text: I finally followed my beloved baseball Giants of San Francisco to their spring training home and after consulting Scottsdale yelpers Culinary Dropout seemed like a good place to eat a late dinner on the first nightnnLiving in the South Bay Area I generally assumed that relatively low population density equates to nothing but stripmalls and chain restaurants Going to Scottsdale has shown me that this does not have to be the case nnI do realize that the Fox group is a major presence in the food and nightlife scene in Scottsdale This preeminence clearly is not gained by aggressive annoying ad campaigns and stupid slogansor by offering horrendously large portions to lure in lazy poor obese peoplennThey are successful I imagine because they take a good concept and consistently deliver it to locals and tourists alike at a reasonable pricennI likes me some swanky San Francisco restaurants where you feel like you have to prove your worthiness to the server And then you fork out bucks and step over homeless people to get to your cabnnCulinary Dropout satisfies the swanky without the price or the pretentious service not to mention the lack of homeless drug addicts passedout in a puddle of their own excrement Thank you Scottsdale PD police statennI started with the nutty Irishman cocktail if I remember correctly Jamison with Guiness reduction and some other stuff Never heard of adding a Guiness reduction to a cocktailor reducing Guiness at all but I am a fan My special lady had the cocktail with the pomegranate foam on topstep aside Ferran Adria this is the best use of foam i can think ofnnThe Cuban pork belly sandwich appealed to meyou had me at pork belly My dainty little girlfriend had the chopped Italian salad My sandwich was bombdiggidy although I was lessthanimpressed with the chopped salad with Krafttasting Italian dressing on itbut I would never order that so I am not hatingnnWhile I am on it WTF is with every single Scottsdale restaurant putting some kind of chopped salad on their menu Just sayin That seems like some iceberg cucumber and carrot thing you put ranch on in the Midwest somewhere I digressnnI was too full to try the monkey breadmy mom makes that and I love it We had to come back another night to try it and it did not disappoint And neither did the peoplewatching on a Friday night They must have a yr old blond girl generator somewhere in this townnnThe title tells it all Culinary Dropout Not that they cannot cook here it is that they do not feel the need to put on their tall hat and adhere to some antiquated notion of cuisine They make good food that people like in a festive and swanky atmosphere Just because they have an amazing space and a wellthoughtout and wellinvested aesthetic concept that does not mean they have to try and make inaccessible food that you need to download the Oxford FoodLovers app on your iPhone to translate the menu And every employee I interacted with was oozing with genuine hospitalitynnNext year when I come back and I WILL come back I will definitely stop by again