Mazzah Mediterranean Grill (State Street)

It's official.  My addiction to gyros is spreading, and has begun to infect my loved ones.  A while back, Mazzah Mediterranean Grill was the daily deal on LivingSocial.com, and I was able to snag a $40 certificate for $18.  It took several weeks of badgering on my part, but eventually I was able to persuade my housemate to pack up the kids and accompany me to their strip mall location on State Street between 17th and 18th Streets.  This was necessary because the only thing I can eat $40 worth of in a sitting is sushi, and unfortunately the certificate had to be used all at once.





Gino's Italian Ristorante

Meridian has come a long way in terms of restaurants.  I remember being in high school and having to drive to Boise just to get a decent espresso.  Now I'm mere minutes away from gelato, barbecue, bagels, Thai, fresh bread, and some damn good sushi.  A few years back a restaurateur heeded the winds of economic change, pulled out of downtown Boise and popped up again in an out-of-the-way strip mall in Meridian, bringing what many people consider to be the best Italian food in the Treasure Valley with him.

Los Beto's (Fairview)

I've reviewed a lot of taco trucks on this blog, and as much as I love some of the sit-down Mexican restaurants in town, for the most part my heart is with the street food version of Mexican cuisine.  That having been said, there are a lot of advantages to an actual restaurant.  Atmosphere, alcohol, a roof...oh, and I suppose a much more diverse menu selection due to the supplies and implements available.  In the great void between taco truck and traditional restaurant, you'll find Los Beto's.

Guido's Original New York Style Pizzeria (Chinden)

One of the ways that traveling (even in the limited amounts that I've done) gets you into trouble is in the way it educates you about food.  For example, a lot of what gets sold around here as Philly Cheesesteaks bear little to no resemblence to the real thing.  Does it make them bad sandwiches?  No, but I just can't recognize them as Phillys.  New York style pizza is another example.  Granted, there aren't many people in Boise claiming to serving it, but most of them have disappointed me (and in one or two cases, I'd go so far as to say it was insulting).  As someone who lived in New York for two years and ate pizza everywhere from Queens to Buffalo, I have to say that the closest thing I've found to true New York style pizza here is Guido's.

Five Guys Burgers and Fries

I've been going through a bit of a burger phase lately, and an odd one at that.  Basically I've been craving burgers constantly, and I've been going to lots of places to get them, but getting something a little unusual each time.  A strange cheese here, a different meat there, maybe a fried egg, unusual sauce, or some pork belly.  I've had lots of good burgers, but they were doing nothing to dissuade my craving.  It's like I was a bottomless burger pit.  One night recently, my housemate suggested that what I really needed was a good, old-fashioned, all-American style burger, and even though I should have known it myself this struck me as a revelation.

Problem was, the revolution came late on a weekday evening when pretty much everything but fast food joints were closed.  As a frenzy built in me, my savior contributed her second brilliant thought of the night: what about Five Guys?  We'd both been there before and quite enjoyed it, but I didn't want to get my hopes up.  It was, as I said, a weekday evening in Meridian, and Five Guys doesn't have a drive-through that's open late.  A quick visit to their website yielded two important bits of information: Five Guys is open until 10 PM seven nights a week, and they have online ordering.  At this point, the decision was easy.