ninetreats.com

For the two years that I lived in the Bay Area I always tried to keep a good loaf of bread on hand. Not what you find in your typical grocery store with words like Wonder or Old Home or even Grandma Sycamore's (a local Utah favorite) in the title. No. The bread I always tried to have in stock was often called artisan or european or crusty or rustic. Bread that was made simply and tasted good. A bread that took a little work to eat. There is nothing like a slighty crunchy, very chewy crust encasing a creamy crumb that is cool to the touch.

Su Casa is a small Mexican restaurant in downtown Salt Lake City. I was recently reading the editor's monthly message in a local Utah business magazine and he was drawing a comparison between chimichangas and advertising. I won't go into the details, but...

I've put a new pizza place on my list of places to try. While looking through the menu for the pizza place I noticed that they name the ice cream they serve for dessert. It comes from a place called Spotted Dog Creamery.

Since I'm always interested in products that warrant mention on another restaurant's menu, I went looking for more information. I found out that:

1) they have a website
2) they are a local Salt Lake company 2980 S State Street, Salt Lake City, UT
3) they have one heck of list of flavors

I can't wait to go and try some.

At this time of the year, you have to love a place that specializes in soup. One of their three locations is just around the corner from my office and I was in a bit of hurry today so I ordered some to go. Although I was only in the store briefly, I had a good first impression.

My brother and I continued our survey of chimichangas available in the greater Salt Lake area. Today was stop number 2. See our first stop in the previous post on Su Casa.

Today was Bajio Mexican Grill. For those not close to a Bajio, it is a regional mexican chain that started here in Utah. From what I've heard, although it's unconfirmed, the guy who started it used to be one of the partners in another Mexican place in Provo called Rosa's which has since closed. After Rosa's he opened Bajio. Another unconfirmed piece of info that I've heard is that Bajio is at least partially owned by or has an investment from Subway. Bajio, which may have been local to Utah at one point, now has locations in several states and is actively franchising additional ones.

Just stumbled across a new pizza place in Draper. Haven't been there in person yet but it is on our list for upcoming evaluation.

Their menu incluldes thin-crust chicago style pizza, stuffed crust pizza, Chicago dogs, salads, and sandwiches.

Sweet Home Chicago Pizzeria
1442 E. Draper Parkway
Draper, UT 84020
801-545-0455
www.sweethomechicagopizzeria.com

Anyone that regularly reads this site can tell that there are some key themes that are continually repeated -- food, London. Maybe that is it. Just food and London. Not necessarily in that order and definitely not food in London or London food. I'd be quite hungry all the time and have little to write if it was all about food in London. But if you ever do find yourself in London make sure that you stop at Pret A Manger to eat. They are hard to miss and definitely worth a visit, I'll add a separate entry for that later.

But today, the focus is pizza. A while back my brother and I went to a place here in Salt Lake called ESTE pizza and were impressed with its offering in the universe of Utah pizza.

In downtown Salt Lake and known for its traditional German food. It has been years since I went there, and now that I work close by, it's on my list to try again. This entry will make sure I don't forget about it.

20 W 200 S
Salt Lake City, UT 84101

We visited this the week of November 5. Check out the full report here:

Rusted Sun Pizzeria

Rusted Sun Pizzeria
2010 S State St
Salt Lake City, UT 84115

My brother and I had a double whammy lunch last week. Tuesdays is new release day for DVDs and whenever there is a movie I want to own I head to Wal-Mart (which always has great prices on main stream new releases). Due to the upcoming Christmas season I won't divulge what I was after, but fortunately there is a Wal-Mart between my office and the Rusted Sun Pizzeria so we could hit both during a single lunch break.

For eating Mexican food, the Red Iguana is a landmark in Salt Lake City. Whenever a discussion about where to get good Mexican food occurs, it will always get a mention. When I figured out that it had chimichangas on their menu, we put it on the list of places we needed to evaluate as part of our ongoing Chimi project.

Suprisingly, due to the distance between my house and the Red Iguana it has been many years since I've eaten there. Fortunately, the ideal opportunity presented itself recently and we made a visit.

I caught the smell of wood smoke half a block away as I was walking to this new little pizza place in downtown Salt Lake. My visit this week was the result of another walk I had taken on a week or two earlier.

Most afternoons I need some time to get out of my office and stretch my legs out and breath some fresh air. I am usually surprised at how much ground I can cover walking around downtown Salt Lake on a 15 minute break from work. A week or so ago as I was heading home from work, driving past one of my favorite downtown restaurants, Red Rock Brewery, and I noticed a very unassuming new sign painted along the top edge of the brick building immediately south of Red Rock. At the time, being in the car, I couldn't really figure out what it was, but you could see the chairs and tables through the windows.

Several days later, that chance sighting turned my feet in that direction while I was out for a quick walk one afternoon. Walking past, I had one more piece to the puzzle. The name on the sign -- Settebello. Back in my office I did a quick search for Settebello online and could only find a web site for a pizza restaurant outside of Las Vegas in Henderson. No mention of another location, not even a coming soon teaser.

That same evening as my brother drove out of town on our way home, I drove past the place again to show it to him and this time there was a big white banner strung across the trees in front of the restaurant. It was simple and to the point, black letters on a white background proclaiming "Wood-fired Pizza, Now Open." The was all I needed. Wood, fire and pizza all in the same context and I'm sold. That was last week.

...recently opened very close to where I work. I had initially intended to wait several weeks before my first visit. Unfortunately circumstances arose that required me to get a quick lunch one day during their opening week and its convenience factor overrode my intentions.

I walk past it at least twice a day coming to work and going home from work, so I've been watching the progress ever since they put their "Coming Soon" sign up several months ago. Shortly after the first "Coming Soon" sign went up I tried to find out more about it, which was not that easy.

Google just announced a new tool today that let's users create customized maps using their Google Maps product. I've been playing around with, using it to create a custom map that shows all the different places that I write food reviews about. For the small group of readers that end up on this blog, you can now see a map view of all the places I write about.

Interestingly enough, it allows me to edit the tag for each point I put on the map, so not only can you see all the places on the map, but when you click on it, if I have a picture of it that I've taken, that will show up and I've also included a link back to whatever I had to say about it. Some people just learn better using visual tools, so this is for all of you...

blog.ninetreats map

Last fall I wrote my impressions of Big City Soup. It was good then. I have been back several times since then. It is still good. They have figured out how to make soup. But I write today with both trepidation and excitement.