The Fry Bread House   

Chewy, crispy, piping hot pillows of delectable dough. It's Indian fry bread, one of many time-honored treats introduced by Native Americans to Southwestern culture. When it comes to preparing the official state dish of Arizona, no one does it better than Cecelia Miller at Fry Bread House in Central Phoenix. A member of the Tohono O'odham tribe, Miller makes fry bread the way she learned from her mother while growing up on the reservation. Most people make it by simply adding water to a store-bought mix. Miller makes hers from scratch, first hand-stretching, then frying it so that it's a virtually greaseless golden brown puff peeking through a soft veil of pure vegetable oil. For that, Fry Bread House has won enough awards to fill a wall. Most people think of fry bread as the honey-drenched blobs they've eaten at the Arizona State Fair, but Miller takes it to another level. Fry Bread House is famous for Frisbee-size "Navajo Tacos", folded over into pockets and stuffed with a variety of tasty, goopy fillings. She makes a vegetarian, with cheese, beans, green chiles, veggies and sour cream. Her colossal burrito is filled with hearty red or green chile beef. For lunch and dinner, she also serves beef stew with fry bread on the side. The familiar fry bread drizzled with honey or dusted with powdered sugar is a favorite for dessert. But don't overlook a piping-hot model stuffed with rich chocolate. The restaurant is clean but small, so many customers pick up their orders on the way home.