Zorba's

Part of Anchorage's culinary landscape is the many, many kiosks or roadside stands, which stay open through the year. They mostly deal in coffee, but a surprising number sell BBQ, hot dogs and their Alaska counterpart reindeer dogs, and similar treats. One venerable stand near where I work is Zorba's, which as you might imagine, mostly sells Greek food, though they also have a variety of dogs as well.

I have eaten there a couple of times, and though their menu is pretty basic, it is all good! They have a couple different gyro varieties available - lamb, beef, veggie, that sort of thing. The meat is always cooked to a crisp when you order, the veggies are fresh, and their cucumber yogurt is tangy and fresh. They also carry a variety of hot dogs, which you can get with standard condiments - ketchup, mustard, onion, relish. Chips and sodas are available, but nothing fancy like fries or anything. They are operating in a limited amount of space, and doing an impressive job of it. No matter what else you eat there, though, you have to finish off your lunch with their delicious baklava! Well, you don't have to, but you will be missing something good.

Located at the intersection of Lake Otis and Tudor, Zorba's doesn't look like much, but it is well worth a stop.

Orso

One of downtown Anchorage's nicer eateries is Orso - a modern Italian restaurant of the funky-chic style. Last weekend, Mr Eating Alaska and I went there for dinner to celebrate our 13th anniversary. We arrived earlier than our reservation time, but they had no problem seating us a bit early. We had a short wait, though, which we passed in the bar. Mr EA had a Cuba Libre and I had a gin Martini, both of which were very tasty and reasonably priced.
We started dinner with a cheese plate, which consisted of well-chosen cheeses artfully presented, and Orso's signature appetizer of bread and very garlicky hummous. Mr EA's entree was a steak, mashed potatoes and crisp-fried onion strips. His steak was perfectly done and very tasty, as were his accompaniments. I had pasta with a sort of minimalist sauce, which was also very good. I challenged the waiter a bit by asking for wine and letting him bring whatever he thought would complement the dish. I know virtually nothing about wine and find that sometimes this approach brings decent results (of course, some times it results in hideous disasters, but you pays your money and you takes your chances.) In this case I was rewarded for my trust - the wine he brought went perfectly with my pasta. Mr EA says "They put on a good show."

Then by strange chance, I went there with a group of coworkers for lunch today - it was my boss's birthday - so I had a chance to sample a few more of their things. We ordered appetizers of Caprese salad and calamari to share. I tried the calamari, which made me feel very brave, and found it pretty good. It did not have a lot of taste, but I am told it is a texture food - it was quite tender and not rubbery at all. The Caprese salad was delicious - although I have trouble imagining how it could possibly be screwed up. Then for actual lunch I had a sandwich of more fresh mozzarella and some prosciutto, which was OK but not stunning, and a curry pea soup which was delicious.
This second visit confirmed my initial opinion, which is that Orso is has great atmosphere, great service, good food and reasonable prices for this level of restaurant. All in all, a good bet for a nice meal.

Sugar Spoon

Wherever you go, there's a coffee shop.
In this case, a shop with coffee and all the associated hot beverages, and some of the best pastries and desserts I have ever tasted! Anchorage has a plethora of this type of place - independent little beverage and sweet shops that range from darling to funky to utilitarian. This place is of the funky variety, with sort of modern takes on classical deserts.
I knew I would like the place as soon as I saw the menu. Thank God, their drink sizes are "small" "medium" and "large". It irks me beyond all sense and reason when places have these nonsense size names - it's just pretentious. And they insist on using their terms, like a toddler who has to tell you about how he went potty all by himself. If you say "small coffee", the cashier will smirk at you, and say "Did you mean a venti?" I want whatever one is the small one. You go ahead and call it whatever makes you happy.
Well, anyway, now that the rant is out of my system - back to the Sugar Spoon. My visit there was part of a "girl day" I had with some ladies from work. We went to the Anchorage Museum to see a bead show, and then went for coffee and desserts. We all got the beverage of our choice, then buzzed between our menus and the showcase up front, trying to decide what we wanted. Everything looked so good and so interesting! (As indeed it all proved to be, but I am getting ahead of myself.) We decided to each get something different and then share bites with each other. I got a stonefruit tart, which was a slice of plum in a ground almond filling inside a buttery puff pastry casing, with a red wine reduction and candied almonds. It may sound like there were too many things going on there, but it was incredibly delicious. The rich ground almonds played against the crispy crust and the crunchy whole almonds, and the wine sauce added a bit of tartness that cut the rich flavors of the rest of the dish. Another lady in our group got a slice of a lemon cake and cream thing that was very tart and sweet, and basically tasted like sunshine. A third member of our party got black rice pudding, which was forbidden black rice cooked in coconut milk and cardamom with stawberry lime sauce - which was very tropical and delicious too. The fourth lady in the group got a chocolate mochaccino creme pie slice, which had layers of chocolate, coffee, and white chocolate creme and a chocolate crumb crust. That too was delicious. I don't have fuller descriptions of the other ladies' desserts, because I had a bite of each, which is not enough to fully consider the wholes.
We did tell our waitress that they could make a mint (which, by the way, they have mint chocolate pots du creme that I intend to try on my next visit!) by offering sample plates with little bites of a selection of their desserts. She just said "We don't do that." We know, but we wish you did. Well, guess I'll just have to go back!

Aladdin's - Guess the nationality!

This evening, Mr Eating Alaska and I tried out one of Anchorage's ...yes, you guessed it! Middle Eastern restaurants. They are trying more for your fine-dining-although-we-are-in-a-strip-mall atmosphere, which means it is not too Middle Eastern. Even if it is.

When we walked in, the music playing was something wretched of indeterminate origin, and we spent a good portion of our non-eating time trying to figure out what it was. Algerian cabaret? German tavern music? Yugoslavian pop? In the end, we could not really pin it down, though we amused ourselves trying. The decor was very bland, which is unfortunate. There is one picture of the sphinx on a wall, and one decorative hookah stuck up on the wall over the cash register. I like to see a place a little jazzed up, but not everyone loves the hoke, I suppose. Also, when the waitress told us the specials, they were Southwestern corn chowder, something about salmon, and halibut something. I honestly wasn't listening because I had geared myself up for middle eastern food, and did not want southwestern anything. But then we opened our menus and all was right with the world again.

I had a sampler platter, as I dislike choosing and would rather have a little of a lot of different stuff, and Mr Eating Alaska had lamb kefte. Both meals were absolutely delicious! The sample platter had a little cup of hummus, a kibbe patty, 2 dolmades, tzazaki sauce, and 2 falafel in a spicy sauce. My dolmades were kind of gross - way overcooked until they were mush and not much flavor, but everything else was delicious. The falafel was much lighter and more flavorful than it normally is, and the tzazaki and hummus were garlicy and chunky - not as processed or bland as they sometimes are. Mr. EA's lamb was delicious - juicy and flavorful - he was very happy with his choice. Both portions were ample without being ridiculous. We were planning on having baklava, but the mom and daughter at the next table got into an Ophrah-level emotional exchange, so we just left.

That leads me to a side remark about Alaska. This is not a shy state. People will just come right out in public with stuff that people in the northeast would at the very least save for a private moment, and in the most extreme case, internalize and carry unexpressed to their graves. I am not saying one method is healthier or better than another. The Alaskan way probably leads to fewer ulcers. I am just saying that for a person who lived in Pennsylvania for 40 years, it is a bit jarring. You simply don't know what to do. Should I pretend I can't hear them? I mean, I can hear them - you can't help it. They emit the sound waves, which bounce off my eardrums, and then my brain interprets the signals. Physics and biology have conspired to make this the way it works. I don't want to hear it, but there it is. Should I just go ahead and join in their conversation? You just don't know where to look. Oh, it's all very well to say "Just ignore it." But you try just ignoring a full-strength emotional scene going on 2 feet from you head. Can't be done.

But anyway, that is not the Aladdin's fault. In spite of their minimalist decor and annoying mood music, they have great food and possibly the most attentive staff in Anchorage. Go there. You won't be sorry!

Thai Village - Eh

I had an actual food-based lunch today in defiance of the delicious shake regime that is ruining my life. Tragically, I was not well rewarded.

I will admit right up front that I do not have a lot of experience with Thai food, and what I have had has been somewhat uneven. I have loved about half of it, and been left underwhelmed by the rest. Today I had some kind of beef curry thing. It came with a sweetish cucumber salad that was pretty good. The curry sauce/soup was OK, but the beef chunks that were swimming in it were kind of greasy and bland. There were also mushy potatoes and a few swollen pasty things that kind of freaked me out until I realized they were peanuts. It wasn't horrible or upsetting. I'm sure it provided nutrients and possibly some trace minerals to my body. It just wasn't good. Maybe I was missing some subtle artistry, or possibly I got the one thing on the menu you don't want, but overall, I doubt I'll go back. Anchorage has far too many great places to eat to waste time and money on mediocre ones.

Brief Hiatus hopefully over

Well, our eating experiments have been somewhat curtailed of late for a few reasons:

1) We are trying to lose some weight. While we are not circus-freak level fat, both Mr Eating Alaska and I could drop 20-30 pounds each. The problem? We like food (a lot) and are both extremely lazy. So we are trying to acheive our aim via the Slim Fast method. We are enjoying delicious shakes, which were surely engineered by someone who hates all that is good and holy in this world, for breakfast and lunch. And then having a sensible dinner. Now, for me, a sensible dinner after a day of SlimFast is about 2 normal meals worth of dinner. But that is counterproductive, so I am trying to keep it to an actually sensible dinner and then maybe some carrot sticks or pickles or something. It is slow going, but we are gradually losing inches. This has short-circuited our attempts to eat all of AK by cutting out food-based lunching.

2) Various social obligations and activities have somewhat cramped our style in terms of being able to go out to try new restaurants, but we are getting back on schedule.

Somewhat off topic, but still kind of fun:
We recently bought Jane and Michael Stern's Chili Nation, and decided, more or less on a whim, to try a different chili once a week. We're eating our way around the USA! In chili! Before I get too deep in this, I should point out that there's not much here for an actual chili purist. If you have strong feelings regarding what exactly constitutes chili, move along. Also, some of these recipes were made up by the Sterns based on the sort of foods that are popular or local "signature" foods of an area. But we don't care, having grown up in the northeast, so we think it's kind of fun. We started, of course, with Alaska's chili - Line Camp Chili and Biscuits. This is Alaskan by virtue of having a lot of root veggies and beef chunks and good thick sauce - hearty and good for winter weather!

City Diner

The City Diner, co-owned by two big names in the Anchorage food world, is this city's answer to the Retro Craze. As far as I know, there are no actual diners here, and possibly never have been. However, Anchorage has as much a fondness for plain old regular non-gourmet food as any town I have ever been in, so this restaurant is a natural fit.

It has a good version of the diner look, with lots of chrome and glass brick and neon, as well as a discreet smattering of kitch. The menu covers two sides of an 11 x 17 menu sheet and consists of basic diner chow. Breakfasts, a few burgers, sandwiches, and a few entrees of the meatloaf variety. Prices are a little high, but are sometimes worth it. Mr. Eating Alaska and I shared an order of Bleu Cheese chips as an appetizer, then split a BLT and a toasted cheese sandwich. The sandwiches each came with a side - he got a cup of corn chowder and I got pineapple cole slaw.

The Bleu Cheese Chips were absolutely delicious - that kind of delicious where you involuntarily moan when you taste it. The dish consists of fresh fried chips covered with cheese sauce, smoky bacon bits, bleu cheese chunks, and chives. It is astoundingly good. Just have some - I insist.

mmmmmmmmm!

The sandwiches were well executed version of the standards. My toasted cheese was crisp and buttery without being sodden. The cheese was good, flavorful mild cheddar. Mr. EA's BLT was also very good. The bacon was crisp and full of smoky flavor. The tomatoes were fresh, as was the lettuce, though there was too much greenery for his taste. So in general, well done but neither was a standout. My pineapple cole slaw was a bit sweet for me, and also a bit liquid-y, although there wasn't much left when I was done. The corn chowder, though, was delicious! It consisted of corn, potato, roasted red pepper and smoky bacon bit (again - they make the world taste good!) and what we think may have been some cilantro.

So it's a little uneven. However, we will be back again, if only for those chips. Although while we are having the chips...some of those burgers looked pretty good. We'll be back.

Mr EA Commentary: We had to wait for seating but not overly long and it was well worth it. The wait staff had the perfect balance of attentiveness & what I like to call "leave-us-alone-ness". The Unimaginatively named "City Diner" is located at the corner of Minnesota & Benson. Even if you're only in town a day or two, make this one of your stops....