ROAD SNACKS: Tucson

We are in Tucson for Odaiko Sonora's third annual Southern AZ Taiko Showcase!

On the program: Odaiko Sonora, Fushicho Daiko, Suzuyuki-Kai MoGan Daiko, Tiffany/Kristy, and us.

The lovely people from Suzuyuki-Kai made lunch for us.

Here they are, all dressed up.

Thanks for the snacks, Mari-san!

This is Bugsy the Wonder Dog, perhaps the most important member of Odaiko Sonora.

Well, if not the most important, certainly the most adorable.

Which is not to say that Rome & Karen aren't adorable - it's just that they probably wouldn't want me to carry them around and scratch their ears.

But enough about that... what about the eats?

Rome & Karen are extremely gracious hosts, shuttling us all over the place and finding nice snacks for us:

Bentley's Coffee House!

If you are in Tucson, you have got to go to this place. It's adorably homey, has free wireless, fair trade organic coffee, and lots of vegan options that are shockingly yummy. And they play NPR on the radio. What's not to like?

This was advertised as the world's best veggie burger.

Homemade, filled with walnuts, sunflower seeds, black beans, and other fabulous things.

The ultimate vegan sandwich was good, too. And the thai tofu sandwich. And the coffee.

It was so awesome, we went there twice.

Go to Bentley's!

El Charro Cafe!

Serving snacks since 1922!

Their specialty is machaca, which is dried beef cooked with onions, anaheims, garlic, tomatoes, lime juice, etc. So of course, I had to try that.

Salty. Good. And large.

Did I finish it? Not really. I gave half of it to Franco & Karen.

Yurika got the shrimp tostada.

She said it was very nice. It was covered in cilantro, so I just took her word for it.

Another yummy item was the sangria. There was a mystery ingredient in it that we couldn't identify. I though it was tequila - only one way to make sure...