Recently we made our second “escape-the-heat” trip out of town, this time to the Shakespearean Festival in Cedar City, Utah. The weather was great, in the low 90’s during the day and the 70’s at night. We saw an excellent production of Macbeth, an entertaining Pride and Prejudice, and an abysmal musical production of Great Expectations. The big disappointment was Cedar City itself. While the festival theaters were positively lush, and the Southern Utah University campus very pretty, there was nothing to do in town - no interesting places to shop, no art galleries, and horror-of-horrors, no good places to eat. Needless to say, we left a day early.
But we did have two very interesting dining experiences.
On our way to Utah we stopped in Kingman for a late lunch. Ken remembered a place we had discovered on our last trip through the area called The Dambar Steakhouse. It’s decorated in a rustic cowboy theme, with sawdust on the floor, corrugated tin dividers, and red checkered tablecloths. The menu holds no surprises - there’s lots of fried appetizers, a few Southwestern dishes, and much meat. Ken decided on pork chops ($13.99), and I ordered chopped steak ($9.99). Meals come with soup or salad, biscuits, cowboy beans and choice of potato. The biscuits are fabulous, light and flakey, with herbs mixed into the dough, served with herb butter. But even better than the biscuits is the meat. My chopped steak seemed to be freshly ground, and handled with the lightest touch imaginable. Recipes always tell you not to be rough when mixing and shaping hamburger, that kneading it to mix in seasoning or other ingredients will make it tough. I never appreciated that bit of information until I ate this ground steak. It felt like there were little air pillows between the bits of meat so that when I chewed a mouthful, I could appreciate the beefy taste, rather than just chomping my way through seasoned rubber. A light bulb moment! I promised then and there to never manhandle the beef again. And Ken’s pork chops - they actually tasted like meat, almost like a cross between pork and beef, with a nice chew. If you closed your eyes you could see the actual pig, not a styrofoam, plastic-wrapped tray of pallid pork. As Ken said, it was “REAL” food. Our shared piece of mixed fruit pie lived up to the standard, too. The filling was almost tart, not overly sugared and cooked to death, and each piece of fruit could be identified. Even the pieces of rhubarb still had texture. Debbie, our server, was friendly yet professional, and seemed genuinely pleased that we had enjoyed our meal.
We had lunch in Flagstaff on the way home. I wasn’t looking forward to it, having never had an interesting meal there, but we had a Restaurant.com coupon for the Himalayan Grill: Cuisine and Bar of India, Nepal and Tibet and thought we’d give it a try. The outside of the restaurant is off-putting, it reminded me of a cheap Chinese restaurant, but on entering you’re in an attractive room painted in yellows and orange, with maroon hangings. There are stemmed glasses and cloth napkins, and my favorite: twinkly little lights. Although the $8.99 lunch buffet looked and smelled good, we decided to order from the menu. Nine of the almost 100 dishes are labeled “Cuisine of the Himalayas” but they sounded more bland than the spicy Indian dishes. We shared Kofta Curry ($13.95) minced lamb meatballs in a creamy curry sauce; Saag Lamb ($13.95) gingered lamb cooked with spinach; Bengan Barta ($9.95) roasted and
pureed eggplant in a special blend of spices; Himalayan Naan ($3.95) bread stuffed with raisins and cashew nuts; a side of mango chutney ($2.00); and a chai tea ($2.50). The prices seemed comparable to our favorite Indian restaurant in Phoenix, The Dhaba, but when our meal arrived we found the portions to be somewhat larger and the food more substantial. The sauces were thicker, and there was considerably more meat in each dish: in fact, we ended up taking home an additional meal’s worth. Everything was truly delicious, perfectly seasoned, and spiced to our requested “mild”. Ken even “oohed” over his cup of chai, and declared that this meal was the best Indian food he’d had outside of India. Excuse me for being crude, but even my post-lunch burps were enjoyable. The restaurant has been open for 3 1/2 years and, justifiably, has won many awards. We asked the proprietor if he’d consider moving to Phoenix, but he said he couldn’t take the heat. Our loss.
Dambar Steakhouse
1960 E. Andy Devine Ave. Kingman AZ 928-753-3523
open daily at 11AM
Himalayan Grill
801 Milton Ave. Flagstaff AZ 928-213-5444
open daily Lunch: 11-3, Dinner: 5-10
www.himalayangrill.com
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