Restaurants: Prize-winning Dishes >>

• Readers Choice
  BEST DOWNTOWN EXECUTIVE LUNCH Durant's 2611 North Central 602-264-5967 BEST LATE-NIGHT MEAL Denny's several Valley locations BEST HANGOVER BREAKFAST Denny's several Valley locations BEST GOURMET PIZZA California Pizza Kitchen several Valley locations BEST DESSERTS Cheesecake... More >>
• Best Breakfasts
  J.P. Pancake
  It takes a lot to get us out of bed before noon. Cold cereal won't do it. An everyday scrambled eggs 'n' bacon breakfast from Denny's most certainly won't. But J.P. will. All the expected items are available, but they're unexpectedly good. A biscuit combo mounds a duo of fat dough rounds with... More >>
• Best Upscale Breakfast
  Cafe Ted
  Cafe Ted is one of the most beautiful restaurants we've ever seen. That has a lot to do with its tranquil setting, off a private garden in an office complex in the high Sonoran Desert. Rather than following signs, we hunt the place down by following the slinky aromas of freshly baked muffins,... More >>
• Best Grease-Soaked Hangover Breakfast
  New York Bagels 'n' Bialys
  We know we're getting older when it's a Saturday morning and our brain isn't pounding. We also know we're getting older when, if we do go out and drink, we're in a horrible world of hurt the next day. The kind that even hair of the dog won't heal. But we're not ready to give up the grapes. So... More >>
• Best Bagel (1 Comment)
  New York Bagel Cafe
  We know Chandler is so far east that it feels like New Mexico, but if you actually know the difference between a bagel and a doughnut, and wouldn't eat a fruit bagel if someone pinned you and shoved it down your throat, it's worth the drive. Yeah, they have fruit bagels and fancy cream cheese,... More >>
• Best Pretzels
  Walker's Cafe
  Pretzel carts are the first things we leap upon whenever we hit Manhattan; at a buck, pretzels are the only remaining bargain to be found in the big city. So imagine our glee at the opening of Walker's, a shrine to handmade soft pretzels. Don't be confused; Walker's is an entire cafe, with a... More >>
• Best Comfort Food
  The Weather Vane
  We actually hate the term "comfort food." It's been used so much over the last year that it makes us think the world is full of babies needing their blankies. But the truth is, some dishes invite us to curl up and cuddle more than others. When we miss our grandma and grandpa, we head to Weather... More >>
• Best Downtown Casual Lunch
  Focaccia Fiorentina
  We start thinking about lunch around, oh, 9 a.m., pretty much as soon as we've finished our breakfast bagel. On some days, our lunch escape is the only thing that makes slaving in an office bearable. Yet, in downtown Phoenix, it can be hard to find something quick, inexpensive and relaxed that's... More >>
• Best Downtown Executive Lunch
  Kincaid's Steak, Chop & Fish House
  If ever a restaurant looked like it was built for the noontime spirits and cigar set, it's Kincaid's. Sure, it's a chain, but a mighty fine one, and if it takes corporate money and vision to bring such a class act to our barren downtown dining scene, we're all for it. Rich cherry woods, acres of... More >>
• Best Tequila-Fueled Lunch
  El Camino Cafe
  The folks at El Camino Cafe have a sense of humor. Here's how they tell us to find their restaurant: "Drive around aimlessly while parched and hungry and then call us up blabberin' about some road we've never heard of until we hang up on you." Yet then, once we arrive, the laughter fades.... More >>
• Best Granola
  Arcadia Farms' Apricot Granola
  We love homemade treats, but who has the time? Martha Stewart's been one-upped once again, with the discovery of Arcadia Farms' granola. One of the Valley's best little cafes rolls oats, roasted pecans, dried apricots, pumpkin seeds and brown sugar to make the perfect breakfast cereal or anytime... More >>
• Best Restaurant Potato Chips
  Jilly's American Grill
  No snack has fallen harder victim to the chauvinism of body-conscious health nuts than the potato chip. All that starch and fat, you know. But no one around here does them better than Jilly's. You can keep your fat-free pretzels and (unhh) veggie platters -- these chips are the phattest... More >>
• Best Sandwiches
  Miracle Mile Deli
  No one makes everyday meats and cheeses as exciting as Miracle Mile. The Mile doesn't mess around, carving up towering portions of roasted turkey breast, honey cured ham, rare roast beef, pastrami, corned beef, brisket, barbecued chicken, even liverwurst and kosher salami. These are honest deli... More >>
• Best Tuna Salad Sandwich
  The Desert Grind
  A tuna salad sandwich is a peculiar thing. It can be pretty basic -- fish, mayo, bread. But for some people, including us, it approaches an art form where we're mighty particular indeed. No dark meat tuna. No Miracle Whip. No fancy throw-ins like capers or balsamic. No soggy bread. Yet then,... More >>
• Best Club Sandwich
  Buckets
  It's without doubt the crowning achievement of the art of sandwichery: the club. It takes slabs of turkey -- one of the most healthful meats around -- and slathers it with layers of mayo and a ration of bacon. Lettuce and tomato are added not as mere garnish but as actual food, and a third slice... More >>
• Best Escargot
  Barmouche
  They're listed as escargot Provençal, even though they're served in drawn butter and not the cream sauce that snails are generally served in au Provence. But we don't care what this, our favorite late-night dinner spot, calls them, because these slugs are our favorite escargots in town.... More >>
• Best Antipasto
  Postino Winecafé
  We feel almost guilty that we don't spend every waking moment at Postino, a hip, happening wine cafe in a converted post office. Postino has an incredible wine list, rotating selections as the mood hits. We particularly like the Folie a Deux, a California Menage a Trois white. The Smoking Loon... More >>
• Best Mac-N-Cheese
  Roaring Fork
  We grew up on mac-n-cheese, homemade with ooey-gooey neon orange Velveeta. It was one of our all-time favorite meals. When we left home for college, we were too lazy to cook it Mom's way. Mac-n-cheese devolved to the boxed variety, powdered sauce mixed with milk and butter. It was still pretty... More >>
• Best Gazpacho
  Iguana Lounge
  Gazpacho may be a summertime soup. Yet in the Valley of the Sun, it's summer almost year-round. So in our minds, gazpacho should be Arizona's state soup -- it symbolizes everything the shimmering hot Southwest needs. Chilled relief. Vibrant flavors that grip us by the lapels and send sparks to... More >>
• Best Hot Dog
  Chicago Hamburger Co.
  It seems kind of sacrilegious to honor a hamburger shop for its hot dogs, but the two go together like baseball and, well, hot dogs. And when the dogs are as topnotch as the ones served at the Chicago Hamburger Co., it only makes too much sense to us. The dogs in question are all-beef Viennas... More >>
• Best Burger
  Harvey's Wineburger
  Why on Earth would anyone bother with a Big Mac when for about a buck more they could have one of the most glorious, juicy burgers known to man? Harvey's isn't about ambiance -- it's dark and grungy, and on any given lunch hour we can bet we'll find more than a few beer-suckers at the bar. But... More >>
• Best Chicago Beef
  Luke's
  We went to Chicago recently, and while we were there, we made it our personal mission to sample as many Chicago beefs as humanly possible. We never knew our bellies could handle such massive quantities. Interestingly enough, we had originally fallen in love with the Windy City's signature... More >>
• Best French Fries
  Roti-Joe's
  We'll never be able to go back to Ore-Ida. Our heart is taken with Roti-Joe's fabulous fries. These deep-fried beauties come in a woodpile serving of hand-cut Belgian-style spuds, enormous steak-fry logs of primo potato spiced to high heat and dipped in Bohemian mayo dip (lots of hot, hot... More >>
• Best Garlic Dip
  Pita Jungle
  How could such deceptively simple food -- "smashed" potatoes, olive oil, lemon juice and garlic -- be so utterly addictive? That's the question we attempt to answer every time we frequent Pita Jungle for a garlic dip fix. Cheap, delicious pita sandwiches and salads have always been reason enough... More >>
• Best Cheesesteak
  Uncle Sam's
  We've been going to the original Uncle Sam's on Shea as long as we can remember, after it replaced a grimy Pizza Hut at least 15 years ago. After all this time, though, we have yet to find any other shop approaching the magnificence of these extraordinary cheesesteaks. The secret's in the... More >>
• Best Drive-Through Gourmet Grub
  Maxie's World Grill
  We don't turn our snouts to the sky over fast food. Hey, the idea is great. It's just that so much of the actual eats are so awful. Greasy burgers, limp tacos, stale sandwiches and watery rice bowls aren't worth it, even if they allow us to shave a few seconds off our busy day. Then there's... More >>
• Best Gourmet Pizza
  Classic Italian
  Classic Italian owner Halim Nefic notes that some call this comfortable rustic spot the Pizzeria Bianco of the East Valley. That a place as terrific as Classic Italian competes with one of our Valley's greatest pizza shops says a lot. That we agree says even more. We love Bianco, but have to... More >>
• Best Chicken
  Nonni's Kitchen
  We remember the days of straightforward chicken. No vertical presentation, no poke-in-the-eye spears of rosemary, just honest, nice poultry. Of course, the chicken we reflect back on wasn't all that great. The plain Jane bird rarely gets enough respect, hence the phrase (shrug required) "it... More >>
• Best Chicken Soup
  La Parrilla Suiza
  A while ago we didn't feel well. We felt really sorry for ourselves. We figured we were going to die, and summoned all our last strength to dial the phone. Please, we whined to a friend, Parrilla Suiza, puhleez. This is a good friend; he knew what we meant and made haste to the restaurant,... More >>
• Best Prime Rib
  Harris' Restaurant
  We love steak. But perfectly prepared prime rib is like a drug to us, exhilarating down to its every last silky horseradish-slathered, salty jus-dunked, juicy-firm bite. It's got to be the real thing, the highest USDA grade available. At Harris', they're so proud of their meat that they... More >>
• Best Chicken-Fried Steak
  Texaz Grill
  Since 1985, Texaz Grill has been making good, old-fashioned Texan-style grub "one meal at a time." Well, as the restaurant celebrated this year its 500,000th chicken-fried steak sold, that's an awful lot of meat pounding, hand-battering, fried to crispy golden work. There's simply no better... More >>
• Best Barbecue Joint
  The Barbecue Company
  We like the Barbecue Company because, while its silky, smooth barbecue sauce is topnotch, it doesn't rely on it to hide lesser-quality meat. There's a lot of work that goes into cooking here, like its rib tip plate, one full pound of rib tips that have been dry rubbed, slow smoked and grilled... More >>
• Best Shepherd's Pie
  Rula Bula
  The shepherd's pie at Rula Bula Irish Pub and Restaurant comforts us as much as the soft sheepskin blankie we had when we were wee ones. This version rules, the loose pot pie stocked with ground sirloin, carrots, potatoes, parsnips and peas in a rich broth of red wine and a garden full of fresh... More >>
• Best Vegetables
  Rancho Pinot
  Another upscale, contemporary American restaurant might be puzzled, or even insulted, that we decided the best thing about it was its vegetables. True, the entrees are wonderful at Rancho Pinot. But what really gets us going is the garnish. Nobody has a better eye for selecting, and a better... More >>
• Best Passionate Potatoes
  Peruanitos
  A potato is no simple spud. There are hundreds of varieties grown around the world, each with a distinct shape, skin, color, texture and taste. There's a different potato that's best for different uses, such as mashed, French fries, chips, salad, boiled. But we're not concerned with what type... More >>
• Best Bargain Sushi
  Sushi 101
  We've dreamed of being trapped in a sushi restaurant. We try to run, but everywhere we turn, there teems more maguro, hamachi, tako, uni, ebi, sake, tobiko. The problem is not in escaping, it's in catching the slippery fish and shoveling it into our mouths before we wake up. Now we're living... More >>
• Best Place To Pop The Question
  El Encanto Mexican Cafe
  A big part of popping the question is the style of how it's done. None of that "Well, we might as well get married, I guess" kind of stuff. The thing about El Encanto is that it's centered on a beautiful lake, bobbing with graceful ducks and geese. While we're getting fed truly delicious... More >>
• Best Sunday Brunch
  T. Cook's
  With just 166 rooms but Four Diamonds, it's clear that the Royal Palms understands how class cohabits with intimacy. Rather than catering to the masses and impressing with sheer quantity, Royal Palms puts exquisite effort into the tiniest details of every single element of its operation.... More >>
• Best Wine List
  Kazimierz World Wine Bar
  When we began investigating Kazimierz's wine list, inspired by next-door cafe's Cowboy Ciao (same owner), we knew we had our work cut out for us. What a masterpiece of obscure, cult, sensual and surprising wines. The list spans page after page, and would be entirely intimidating if not for the... More >>
• Best-Kept Restaurant Secret
  Peter's Budapest Cafe
  If people knew Hungarian food like we know Hungarian food, they'd be at Peter's Budapest Cafe every night of the week. Prepare to indulge heartily here, and heavily. Hungarian food mostly is enormous platters of tender, juicy beef piled atop plump noodles; breaded, fried veal cutlets nestled... More >>
• Best Cookies
  Chocolate Star Bakery
  We're choosy about our cookies. None of the prefab, out-of-a-bag stuff for us, thank you. We want fresh-baked, with only the finest all-natural ingredients. And this is exactly what we've found at Chocolate Star, where the ovens are always on and the larder is always stocked with delights like... More >>
• Best Kosher Cookies
  Cookies Amour
  Cookies Amour owner Lynne Wellish doesn't just have to keep her customers happy. She's got to answer to the Greater Phoenix Vaad Hakashruth, the authority that determines whether a Jewish kitchen is kosher. She had a rabbi approve it before opening and pays a fee for ongoing inspections. The... More >>
• Best Ice Cream
  Angel Sweet
  A friend has been gushing to us -- endlessly -- about this exciting ice cream shop he'd found in Chandler. Huh, we thought, we certainly respect his taste, but could a small store be that much better than the superpremium, handcrafted scoops we find in our local gourmet restaurants? Oh yeah.... More >>
• best Healthful Eating
  Persian Garden Cafe
  This stuff is truly good for you, and truly special. You can eat like a pig, yet leave still feeling petite. Even better, it's one of the only health food places in town that looks like a real, elegant restaurant rather than a hippie hangout hut. What's magical? How about merza farangee... More >>
• Best Place To Get Iced
  Island Ices
  Damn, it's hot. No matter what time of year you're reading this, we feel pretty safe in saying, damn, it's hot. So we find great relief in soaking our skulls at Island Ices, a funky place specializing in soft water Italian ices and frozen premium custards. A specialty of the house is ice and... More >>
• Best Smoothie Shop
  Fresh Blenders Juice, Smoothie and Coffee Bar
  When we're looking to get fresh, we head to Fresh Blenders. We have our reasons. It could be the two free "super nutrients" blended into each smoothie. And these options are tangible substances -- bee pollen, oat bran, soy protein -- rather than chemical cocktails with vague, fancy names (a... More >>
• Best Desserts
  Coup Des Tartes
  We know these tarts are special, since they're spelled in the très European "tartes." Each little jewel is handcrafted by the bistro's "Tarte Goddesses," and they're to die for (or at least diet for). We're thrilled with the expertly balanced flavors and the restraint in cloying,... More >>
• Best Dessert For An Awkward First Date
  Fondue at 6
  On the episode wherein he scheduled a date with a deaf woman, Jerry Seinfeld made a fine suggestion: "How about six? Six is good." While numbers never were our strong point, we can appreciate a simple mathematical formula now and again. Here's one: Gooey fondue plus swanky lounge plus tiny... More >>
• Best Butcher
  Hobe Meats
  Hobe has been with us for 42 years, though the last decade has been a bit of a bumpy ride for the purveyor of fine meats, seafood and poultry. About 10 years ago, it was sold from its original family, and a roller coaster of quality ensued. Now, though, it's back in the hands of someone who... More >>
• Best Place For Pigs
  Smokey O's Roast Pigs
  Let's be clear: This is the best place to get a pig. This is not necessarily the best place to actually be a pig. Because Smokey O's specialty is whole roast pig, delivered hot and ready to serve (or raw, for people who have a hankering to dig their own pit and fill it with flames). What's the... More >>
• Best Expensive Everything
  Mary Elaine's
  Mary Elaine's rates tops in our foodie books partly because of the fact that its dishes are all printed with capital letters. Not just lobster, but Butter-Braised Maine Lobster With Grilled Apple and Heirloom Tomato Fondue, with a suggested wine pairing of Messmer Muskateller Kabinett... More >>
• Best Truck-Drivin'-Man Grub
  The Peppersauce Cafe
  Our handyman knows how to fix anything. He also knows how to eat: hearty, heaping portions of he-man grub like chicken-fried chicken, meat loaf, chili, burgers, and breakfasts big enough to fuel him through a hardworking day. His favorite place to fill up when on the run for more building... More >>
• Best Place To See Flying Saucers
  Cosmic Pizza & Deli
  When we were in college, we saw lots of things spinning through the air. But now that we have a firmer hold on reality, we realize that, yes, a pizza actually can come from some far-away planet. If it's crafted by the creative cooks at Cosmic Pizza. The place is tiny (order through a cutout... More >>
• Best Place To Quell Stoner Munchies
  Mickey's Hangover
  We love to party. Who doesn't? Yet we have still to figure out why, the more we abuse our bodies, the more our bodies cry out for even more rough treatment. Places like Jack in the Box or Denny's are quick fixes, but we can never respect ourselves in the morning. We rub our blurry eyes the... More >>
• Best Place For An It's-So-Late-It's-Early Breakfast
  Western Pizza
  It's a fairly frequent occurrence that we're working, puttering, reading, retiling the roof, solving quantum physics, when suddenly we realize that, oops, it's the middle of the night and we haven't eaten for more than 24 hours. The only thing in our fridge is something we might recognize if it... More >>