PHOENIX -- I'm making my Spring Training debut this year. While I await my first Spring Training game, which begins at Maryvale in a few hours, I dove right into the Southwestern food when Andy Tarnoff and I arrived in Phoenix yesterday.

Filiberto's is a Southwest fast food Mexican staple, and, of course, I've heard a lot about it. Order at the counter, McDonald's style, from a menu that features photographs that are far less appetizing than the food itself.

I had a super-filling fish taco with a long, deep fried piece of tilapia with tartar sauce and pico de gallo, wrapped in a flour tortilla.

Thanks, perhaps, to the expectations created by the Qdobas of the world, it didn't look huge, but I couldn't eat another bite. Cost: $4.65.

As my horchata cup warned, Filiberto's is unaffiliated with the other, as they call it, "**bertos."

For dinner, we ate at another regional chain, though a smaller one. Z'Tejas was founded in Austin in 1989 in an old Victorian house and has since expanded east to Louisiana and west to California.

The Scottsdale location is situated in the Fashion Plaza mall, but streetside, so there's great people watching.

Thanks to a great server – it makes all the difference, doesn't it? – we had a really good experience. Jay made us some table-side guac topped with grated cheese and pumpkin seeds for a nice, unexpected snap, and was charming and attentive without being pushy.

The cuisine is Southwestern with a twist. While some of us had pretty straight-up smoked chicken enchiladas and alluring wild mushroom enchiladas, two of us tried dishes that were more a fusion of styles.

I had a perfectly medium salmon with a sweet and sour miso glaze and a Port reduction atop grilled mashed potatoes and seasonal vegetables and another had a grilled cilantro pesto rubbed trout.

I'm ready to keep eating like this, Phoenix.