I had another chance for outdoor dining when we stopped by Fathom Seafood. They have some picnic tables outside, and we were lucky to snag the last one. We ended up letting a german couple share our table and we had an interesting discussion about Frankford Hall around the corner. Plus, they had an adorable puppy. I’m a big fan of Fish, and I plan on getting to Little Fish as soon as humanly possible, so I was happy to check out their latest and casual spot.
K’s fish and chips special. A few hunks of fried fish, some hush puppies, and fries. What’s not to like? The fish was hot and the batter light and flaky and I thoroughly enjoyed the fries. This wasn’t overly greasy.
I went with the lobster grilled cheese on sourdough with fontina cheese, green tomato, and truffle oil. It’s served with what seems to be homemade chips and cole slaw. Now this, this was a bit too much for me. It was way too rich for my weenie palate and it was also a bit too greasy for me. I liked it enough, especially the green tomato, which were a nice touch, but it was just too much. And the chips were greasy too which just added to the too muchness of the sandwich. But we had a lovely time here and the outdoor dining was perfect for this evening. Service was great!

Zion National Park was our last stop, and it was the biggest park, by far. There are two main sections and in the main section, the more popular one, you have to take a shuttle system throughout most of it. It’s convenient and informative! One of the most well-known hikes there is Angel’s Landing. It’s a long climb up… a long, dangerous, and treacherous climb up. But it’s totally awesome and totally worth it.
And when you get to the top, you can eat your crappy supermarket sandwich at 1500 ft. Anything crappy ends up being super delicious.
There are a bunch of chipmunks and squirrels up there with you to be your dining companions. You’re not supposed to feed them, but a bunch of kids were feeding them sunflower seeds. Yeah, it was pretty adorable.Zion is one of the few parks where there are some facilities for food inside the actual park. We even got some soft serve.
They also don’t sell any bottled water there. Why? Because they have delicious unadultered and free spring water. So bring some refillable bottles or hydration packs and drink in some of the free nature.
There’s also a beer garden! Because you know, you can’t bond with nature unless you’re drunk?

When driving through most of Southern Utah, you’ll realize there really isn’t much of anything at all. Between national parks, there’s a whole lotta nothin. You may run through a small town here and there but there typically isn’t much to eat. But once in a blue moon, you’ll actually find fine dining. Cafe Diablo serves innovative southwestern cuisine in the tiny town of Torrey. The place is fairly big and colorful and there’s a large outdoor patio area where much of it is shaded. There’s no bugs here people, you definitely want to eat outside whenever you can! We stopped here for lunch so even though it was fine dining (aka expensive), everything was fairly affordable.
Here’s S’s torta de carne el carbon. It looks like a hot mess but it’s a char grilled flank steak sandwich with roasted tomatoes, onions, chimichurri, with wedge potatoes. This was really good! I wish i’d gotten this. The meat was tasty, so were the veggies, the sauce was good, everything just worked. It was a bit of a mess to eat, but that wasn’t a big deal.
I got the beef tenderloin and lettuce rolls. When I read lettuce rolls, I envisioned lettuce wrapped around stuff, but what ended up on the plate was beef tenderloin sitting on top of shaved aged cheese sitting on top of lettuce that was filled with crisp tortilla strips, roasted corn, mild anaheim chile dressing. It was just weird and really difficult to eat. There just wasn’t any particular taste that I cared for. Since I was starving and needed fuel, it did the job, but I wasn’t all that interested in it. Better luck next time!