Offbeat Eats

The whole purpose of our trip to Colorado was going to a wedding of two of our friends. However, they aren’t exactly traditionalists, so one of the activities planned for their informal wedding was a hike up nearby Mount Garfield. Well, it’s a short hike (~2 miles), but it’s also a steep one (~2000 feet), with most of the elevation gain in the first third of the trail. I enjoyed both the hike and the view from the top, but by the time we got back to Grand Junction to get ready for the wedding, I needed a bit of a snack. Cruising through the west side of Grand Junction, we happened across two places: a Sonic (I don’t really care for their food, but I love their cherry limeade), and in a little parking area right next door, Loncheria Rubi, a taco truck.

After a morning spent looking at the most excellent native art collections at the Heard Museum in downtown Phoenix, as well as having a quick trip over to Wes Bolin Plaza to look at the various memorials, we decided that we needed a quick lunch. Luckily, Phoenix has the same, healthy taco truck economy that I’ve come to expect from any major Southwestern city. Easy to miss the place, since you can’t directly see the truck from the street without eagle eyes, since they’ve ensconced it in several blue tarps to make a seating area of a few rickety tables and chairs (as well as a place to get out of the sun). The truck itself makes one wall of the dining area, so you wander up to the window and place your order, and then hang out and relax as they assemble it…

After stopping for a break and some pizza in Greenwich Village, the Death March then proceeded east to Greene Street to work our way south to Church St and the WTC site (and then on to Battery Park, finishing the nearly 20 mile hike). This wasn’t completely planned (early routes had us traveling down Broadway), but this ended up working out quite well, since we happened across a Van Leeuwen Artisan Ice Cream Truck on Greene between Spring and Prince. This wasn’t the first Van Leeuwen truck we spotted, there had been another over by the High Line, but this time everyone was in the mood for a short ice cream break. Van Leeuwen serves a number of premium ice cream flavors, with a nice thick, creamy ice cream base. Flavors run from the standard chocolate/vanilla/strawberry (although all are naturally flavored), with several nut- and spice-based flavors as well, including pistachio, hazelnut, and ginger.

(Closed) One of my online peeps told me of a good place to get tasty conch fritters, jerk chicken, and grilled crawfish. His direction were: “From the boat dock, head west along the waterfront until you find the worst-looking food vendor. That’s the place.” This is what I found: Claudette’s Native Food, in a converted U-haul (which, for the record, wasn’t the place my friend found, which was later found to be called McPhee’s Seafood).