A new sushi restaurant called Sushi Cortaro opened this week at 8225 N. Courtney Page Way, in Marana. It’s in the same weird strip-mall thingy that houses the sole Tucson-area location of the national chain eatery Native New Yorker.

Hours are 11 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday; and noon to 9:30 p.m., Sunday. Call 572-8668 for more information.

• Look for the yellow banner.

Standing there on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Grant Road, with the hotdog grill warming up and mariachi music honking in the air, all is right in the world. A breakfast burrito comes filled with properly scrambled eggs and a dollop of refried beans. The salsa bar is well-stocked, and the ice-cold bottle of Coca Cola makes the morning chill insignificant. One wants for nothing.

Molcas opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 11 p.m. almost every day. The menu board is full of burritos, tortas, fritangas and all the other items you expect from a food truck. Prices range from $2.25 to about $6.

If you can’t find it, look for the yellow “Tortas” banner flapping in the breeze, or just turn your nose to the wind and let the smell of the grill be your guide.

Chef Albert Hall is moving Acacia at St. Philip’s from St. Philip’s Plaza at 4340 N. Campbell Ave. to a spot at Gallery Row at 3001 E. Skyline Drive. The new restaurant will feature an exhibition kitchen and closed-circuit television that will allow diners to watch the cooks work.

What hasn't been announced is what will happen to the Marketplace at Acacia, the grab-and-go market that recently added an ultra-organic juice bar.

From the somewhat hilarious press release announcing the move:

The word is they have made room for a chefs table complete with closed circuit TV for viewing the real time musings of a kitchen in action. In addition to the spacious, state of the art production kitchen, Acacia's new digs feature an exhibition kitchen in the dining room with a wood burning rotisserie to further inspire the world class brigade of chefs and culinaire savants. This source believes Hall will use this kitchen to revive his famous Saturday morning cooking classes. His vision, a modern approach to sustainability as well as healthy choices comes to fruition in this latest culinary adventure. Our source reports the mainstay of his larder will contain primarily all natural and organic products. Grass fed beef, all natural poultry, sustainable seafoods and organic produce. These top quality products have never been more available or more affordable, allowing Acacia to offer an excellent value.

Update: Acacia is also changing it's name to Acacia Real Food and Cocktails, and is going in at the old Sur Real spot, according to a press release put out this morning.

Update No. 2: The company that's handling media inquiries just informed me that the Marketplace at Acacia will be closing. Bummer.

I keep saying to myself that I'm going to stop reposting these Epic Meal Time videos, but between the disconcerting conversation the host has with a fast-food employee, and the assortment of unique and strange Canadian snack-food items, I couldn't resist.

Kool Tortas, a Mexican sandwich and taco shop at 4547 S. Sixth Ave., has closed and a new restaurant called Los Guarachez de Don Shuy has opened there. It serves Mexican food and is decorated sort of like a taco stand.

Gurarachez (which means "sandals" and is also spelled huaraches) are a popular street food in Mexico City. They are made by frying masa formed into the shape of a sandal and topping it with beans, meat, sauce, cheese and vegetables.

We haven’t eaten at the new restaurant yet, but will be back soon with a full report.

• Jesus watches over the tip jar at the mighty El Chivo de Oro.

Ignore the locals as they stare at the stranger with his head in a basket of tortillas. Breathe.

El Chivo de Oro serves breakfast with three kinds of salsa—two red, and one green. The head tacos, birria, soups and tortas are fresh and good; the dining area is spartan, yet shaded; and the place is open from about sunrise until the wee hours of the evening.

El Chivo de Oro is located in a vacant lot on the corner of 11th Avenue and Irvington Road. Go eat there. You won’t be disappointed.

• The breakfast plate comes with three miraculous tortillas.

An interesting new café that will eventually feature a 40-seat theater and a serene, swamp-cooled patio is opening soon at 3067 N. Campbell Ave.

The Just Add Water Café will sell beverages of all sorts—including affordable beer and wine, when the liquor license comes through—baked goods and the mixes to make those baked goods. A few soups, sandwiches, salmon plates, salads and other items will round out the offerings.

Alex Kollar—who recently opened the adjacent upscale resale shop Options — says the café is expected to open in mid-January. It will feature a living-room atmosphere in the front room with plump couches and designer chairs. Table and chair seating, a patio with an outdoor fireplace and swamp-cooling and more enclosed patio seating around the side fill out the rest of the space.

A refrigerated area will be stocked with produce from local gardeners. Kollar also has plans to make the café a pick-up point for customers interested in picking up their monthly community-supported agriculture shares there. Her neighbor is the retail store for Native Seeds/SEARCH, and she plans to sell baked goods and foods made from their ultra-local offerings.

The theater in the back of the café will seat about 40 and double as a community area she hopes will be put to use by nonprofit or other groups. Live music will also be featured (Lisa Otey is a personal friend and played at the resale shop’s grand opening), and a piano is already available for anyone who cares to play it.

Kollar started the Borderlands Trading Company and spent years traveling in Mexico before heading off on adventures in real estate and other pursuits. What she has done with the spaces both at the shop and in the café is quite beautiful. There’s a $12,000 couch in the bridal wear area. A lovely fountain bubbles in the courtyard. Everything is orderly, yet comfortable.

We can’t wait to try the food when they open next month.

There really are blue bananas. Mike Brady, owner of the new Blue Banana Frozen Yogurt in Oro Valley, says they grow in only four places on earth, taste like vanilla ice cream and would be available at the store if he could get a case through customs.

One gets the feeling early on that frozen yogurt is to Brady what fried chicken was to Colonel Sanders. He’s a proud graduate of YoCream University - an educational workshop put on by frozen-yogurt distributor YoCream — and says he looked at more than 200 other frozen yogurt shops before settling on the theme and direction of the store he opened about a week ago.

“A lot of the company stores have a generic ice-cream-store look. They just have a very vanilla, boring look about them,” said Brady. “We wanted to do something different.”

While researching the name, Brady learned that the term “blue banana” also refers to a business and cultural district stretching from Northern England to Milan, Italy. This inspired him to go with a European feel for the interior, with hints referencing various locations within the “blue banana” district.

Brady says he serves all sorts of frozen yogurt and makes his own gelato from scratch. Current flavors include strawberry-champagne, bubble-gum, white-peppermint and orange-chocolate.

The store is located in Suite 121 of Oro Valley Marketplace, on the corner of Tangerine and Oracle roads. Hours: Noon to 9 p.m., Sunday through Wednesday; and 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., Thursday through Saturday.

Call 820-4537 for more information.

I appreciate vegans embracing humor and gluttony to make their point, but the end product here ranks somewhere between the Epic Meal Time's Worst Pizza Ever and The Greasiest Sandwich Ever near the bottom of the edibility range.

It's a gingerbread house, minus the gingerbread, but adding a lot of meat, mashed potatoes, and processed cheese.