Every time we go to Palm Springs, we never know where to eat. Leading up to the trip, I’ll spend hours looking through yelp, but never really come up with anything that sounds appealing to us. We call it our Palm Springs dilemma. We’ve learned that their food scene really doesn’t suit us. They have a lot of cool diner type places, but we don’t really like diner food. Cheeky’s, Norma’s, and King’s Highway just doesn’t do it for us. We have a short list of places we go to eat when we find ourselves in the desert. This past visit, we tried Bill’s Pizza, and ordered their buffalo pizza; the sauce was delicious, but the chicken a little dry.
We did however like Chi Chi at the Avalon. Their flash fried cauliflower and fried padron peppers on their menu is what wooed us to to go try them out. We also ordered their ceviche, charred octopus, and langostinos veracruzana. It was all delicious, but our favorites were the padron peppers and cauliflower. Next time, we might skip ordering from the main dish and just get more appetizer plates. The langostinas were our least favorite dish. Chi Chi did convince us enough at dinner to come back the next day for lunch, and this time we ordered a shrimp burger. That was super yummy and I will try to make our own version at home.
So if you find yourself in Palm Springs and aren’t really diner food people either, I recommend El Jefe at the Saguaro (for their ceviche), Chi Chi at the Avalon, or Native Food Cafe (Ben doesn’t like them as much as I do). Of course, always stop by Great Shakes to pick up some dessert!
Oh, so sad. We stayed at the Avalon but went out for food. If I only we had given them a chance!!!
Give them a chance next time!
we go to palm springs/palm desert a couple times a year and recently discovered clementine (brunch, takeout; fantastic ‘environmentalist salad’ that i figured out how to recreate at home), wilma & frieda (brunch, homemade corned beef hash, tons of pastries), and le basil (thai food). they’re all technically in palm desert, but that’s really only a few miles up that main highway from the saguaro/ace hotel area.
surprised that you don’t care for king’s highway as it’s not really diner food… they have a simply divine avocado toast! their salads and side dishes are always good, too. we always stop there first. plus, they serve stumptown coffee!
I’ll look up Clementine. Maybe King’s Highway left a bad taste in our mouth. We went once and there was no one there and it was dead, and they said they were booked and couldn’t seat us. It was the weirdest thing. There were just a couple tables filled, but they turned us away. So we never thought about eating there again, but nothing on their menu stood out to us either. We just like going there for the photo booth. lol
Wow, everything looks absolutely amazing… is that octopus – YUM!
Valentina
http://www.valentinaduracinsky.com/
Yes! So good!