This was the longest driving day of our whole trip - Long Beach to Scottsdale. The navigation said it was 7.5 hours. Ugh! Eliana had been miserable in the car even on drives less than an hour. We were worried. Thankfully, the wonderful and beautiful Aguilars let us borrow their car DVD player. We strapped it around the back of the headrest, and Eliana was able to watch Horton Hears a Who over and over. It cut down on her unhappiness by at least 75%. Yay!!!
I started off driving and made it to Indio, where we stopped to feed Eliana and for lunch. We stopped at what seemed to be an authentic Mexican restaurant. We went south off the Monroe exit off Highway 10. It was about a block down. After doing a search on Google, I believe the restaurant was El Mexicali Cafe II. Everything in the restaurant was in Spanish, and we were the only people I heard speaking English.
http://elmexicalicafe.com/default.aspx
I had a traditional American chicken burrito - chicken, rice, beans, cheese, sour cream, avocado. Jeff made fun of me for ordering it. That's ok, I liked it. So did Eliana. The beans were refried, which I normally wouldn't order, but I didn't have an option, and they tasted good. Jeff ordered the tacos al pastor (his favorite thing to order at a Mexican restaurant). He said they were delicious, even better than the ones from Carmelita's the night before. It was a great quick place to stop.
Jeff took the next leg of the drive. We had the intentions of stopping at a reststop a ways down the road, but when we got there, the reststop was closed. So, we took the next exit and made our own reststop. It was in the middle of nowhere, we both thought we may have been entering a horror movie. But we made it out safe!
Next, my turn to drive. We were hoping I could make it all the way to Scottsdale. Eliana ended up losing it just outside of Phoenix (only 20 minutes from our destination!), so we had to stop to feed her in a gas station parking lot (again!). And then, to Scottsdale!
We stayed in a friend's two bedroom condo. It was absolutely perfect for us! Two bedroom, two bath, soft carpet for Eliana to crawl on, and a saltwater pool. We took Eliana in the pool for her first swimming experience. She was unsure at first, but ended up loving it.
Because of the tough drive with Eliana, we wanted to go to a low-key dinner. We finally decided on Yard House in Scottsdale. The two hostesses in front weren't friendly, but it was perfect for what we wanted. Not too crowded. Playing the Giants game. Good food. Our server was nice and attentive (this is important to me, especially with Eliana).
http://www.yardhouse.com/default.aspx
We started with the Lobster, Crab, and Artichoke Dip and the Firecracker Wings. The dip was served with pita bread and chips. It was delicious but very heavy. We could only have a few bites of it, but they were yummy bites! The wings were on the spicy side. Good, but I could only have one. Jeff loved them and ate the rest.
After the big appetizers, we didn't want a big dinner. Jeff had the Hawaiian Poke Stack. It was delicious, just what I like with a Poke appetizer. Lots of tuna and avocado. And crispy wontons for scooping. I had the Spicy Tuna Roll. It wasn't what I was expecting. It wasn't a roll at all, there wasn't even any rice with it. It was more like a spicy tuna pie, without a crust. There was a ton of tuna and underneath it was avocado, edamame, and cucumber. Around the plate, there was a wasabi soy sauce. I would order this dish again! It would be great as an appetizer to share. Eliana had mac n cheese and fruit. It was good and she was happy.
Two interesting things (to me) about the Yard House: 1) a Yard House is opening at Santana Row in February 2011. I'm looking forward to it because it's family-friendly but still fun for adults, and 2) they use an item called Gardein as a meat substitute. It looked like they can replace any meat item on the menu with Gardein. I have no idea if it's any good, but it's worth a try.
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