Best Kimchee 2010 | Paldo Market | Food & Drink | Phoenix
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Best Kimchee

Paldo Market

When it comes to food, simple is usually best. Why mess up something yummy with unnecessary complication? So when we're hungry for kimchee, we simply head for Paldo Market. Paldo has freshly made containers of the Korean staple ready to go in multiple varieties. If Napa cabbage is your favorite flavor, rest assured it's so delicious that the temptation to consume it all on the drive home may be too much to resist. We prefer the green onion version, stir-fried with a little bulgogi. Either way you're consuming a locally made version of a dish Health magazine declared one of the world's healthiest foods.

Best Use of Bacon

Bacon Brownies

We shouldn't be telling you about this. But on Friday mornings, Royal at the Market gives birth to the most decadent of breakfast treats. It's got chocolate. It's got bacon. It's available for only a few nanoseconds. We're talking about bacon brownies. If you're at the Royal at 8 a.m. (if you can't make it that early, you don't deserve the brownies), you'll smell them baking. Get in line and pray to God that there's no one ahead of you. The faithful will be rewarded with the most lusciously indulgent salty square of satisfaction known to man. Those who show up late will find that they're sold out. How long do you expect bacon brownies to last?

Best Use of Veal

House of Tricks' Veal Bacon

Chef Kelly Fletcher may not be the first to make a VLT, but he'd argue that his is absolutely the best. And we wouldn't disagree. He's no stranger to using controversial ingredients — not that he thinks veal should even be in that category. But he loves telling the story about the time he shot a segment with a local television station and was asked to make a few dishes. His last dish used foie gras. Within minutes of the segment airing, Fletcher says, the restaurant phone was ringing with threats and arguments. Good thing he loves it. When he gets pushback from an ingredient, it only fuels his desire to make more. Okay, back to the veal bacon: Fletcher brought in a veal breast (same cut as a pork belly) and kept turning it over, as it reminded him of the cut of pork he used for Tricks' bacon. "So I said, 'Fuck it, we're making veal bacon — no, we're making VLTs!'" says Fletcher. Topped with white truffle aioli, cherry tomatoes, and arugula, and hugged by a pâté à choux bun, Fletcher's VLTs aren't getting any threats from us.

Best Use of Prunes

Prune Danish

There's plenty to love about this super-authentic bakery/cafe, which specializes in Polish and Eastern European delicacies, baked fresh every day and displayed in vintage-looking, glass-fronted cases. We're crazy about their fruit-filled doughnuts, the pierogi, and the hot, black, chicory-flavored coffee they serve here. We're nuts about the little grocery section stocked with non-perishables like we've only ever seen in little Polish villages. But the single item that keeps us coming back, time and again, is Europa's tasty, flaky prune Danish. Baked in-house every day, it's a sweet-glazed, tangy, prune-filled marvel that nearly floats from our plate into our now-happy mouth. Yum.

Best Kalamata Olive Bread

Jonathan Robins Bakery

Katie Walter
What's soft, inviting, and vaguely exotic? Get your head out of the gutter and into an oven. We're talking about bread — the most wonderful bread we've laid teeth on. Jonathan Robins' kalamata olive bread came into our life via the Tempe Farmers Market, the only place in town to purchase it. It's packed full of olives, making it so delicious that spreads, butters, and other toppings only distract from the deliciousness. One day we may try one of the bakery's other breads. One day.

Best Pork Chili Verde

Ranch House Grille

Jackie Mercandetti
When Glenda Looney, a cook for the original Ranch House Grille in Page, brought a recipe for homemade pork chili verde to the restaurant nine years ago, owners Phil and Maryjane Kline knew they had struck green gold — passing on the spicy sauce made with tender chunks of pork shoulder to son Leland when he opened the Phoenix location in 2007. Diners wanting a delicious dose can have it served atop a crispy chicken fried steak or classic huevos rancheros, waiting inside a fluffy omelet, singled out in a cup or bowl, or take-home ready in $8 pints and $15 quarts.

Best Salad Topping

Yulu Seeds

Exotic. Tough to find. Fun to say. What better way to turn salads, pasta, beans and rice, even ice cream, into far-out fare than with the addition of yulu seeds? From the bonete, a wild tree native to Mexico, yulus are tiny, crunchy, fiber-packed orbs with a taste that's similar to sunflower seeds. To find yulus, you'll need to chance upon Constantino Aranda, purveyor and master roaster of the sensational seeds, at the Downtown Phoenix Public Market, as well as the Ahwatukee and Mesa farmers markets. Once each year, Aranda crosses the Arizona-Mexico border to bring back yulus harvested by a local tribe, selling them by the bagful until they're gone.

Best Butter

Creative Butters

It is hard to imagine making butter any better, but Jennifer VanInwengen has managed to whip up several flavored varieties that raise the bar on the decadent creamy goodness our grandmothers swore by. Her compound butters aren't just for your morning toast (though we love the honey cinnamon butter on a crispy waffle); they can also be your secret shortcut to seasoning success. Spread the sun-dried tomato butter on your favorite crusty bread and sprinkle with a little Parmesan for instant bruschetta. Or sink your teeth into a steak slathered with the garlic herb butter. Whichever way, we can't think of a better way to butter up your fare.

Best Bakery

Karl's Quality Bakery

Karl, who hails from Switzerland, loves his customers. If you're lucky enough to visit the ever-expanding and increasingly upscale counter when the baker himself is surveying his goods, he's sure to offer you one of his famous bran mini-muffins. He'll force it on you, really. And God forbid his baker elves under-fill an éclair. "Would you want to pay for this?" he'll demand.This is a full-service retail bakery where the idea of outsourcing is sacrilege. Everything's made on premises with fresh, seasonal ingredients. Berries are never dried or frozen. Flavoring? Uh, no. That mango mousse is made with mangoes. Must-tries? Alligator coffee cake, pumpkin doughnuts, bread pudding with whiskey sauce, quiche, pizza, said éclairs, and signature hand-dipped or -iced cookies. Do yourself a favor once in your life. Try the blueberry and cream cheese super-muffin. Trust us.

Best Cupcake

Black and White Cupcake at Copper Star Coffee

Lauren Cusimano
We started going to Copper Star because the iced coffee is second to none — and that's because owner Bill Sandweg is a connoisseur and, therefore, knows his way around a nice tidy glass of black java on the rocks. But we ended up addicted to Copper Star's Black and White Cupcakes, baked in-house by the cafe's manager and resident baker, Mindy Porter. Nearly all Porter's recipes were handed down from her grandmother, and these moist, tasty cupcakes — which started out as an occasional special but are now a daily staple at Copper Star, because customers kept asking for them — is among Grandma Porter's best. Moist, cake-like dark chocolate surrounds a cheesecake center that's super-creamy but not too sweet. And that's our excuse for always eating two of them when we're there.

Best Of Phoenix®

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