Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers

I spent the first couple of years of the new millennium living in Upstate New York.  Unfortunately, I was a much different person then, especially in regards to food.  I was surrounded by options I'd never had before, and as a rule I ignored them while my then-girlfriend and I made the rounds of various fast food joints, with the occasional special trip to a brewpub.  Hell, I lived upstairs from a Jamaican restaurant that I never crossed the threshold of!  I'm still kicking myself about it.

This isn't to say that I have completely abandoned all fast food (I'm just much more selective about it now, and have it much less often) or that I didn't come West again without any new edible interests.  I left NY with new tastes for haddock (fish fry Fridays!), beef on weck sandwiches, NY style pizza, and frozen custard.  Luckily I had Stan's to fulfill most of those cravings for a while, but then they closed up shop.  While the Valley is still sorely lacking on weck and good fish fry options, frozen custard finally made a comeback with the opening of Freddy's Frozen Custard & Steakburgers last year.

On the flip side...

On the whole, this working in Nampa thing has been a positive experience food-wise.  I've found unique sandwiches and sushi, addictive Hawaiian, surprisingly good Thai, even a combination Mexican and gyro joint.  But it hasn't been all moonshine and corn dogs.  There is no Indian food.  I have yet to find a truly good burger place.  And despite several attempts, I'm pretty ready to declare that there simply is NO good Chinese food in Nampa.

Let's make something clear here: despite my fondness for authentic cuisine and my constant bemoaning of the lack of it in the Treasure Valley (especially Chinese), I LIKE Americanized Chinese food.  For good or bad, it's pure nostalgia for me.  I grew up on it, and used to beg to go to those buffet joints the way most kids begged for fast food burgers and chicken nuggets.  So, finding a fix in 2C was important, and so far it's been a largely unsuccessful endeavor.  Let's check out a few together.

Messenger Pizza & Brewery

Have you ever gone to one of those places that gets amazingly good reviews, then you try it and you're just not impressed?  I mean good print reviews, good website reviews, glowing comments from friends, co-workers and family, and you just don't get it.  What do you do in those cases?  Personally, I usually go back another time or two to try and figure it out.  Sometimes it just boils down to a matter of personal taste.  Sometimes it's the power of suggestion.  I mean look at Kripsy Kreme; I'm convinced the reason they're so popular is because if you get enough people to tell others that a particular place is the best at something, they start to believe it without really examining it.  Still other times, it seems to be because people want a place to be good so much that they make excuses and allowances for any issues.  Sometimes, things aren't that black and white.  Stick with me on this one, it's a bit of a roller coaster...

Bandido's Mexican Grill & The Gyros Factory...and maybe even Burrito Banditos?

5/4/14 UPDATE - Apparently they do have fries if you order a gyro combo meal.  Don't know if they were out the first time I went or if there was just some confusion.  They also have a new website now at http://www.bandidosmexicangrillidaho.com/.  And FYI, the Smoky Gyro is pretty freaking good.

I often bring lunch to work with me, but I don't always eat it.  Occasionally when the time comes, I open my lunchbox and have no desire for what it contains.  Usually at these times I'm craving something specific and end up going to get that instead, but every rare once in a while I have no idea what I want.  At times like this I'll get in my car, pick a direction at random, and take off driving.  It doesn't always work, sometimes I end up back at the office eating one of the protein bars I keep in my desk, but every once in a while I stumble across something amusing.  A combination Mexican and Greek eatery, for example.

Island Kine Grinds

For a while there, I was really behind on my reviews.  I'm starting to get caught up now, but the places I've visited recently have had to go to the bottom of the stack while I wrote up restaurants that I visited weeks or even months before.  In one case, that backlog has allowed me to work through most of a particular eatery's menu, and I've decided I just need to write them up and get it over with.

Krung Thai

One thing I'm learning about eating in Nampa is that the further you get away from the historic downtown area, not a lot of attention is paid to how a business looks on the outside.  I have stepped across the thresholds of several eateries that were a little sketchy-looking, only to find myself in a cozy little place staffed by friendly people who made me feel welcome and were happy to share their love of food.  One such place is Krung Thai.

A fast review of some fast food...

I've been hearing a lot of noise (primarily through Groupon) about Skippers promoting the sustainability of their seafood.  I'm unsure if it's just the Nampa location or a company-wide thing, but recently I found myself in that area of town and shrimp sounded pretty good.  I guess you know what happens next...

2nd Street Deli

I like sandwiches.  A lot.  The convenience factor is nice of course (assuming it's a sane sandwich, if I need a knife and fork it's hard to think of it as a sandwich...I'm looking at you, open-faced "sandwiches"), but it's the sheer versatility that is the best thing about them.  The possibilities are basically endless.  And like many of you, I have my favorite places to procure sandwiches.

A few months back, the company I work for moved our offices from Boise to Nampa, much too far away to make it to any of my former favorite lunch haunts.  While many of my co-workers were content once they learned there is a Jimmy John's within driving distance, that didn't satisfy me.  So, I started searching the nearby area, and one of the first eateries I stumbled upon was the 2nd Street Deli.

A little end of the year housekeeping...

If you've read through my posts, you'll see quite a few write-ups for places that I thought were pretty good, a fair amount for places that I absolutely adored, and a few for places that I just plain despised.  That isn't to say that I don't go to eateries that I don't have any strong feelings about either way, or that I dislike just enough that I'm likely not to return, or that are just okay but I'll never go back because there are too many other eateries to choose from...it's just hard to work up the enthusiasm to write about them.  Eventually I accumulate enough of those places that I'll just combine them into one piece and get them off my to-do list.  This time I decided to compile a day's worth of meals as kind of a fun theme.  So, let's talk breakfast.

Royal Bakery & Cafe (CLOSED)

At the beginning of this month my employer moved our offices to Nampa, a place I haven't spent any serious time in since I was a kid and Karcher Mall was the epitome of local shopping.  In preparation for the move, I started researching eateries within a small radius of the new office.  I already had a list of almost a dozen when, a few days before the move, I accompanied my roommate to Nampa for a factory recall repair on her car.  I brought my own car along so we wouldn't be trapped in the dealership waiting room, and we decided to drive around and take a look at some of the places I'd been researching.  On our way back to the dealership, she suggested taking a quick detour through the little shopping complex around the Edwards theater across from the Idaho Center, and that's where we came across Royal Bakery & Cafe.  I pretty much fell instantly in love and decided that they would be my next review.  And yes, for those of you who pay attention to these things, they are the place that Boise Weekly wrote up this week.  The place has sat there for YEARS, and the Weekly publishes a review at the exact same time that I'm working on one?  What are the odds?!

I've mentioned this before, but I don't like posting a review of a place that someone else has just written up.  I may have visited a place three times in the last two weeks and be in the midst of my writing, when suddenly the Statesman or the Weekly publish a piece on it.  Maybe it's silly, maybe not, but it just sucks away my enthusiasm for it.  I don't want to come across like "I saw someone else's review, it made me want to try the place, and now here's MY review."  In these rare cases (there are few enough people writing about restaurants in the Valley that it doesn't happen that often), I usually just wait a couple of months before posting my write-up.  Still, I suppose it was only a matter of time before the luxury of that choice was taken away from me.  You see, the Weekly's piece on Royal Bakery ended with the information that the proprietor is considering closing down in a couple of months to focus on catering and studies so if I wait a couple of months I may very well be posting an "in memoriam" review.  I want them to be tempted to keep their doors open, and if I can lend to that by drawing some attention (and hopefully business) to them, then that's what I've gotta do.