Michael C.'s Profile

Went for lunch today for the first time.  This place used to be Bistro Zin, and I hadn't visited, but the promise of a really good burger is hard to pass up on.
Be prepared to fork out at $10-$14 for a real burger (they even have Kobe) but, damn, they're good.  I had mine medium rare, and it melted like butter.
The atmosphere is going to be fast-paced and busy, and if you're going to write over lunch, I'd recommend timing it to coincide with the end of the lunch rush.  It was almost full, but not crazy, at 2pm.  The decor is "done," and certainly modern and interesting, and the flow of energy is such that nobody's really going to overhear your conversation.  There's a row of televisions against above the bar and, in a tasteful turn, they're of modest size.
I found it easy to write here.  Oh, and they have wine.  Good wine.  I'll be back for a dinner with my lady another time soon.

I had lunch here (The Swan location) yesterday (1/7/2008).  The food, which is of particularly Italian bend, is decent; particularly so for being served up so quickly, and is really the only thing saving this place from having less than three stars.

The restaurant used to be "Nothing but Noodles."  Judging by their menu options, which include pizza, chili, salads and Paninis in addition to pasta dishes, the noodle restriction must have required lifting.  The pasta was reminiscent of Sauce: somewhat bland and soulless, but sanitary, like an L.A. Trophy Housewife.

As a place to write, I would recommend against it.  There's nothing that will kill my creative mood faster than the generic and sanitized atmosphere designed into this Ziggi's lcoation.  The music was insincere pop love songs sung by what sounded like overpaid teenagers.  I can't even recall the decor (although I think it was a bland, whitish-green paint), and the layout was corral-style, also like Sauce.
They do have an outdoor patio, on the corner of the Basha's strip mall complex at Swan and Camp Lowell, but there's just not much about that corner of any particular interest unless you like counting cars.

It's all about the beer:

Five stars for the Beer selection - simply the best I've encountered in Tucson.  The pizza comes by the slice, and is decent, although more like 3 stars, but comes in 1/4 pie-sized slices, so consider yourself warned.

Fun, creative decor, with lots of red.  Great place to write. at least in theory, although I've not yet tried, and would probably prefer it on the busier side.  A warm young British lass served us last we visited, and we ran into friends.  

It's relatively new, renamed, and there's apparently been some issues with the regularity of hours, but this has apparently been corrected.

It's now one of my new favourite informal places to grab a beer and slice of pie.

I somewhat enjoyed the atmosphere except the annoying couple seated too close to me who were talking down to a young man of high school age who was not their son (what relationship I couldn't decipher, try as I might to ignore them).  Anyway, it is a 3 star for quality of food, ambiance, and as a place to write.  There is no real view, although their outdoor seating (when it's warmer than the 41 degrees we had today) looks to be a fair bit better for writing and for people watching as they go shopping.