiness reduction to a cocktail...or reducing Guiness at all, but I am a fan. My special lady had the cocktail with the pomegranate foam on top...step aside Ferran Adria, this is the best use of foam i can think of.
The Cuban pork belly sandwich appealed to me...you had me at pork belly. My dainty little girlfriend had the chopped Italian salad. My sandwich was bomb-diggidy, although I was less-than-impressed with the chopped salad with Kraft-tasting Italian dressing on it...but I would never order that, so I'm not hating.
While I'm on it, WTF is with every single Scottsdale restaurant putting some kind of 'chopped' salad on their menu? Just sayin'. That seems like some iceberg, cucumber, and carrot thing you put ranch on in the Midwest somewhere. I digress.
I was too full to try the monkey bread...my mom makes that, and I love it. We had to come back another night to try it, and it did not disappoint. And neither did the people-watching on a Friday night. They must have a 23yr old blond girl generator somewhere in this town.
The title tells it all: Culinary Dropout. Not that they can't cook here, it's that they don't feel the need to put on their tall hat and adhere to some antiquated notion of cuisine. They make good food that people like in a festive and swanky atmosphere. Just because they have an amazing space and a well-thought-out and well-invested aesthetic concept, that doesn't mean they have to try and make inaccessible food that you need to download the Oxford Food-Lovers app on your iPhone to translate the menu. And every employee I interacted with was oozing with genuine hospitality.
Next year when I come back, and I WILL come back, I will definitely stop by again.
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