This kale salad was genius. They used baby kale, so no tough curly stuff, and added Israeli couscous, green apple, jicama, pomegranate seeds, avocado, thin slices of red onion, and blueberry dressing. There was crunch from the pomegranate, crispness from the apple and jicama, some bite from the red onion, creaminess from the avocado, a little pasta element from the couscous pearls, and a nice color and flavor from the blueberry vinaigrette. This was a refreshing, interesting, and satisfying salad.
Location: Low Desert, 1775 E Palm Canyon Drive, Ste 405, Palm Springs, California. Date: May 2, 2023.
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The Persian salads at Francesco's consist of finely chopped lettuce, cucumber, tomato, red and green bell pepper, and onion; today I also found red cabbage and shredded carrot. It's served with a yogurt sauce that contains lemon juice and shredded cucumber, dill, and mint. I ordered this salad with beef, but you can also choose minced beef kebob. chicken kebob, chawarma, lamb, salmon, shrimp kabob, and swordfish kabob. All the meats and seafood are marinated to perfection and thus very tasty. Today, the onion was shredded and served deep fried giving a lot of crunch to the salad. There is hummus on the side as well as pita bread. These Persian salads are not only noteworthy, they are also complete and healthy meals.
Location: Francesco's Cafe, 72-047 Dinah Shore Drive, Suite C-1, Rancho Mirage, California. Date: January 28, 2023. This was a perfect avocado, halved, seeded, sliced flat on the bottom for stability, and stuffed with tuna salad with finely chopped veggies in it (tomato and green onion were recognizable). It came with a slice of baguette and a salad of iceberg lettuce with slices of red onion, very thin slices of celery, and slices of chewy and tangy roasted dried tomato. A lime and oil dressing was served on the side. The owner of this cafe always seems to add an interesting ingredient that isn't shown on the menu, and in this case it was the dried tomato.
Location: Bouchee Cafe & Deli, 72785 Hwy 111 B-1, Palm Desert, California. Date: April 30, 2022. This salad came with meaty rounds of roasted golden and red beets that you could sink your teeth into, along with dollops of tangy goat cheese, some crunchy toasted pine nuts, and arugula with a sweet and tangy pomegranate dressing. The salad was garnished with julienne of tangy and crispy granny smith apple. It was delicious and satisfying. I enjoyed it outdoors at night sitting at a table close to the warm fire pit.
Location: Babes BBQ, 71-800 Highway 111, Ste A 176, Rancho Mirage, California. Date: November 23, 2021. I had this coffee inspired salad for breakfast at a Bisbee Breakfast Club in Arizona. It featured slices of coffee-seasoned grilled chicken breast on a field of curly red and green lettuce. The garnishes were sliced black olives, tangy crumbled feta cheese, refreshing tomato wedges, crunchy raw red onion rings, a whole hard boiled egg, and a half dozen crunchy artichoke fritters. I could see and taste the coffee seasoning on the warm chicken breast strips. For my dressing I chose oil and vinegar, and they served it old school: a bottle of oil, a bottle of balsamic vinegar, and salt and pepper shakers. I thoroughly enjoyed my breakfast salad, and kudos to whoever came up with it.
Location: Bisbee Breakfast Club, 13864 N Sandario Road, Marana, Arizona. Date: November 4, 2021. Salpicon means “medley” in Spanish, and in Mexico and Central America it refers to a salad mixture. The Guatemalan version I came across today consisted of finely chopped onion, tomato, radish, and mint with a dusting of dried and finely grated beef. It came with two lime halves for squeezing, a side of rice that had peas, carrot, and corn in it, and a side of creamy black beans garnished with crumbly fresh white cheese. In Mexico you will probably come upon this dish with cilantro instead of mint, and shredded beef instead of the almost powdered version; however, while the beef on the Guatemalan version didn't provide much protein, the rice and beans did. When I left the restaurant, I thought that salpicon was very similar to the Arabic tabouli salad (with beef instead of bulgur wheat and mint instead of parsley). When I told a Mexican friend of mine about my salpicon, he said that it sounded very similar to an Arabic salad, the name of which escaped him. Great culinary minds think alike! This was a very refreshing dish which I spiced up with Picamás green hot sauce imported from Guatemala, which was salty, sour, and spicy. What a wonderful lunch on a hot day!
Location: Guatemala Grill, 68100 Ramon Road, Suite C6 & C7, Cathedral City, California. Date: September 27, 2021. This was a baby kale salad flavored with reduced balsamic vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and cracked pepper. The stars of the show, of course, were the four grilled and chilled strawberry halves and the slice of creamy burrata, which is buffalo mozzarella. The strawberry added sweet and sour, and the sea salt grains were large enough to melt in my mouth as I ate. There was more sweet and sour from the reduced balsamic, and spice from the cracked pepper, but nothing overwhelmed anything else. Some friends took me here for my birthday, and I'll definitely blog from this place again.
Location: 1501 Uptown Gastropub, 1501 N Palm Canyon, Palm Springs, California. Date: September 19, 2021. I went to an Italian restaurant in Palm Desert this evening for a seafood dish, but when I got there I found shattered glass all over the sidewalk, some windows had been boarded up, and there was no sign on the locked door. I backtracked to a pizza place I like in Cathedral City only to realize that it was right next to Sammy's Place. I'd heard about this restaurant before the pandemic struck, and someone recommended Sammy's Tomatoes. So I changed gears and sat out on the patio at Sammy's. I ordered the tomatoes, which the menu called a “House Favorite”, but when they were brought to my table and I saw that it was basically a bowl of quartered tomatoes, I thought that this dish was probably not going to make it onto my noteworthy food blog. Well, obviously it has! The tomato wedges came with some thick slices of red onion, chopped basil, balsamic vinaigrette dressing, and a dusting of grated parmesan cheese. There was a sharp bite and fresh crunch from the onion, and the vinaigrette was refreshing. Before my salad arrived, I was brought some warm crusty bread with what I think was green olive tapenade. When the salad came I soaked some of my bread in the vinaigrette, and the olive added another layer of flavor. In the end I realized that this salad, if you can actually call it that, was addictive.
Location: Sammy's Place, 69034 E Palm Canyon Drive, Cathedral City, California. Date: August 7, 2021. I didn't think that watermelon and tomato would go well together, but I love it when I prove myself wrong. This salad consisted of watermelon cubes, tomato slices, and queso fresco (fresh Mexican style cheese) tossed with house made tequila citrus vinaigrette and garnished with fresh mint and some lemon zest. It was the salty and chewy fresh cheese that tied the watermelon and tomato together (it's an ingredient that goes well with both). The dressing was fabulous with the watermelon, and the tomato acted as a foil: when I was getting tired of too much melon, I'd enjoy a bite of tomato. The fresh mint gave the watermelon a flavor boost, and the lemon zest accent here and there was nice. On a hot day like today, this is the salad you want.
Location: El Patio, 139 E Andreas Road, Palm Springs, California. Date: August 7, 2021. I inquired about whether the tamarind sauce for the Three Flavors Fish was more sour or more sweet. When I was told that it was more sweet, I ordered the Spicy Beef Salad instead. The waitress now had an idea of what I liked and so she asked me if I'd like my beef salad more sour. I said yes enthusiastically, and then she asked if I'd like it more spicy. I answered in the affirmative to that one too. This spicy and sour salad consisted of grilled very thin beef slices with wedges of tomato and cucumber, thinly sliced red onion and carrot, and sprigs of cilantro. It was served on a bed of lettuce and dressed generously with lime juice and sweet and spicy chili sauce. It was a hot day, and I knew this salad would be refreshing even though I broke out into a sweat while eating it. But wait! I had it with a cold Beerlao Lager, one of my favorite Asian beers. When I'd eaten all the salad, there was still a good amount of dressing in the bottom of my takeout container, and the friend who introduced me to this Thai restaurant had some leftover brown rice. I put some of her rice into the sauce, and oh yeah! It was the Asian version of sopping up good sauce with bread.
Location: Thai Spoon, 802 W Colton Avenue, Suite B, Redlands, California. Date: May 7, 2021. |
AuthorChef Roland has been a legal resident of seven countries and has travelled in over thirty, documenting food along the way. He currently resides in the desert in Southern California. Categories
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