Grade: B-
It’s no surprise that the co-owners of Switch Restaurant and Wine Bar also run FEZ, another trendy restaurant on Central Avenue in midtown Phoenix.
Both feature an odd assortment of ingredients that somehow come together to form a tasty meal.
Lobster crepes? Guacamole on a hamburger? Turkey with strawberries? Switch seems to be trying to outdo its brother restaurant in serving items you couldn’t possibly find anywhere else.
But don’t let the idiosyncrasies scare you away. With 50 food items, the menu is sure to have something for everyone, offering vegetarians over a dozen meatless entrees while still featuring an array of meats — from prosciutto to lamb — that would make any butcher proud.
You could call it expensive, with 13 items at $12.95 or more, plus a few of their burgers if you add fries, bacon or double beef. Or you could say it’s affordable, with 18 sandwiches including side salads all for $9.95. That’s the glory of the huge menu.
To accurately represent the average college student (and to save money), I started off with a $5.95 basket of wedge fries and then got a sandwich — but not just any sandwich. I felt adventurous and ordered Switch’s Apricot BBQ Feta Chicken sandwich.
That’s where Switch’s relationship to FEZ became obvious. The food was like a movie with a lot of plot twists — confusing, but also exciting. And this was the “Inception” of chicken sandwiches, trying to make me question everything I thought I knew about food. The chicken was thinly sliced and the sweet apricot BBQ sauce waged a delicious war with the mealy spinach and feta cheese. Everything about it was the opposite of a normal chicken sandwich, including the extraordinarily soft ciabatta bread.
For $9.95, it was one of the best sandwiches you can find just a short light-rail ride away. Or at least one of the most interesting.
The downside is that it came with a bland Caesar salad and the wedge fries were only slightly above average.
The ambiance scored lesser marks, too. It was dark, the candles were fake and the mirror on the wall across from me was clearly dirty.
Despite the disappointing sides and the dirty mirror, I’ll probably be back at Switch again in the future. It’s close, located at 2306 N. Central Ave. — halfway between the Encanto Boulevard and Thomas Road light-rail stops — and it’s open until midnight seven days a week.
Besides, it’ll take me about a decade to get through the entire menu.
Contact the critic at john.l.fitzpatrick@asu.edu
