When I think of Tucson, I think of fluffy tamago egg slathered in sweet soy marinade, pickled pink turnip slices cutting through my hummus, steaming pots of lamb stew, spicy vindaloo, pot-au-feu.
Tucson is a burgeoning international city of immigrants, cosmopolitan restaurateurs, entrepreneurs, bright-eyed students and passionate foodies. You can find almost anything here.
In the spirit of our growing diversity, we decided to experiment.
Inspired by our Travel Channel hero Andrew Zimmern (host of "Bizarre Foods"), we took Tucson to task and sought out some of the strangest, most exotic and interesting foods around. And we found them.
Join us in an exploration - and celebration - of our city's treasures, one bite at at time.
Sweetbreads at Athens
The newest trend in food is literally offal. Europeans have eaten the spare animal parts and internal organs for centuries, and American bistros, encouraged by the sustainable food movement, are increasingly taking notice. We're seeing everything from pig trotters to lamb brain on the menu at Mario Batali restaurants, but the crown jewel is sweetbreads: the throat glands of a calf.Â
At Athens on Fourth Avenue, they are called Gleekathakia ($17.95), which are fried in olive oil with a thin layer of breading, fresh tomatoes, garlic and scallions. (The Dish does 'em too, along with some microgreens and red pepper confetti.) On the plate, the sweetbreads look pretty normal. Almost like fried zucchini. But their taste?
Delicious! The breading really firms up the chewy interior, making the strips light but substantial. Honestly, it's like tender breaded chicken. (No wonder they're doing offal and waffle in Manhattan.)
It's adventurous food, but it feels familiar, comforting. I ate all of it.
Pig's ear at Lee Lee Oriental Supermart
Sorting through the aisles at Lee Lee's can be a bit intimidating (especially when you get to the wall of oyster sauces), but folks at the Nan Tian BBQ make things simpler. They cook - you pay.
At this shop inside the supermarket, you can still enjoy some offal without much effort: The menu includes barbecued pig stomach and ear, duck feet, tongue and wing, and more.
We tried a pig's ear ($6.25 a pound), chopped right up for us and plopped into a takeout box along with some cilantro and soy sauce. Just the thing for a case of the parking-lot munchies.
Or not. This one's a little harder to get down: The meat is extremely rubbery and fatty, and it has this perplexing white tendon in the middle that I wasn't sure was edible.
Should I chew around it? Do I even want to? For the effort involved, there's not much payoff in the way of crunch or flavor. I yearn for some regular old pork loin, pork shoulder, bacon, or even - gasp - Spam.
Spam musubi at Mama's Hawaiian Bar-B-Cue
But Spam sushi? That's ridiculous, unless you're from the Aloha State.
According to Mama's Hawaiian Bar-B-Cue owner Sam Alboy, Spam musubi is like the Hawaiian version of the Fruit Roll-up. It's all over the islands - from gas stations to upscale sushi joints - and is eaten by kids and adults alike.
At Mama's, the canned ham is marinated in teriyaki sauce, grilled and set on a bed of sticky rice with some nori (seaweed) holding it all together. You can order the treat ($2) at room temperature, but under Alboy's suggestion we got it hot and ready.
And wow! To heck with the $6 surf clam and blubbery strips of toro. Hit me with some Spam musubi any day of the week.
What a hearty, inexpensive piece of food. It's a little tough to eat with the sticky rice falling out the sides - not to mention a bit high on the sodium meter - but the meat itself is better than any Hormel product I've had in recent memory (including Saag's sausages). Maybe it's the sweet marinade, or the fact that it's sliced relatively thin, but this stuff is really, really good.
Ostrich and red deer meat at Jonathan's Cork
No hiding our heads in the sand with this one. We're ready for some first-class game, prepared by Tucson's conservatory of meat, Jonathan's Cork.
Shipped from New Zealand, the leg of the ostrich and red deer are two of owner Jonathan Landeen's favorite cuts, whether he's cooking them three different ways for an appetizer or simply grilling up a fine steak for the main course. Even though they taste similar to beef, both are extremely low in saturated fats. (Because of price and availability in the market, Landeen is transitioning from ostrich to the deer meat, so make sure to ask which is available.)
The steak ($30 for the deer, $32 for the ostrich), ordered charbroiled, is served with the best cranberry sauce we've ever had. You can really taste the red wine reduction in it, not to mention the citrus notes of the orange marmalade. If that's not your thing, try it blackened or sauteed with different sauces.
At $16 to $18, the appetizer may be a bit pricey, but its range and depth makes it worth it. The trio includes deer or ostrich blackened with a tangy salsa butter, sauteed in a sauce full of explosive green peppercorns, and grilled with that voluptuous cranberry sauce.
The appetizer? Easily the best thing I've eaten, not only for this article, but this entire year. It's totally exciting to taste a new meat in general, but to get three takes on it? All of the sudden, I'm an expert.
And this is what I know: The ostrich tastes like a lean cut of beef, not too gamey, extremely tender, earthy. The deer, thicker and heftier on the plate, is mild as well, but you can really taste the iron in it. Biting in, you rip through layers of fleshy pink rareness, because the longer it cooks the more it starts to taste like liver.
It was all amazing, but if you have to choose, get the meat blackened. The crisp, peppery crust contrasts beautifully with the succulent meat inside. It makes you really appreciate what you're eating.
Octopus stir fry at Korea House
Raw beef, runny egg, buckwheat noodles and black bean paste: You can only be speaking of Korea House, Tucson's No. 1 spot for Korean barbecue and banchan (side dishes). When we're here, we usually go for the sizzling beef bulgogi or hot stone bowl bibimbap with crispy fried egg, but on a recent visit we branched out and tried a spicy stir fry of octopus tentacles, bulked up with some sesame seeds and sliced onions.
If it's not cooked right, octopus can be rubbery and tough, but not here. Plopped on some rice or eaten in combination with a kimchi or marinated bean sprout banchan, Korea House's nakji and vegetables ($13.50) is utterly enjoyable.
Tongue, head tacos at Taqueria Pico de Gallo
Our favorite South Sixth Avenue haunt, Taqueria Pico de Gallo, dishes up an obscure pleasure of the palate: beef cabeza. Referring to several parts of a cow head, Pico de Gallo goes for the muscles in the head, or the cheek. But it also sells tacos de lengua, or tongue ($1.25 each), topped with some cilantro, cabbage and a tasty green salsa. We ordered both.
The "yuck" factor was pretty high here, but honestly, once you get over the idea you're eating a head, the tacos become pretty darn good.
Although the two were almost identical, there were subtle differences between them: The cheek was shredded a bit more and was fattier and creamier, while the tongue was meaty, deep and succulent. I couldn't choose between the two, but they're cheap enough to repeat the experiment as many times as you want. (Confession: I've since been back.)
Pig's feet at The Onyx Room
When the Bryant family opened The Onyx Room on Drachman Street in April, enthusiasts, purists and journalists all jumped for joy at the prospect of a real Southern eatery coming to town. Oh wait, it's also a nightclub that serves neck bones? Even better.Â
With a regular menu of burgers and ribs and a daily specials list with more obscure fare, The Onyx Room is fit to please everyone. But we're not interested in the whole hog here, just one particular part: the foot.
Executive chef John Bryant, son of owner Johnny, says that pig's feet is actually pretty standard soul food fare. He learned to cook it from family recipes, after all: slow roasted for three hours and seasoned with salt, garlic powder and crushed red pepper. (A platter, with two sides of your choice, is $11.99 on Fridays.)
That's all well and good, but how do you put the foot in your mouth?
"I just pick it up and eat it - get my hands all sticky," the younger Bryant says. "It's an acquired taste."
Maybe all this reckless consumption is finally catching up with me, but I'm having a tough time getting this one down. The foot is so much fleshier than I'd expected. Who knew pigs had humongous pockets of fat nestled between their hooves?Â
Perhaps it's the slow-roasting technique that makes this meat so rich and succulent. There's not much crispiness to the skin, but it has a deep and strong peppery flavor. It's fall-off-the-toe, but after a few rips the meat is all over the bowl like a chunky stew. And to think, some people like it pickled.
Bone marrow at Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails
While Janos Wilder's dreaming up new takes on the gastrique, he's still right on the cusp of Tucson's culinary street scene. The menu at Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails reflects his devotion to the lower-brow as well as French techniques, with beef cheeks and lamb tongue sharing a space with continental comfort foods like roasted bone marrow.
In case you've never partaken, bone marrow is the soft tissue nestled inside your bones, filled with lots of blood cells and capillaries and stuff. In France, people spread the marrow on loaves of bread and then fleck it with sea salt, almost like you would butter.
Wilder serves his in the quintessential French dish, pot-a-feu (beef stew, $24), along with vegetables, cornichons (tart pickles made from gherkin cucumbers) and some pretty tasty mustard and horseradish cream sauces.
This is food for philosophers. It really makes you think about the hidden treasures of your body, what makes up a human being and who we really are. (Soul food?)
When you scoop the marrow out with a fork, you get a mushy blob with an incredibly rich, fatty taste, so different from the cage of bone surrounding it. It's kind of like a meat pudding, and is perfect as a spread for my French bread.
We're really sad it's been taken off the menu for summer, but manager Kristian Unvericht promises it'll be back as the weather cools. It's one of their most popular dishes, after all.
Frog curry and durian smoothie at Saigon Pho
Wonders can be found in the land of Vietnam, where French occupation led to a culinary fusion between the bistro and the tropics. What better example can we find than the yellow frog leg curry ($14.99 after 3 p.m.) at Saigon Pho, a restaurant teeming with East Asian spices and exotic meats? (The campus-area spot also does venison, buffalo and boar curries, all with rice and french fries on the side.)
Maybe it's just me - and the fact that every time I see amphibian on a menu I think of my old pet bullfrog Françoise - but the combination of frog and coconut milk gives me the willies.
I beg of you, Françoise, don't despise me. I'm really enjoying the juxtapositions in this dish: the crunch of the peanuts, the creamy but complex sauce, the fresh cilantro, the tiny legs. As far as the frog goes, it resembles a skinny chicken drumstick, but its texture reminds me more of white fish, stringy and crumbly.
With all these challenges vanquished, we're starting to feel on top of the world ... until something comes along to burst our bubble. That something is probably the nastiest, most feared, most revered fruit in Southeast Asia. The durian, offered at Saigon Pho's as a boba fruit smoothie ($4), is widely known as "the king of fruits" for its powerful stature, spiky exterior and extreme flavor.
Just to give you an idea, this fruit is so foul that Asian Pacific countries often ban it from hotels, office buildings, hospitals and even on the subway. A putrid smell emanates from the fruit - even through its thick layer of spiky husk - that reminds people of rotten onions, body odor and sour, sweaty death.
But at the same time, people are obsessed with it, and Saigon Pho assistant manager Vince Ruhl notes how many customers like it.
He says durian is definitely an acquired taste, though he admits he doesn't care for it.Â
But in smoothie form with fluffy little tapioca pearls? Bring it on.
In the words of our favorite Everyman Keanu Reeves: "Whoa!"
I feel it in my nose first: an explosion of burning fuel, raw onions, experimental chemicals. And then my tongue registers the putrefied egg, the engulfing sourness, the comedic irony. This drink makes me laugh. It's revolting on the one hand, but absolutely hypnotizing.
I don't want to put the drink down. It's terrible, but the more I have of it, the less bad it gets. I'm starting to taste almonds, the sweet cream flavor of the milk, a fruitiness. Even those glumpy tapioca balls don't feel so bad when they speed up my giant straw.
On first taste, unfamiliar foods can be intimidating, but the second taste, the third, the fourth?
The durians of the world may seem hard to swallow, but the more you eat them, the easier they are to fall in love with. And after a week of exhilarating first dates, we're ready for some lasting relationships.
Bear stew at Jonathan's Cork
And for the encore, bear stew.
Jonathan's also puts on game dinners for hunters who bring their catches into the restaurant. (Anywhere from $10 to $30 per person, depending upon the meal requested.)
On the afternoon of our tasting, he'd been slow cooking this dish for about 3 1/2 hours, and man, could you taste it. The meat itself was sweet and not-too-chewy, and the sauce - made from tomatoes and an entire bottle of pinot noir - was divine.
Where to dine
âĸ Athens on Fourth: 500 N. Fourth Ave., 624-6886.
âĸ Lee Lee Oriental Supermart: 1990 W. Orange Grove Road, 638-8328.
âĸ Mama's Hawaiian Bar-B-Cue: 850 E. Speedway, 792-2350, and 15990 S. Rancho Sahuarita Blvd., 207-8187.
âĸ Jonathan's Cork: 6320 E. Tanque Verde Road, 296-1631.
âĸ Korea House: 4030 E. Speedway, 325-4377.
âĸ Taqueria Pico De Gallo: 2618 S. Sixth Ave., 623-8775.
âĸ The Onyx Room: 106 W. Drachman St., 620-6699.
âĸ Downtown Kitchen + Cocktails: 135 S. Sixth Ave., 623-7700.
âĸ Saigon Pho: 943 E. University Blvd., 624-0999.
Andi Berlin is a recent University of Arizona graduate who's grown up on a steady diet of dim sum and New York deli. (Her first food was actually fried turnip cake.) She was an apprentice with Caliente and more recently wrote food reviews for Metromix Tucson. Berlin is moving to the Bay Area with hopes of becoming a chef and food writer. To follow her travels, check out her new blog, My Dinner With Andi, online at dinnerwithandi.blogspot.com
