Rickenbacker’s by Andrea Hanks Photography:

Bacon Wrapped Shrimp

Pistachio Crusted Halibut

Grilled Tenderloin

Cheesecake

Forbes magazine just ranked Ogden number eleven, in a ranking of the best cities in the country for business and careers. Read more about it here.

It’s a really nice hotel. One of the best in Guadalajara, I’m sure. We’re having a late breakfast at this really nice buffet. Steve is going off like a crazy pastry chef about some sweet bread he’s eating. It’s pan dulce; white bread with pink colored frosting in lines like a nautilus shape. It’s a kind of traditional morning bread; I guess you would say it’s something like donuts. He liked it pretty good, but he’s trying to improve it. He is talking with his hands…it’s good, he says, but they could make this better…he is constantly full of these ideas, and talking like a whirling dervish, full of energy…check out this, look at that. It’s how he is. It’s good, it’s infectious.

I’m eating green chilaquiles with an over easy egg on top and lots of fruit on the side. I’m trying to choke down some awful Mexican coffee. I have some of my quesadilla with chorizo sausage in it…some bright red scorching hot chile arbol salsa on the side…a little guacamole. The food is delicious. The coffee tastes like a sweat sock.

Steve is very enthusiastic. He likes the bread well enough, but now he’s on to the next thing…
the fruit! Now he sees the fruit! And but wait! It’s the Agua Fresca! The Mexican drinks of fruit juice and water with ice…they have several giant glass jugs of all these Agua Frescas! So many varieties, you couldn’t even drink them all…the cantaloupe, the lime, the watermelon, the sapote and the chico sapote, the prickly pear…cactus fruits with a little sugar to make them sweeter. And the pineapples…the pineapples are a little smaller and sweeter. They are so sweet. The honey mangos!! The strawberries! Papaya, passion fruit, coconut, fresh oranges, honeydews…the fruit in Mexico is unbeatable. It’s truly amazing. It’s as if it came right out of the field, sliced in half with a whack of the machete, and put directly upon the table…the colors are brighter, the sweetness is sweeter.

Eventually, we roll out of there on top of eating like five pounds of food (mostly this incredible fruit) each. We hit the street, going to eat some more food…that’s when I saw it…Starbucks! I run across several lanes of traffic…

The staff at City Weekly just released their awards for Best of Utah 2010: Food & Drink.

Sonora Grill won Best Salsa. Here’s what they had to say:

“At Ogden’s Sonora Grill, meals begin with great chips and salsa. The “chips” aren’t typical: These are whole, intact, deep-fried corn tortillas that need to be smashed into chips. But it’s the salsas that star. There’s a lively, bright-green tomatillo salsa that is delicious, and also a rich red salsa made with roasted morita peppers that has the perfect amount of zippiness, smokiness and depth of flavor to make it a truly world-class salsa.”

So happy to hear everyone is loving our salsa.

And, speaking of City Weekly. . . did anyone else do a double take when they heard that the LDS Church acquired City Weekly?