Safe Mex: As we enter the holiday period, Valley dwellers can count on finding three things in their homes: leftover turkey in the refrigerator, Christmas trees in the living room and visitors in the spare bedroom. Many of these out-of-towners are curious to try Mexican food. So I’ve put together…

Phoenician, 6000 East Camelback, Phoenix, 423-2530. Afternoon tea: 3 to 4:30 p.m., seven days a week. Your boss suddenly decides to give you the afternoon off. Choose the sentence that best describes how you’ll spend the time. a) You finally get around to picking up the load of clothes that…

Food Mag: Did anybody run across a new, free restaurant monthly called localflavor? Volume I, Number 1 came out in October and aimed at the disposable-income, frequent-diner crowd in Scottsdale and Paradise Valley. If you did, you got your hands on a good-looking magazine. Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco was…

Arrivederci, 7101 East Thunderbird, Scottsdale, 922-8225. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m. This is the time of year to reflect and count our blessings. What am I thankful for? I’m thankful…

Book Notes: Look out for a new restaurant guide that should soon be (dis)gracing the Valley’s bookstore shelves. It’s called Where the Locals Eat: A Guide to the Best Restaurants in America (Magellan Press, $19.95). What a dud. The publisher claims it’s the “most comprehensive and reliable restaurant guide on…

Pinon Grill, Inn at Regal McCormick Ranch, 7401 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 948-5050. Hours: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. It’s no surprise to discover that there are many good Cuban restaurants in Miami, many good…

Wait a Minute, Mr. Postman: Readers certainly have been getting their 32 cents’ worth the past few weeks. Ramona Ayashe of Tempe skewered me for bestowing a “Best Middle Eastern Restaurant” award on an Iranian restaurant, Tasty Kabob, in our recent Best of Phoenix supplement. Tasty Kabob, she writes, “is…

Las Cazuelas, 5150 West McDowell, Phoenix, 278-4885. Hours: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. It’s generally understood in the scientific community that biology is destiny. First distinction: man or woman. Then tall or short, smart or slow, beautiful or ugly, athletic or klutzy,…

Restaurant Update: New Valley restaurants are opening so fast I can hardly keep up. Here are some of the more interesting places I’m looking forward to visiting: * Harris’: That well-known San Francisco steak house is opening a branch near 32nd Street and Camelback. The stretch on Camelback between 22nd…

Moriah, Renaissance Cottonwoods Resort, 6160 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 991-1414. Hours: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Michelangelo complained about it when he was painting the Sistine Chapel for the pope. Mozart complained about it when he was composing for the Archbishop of…

Project Slim: Every job comes with some risk. The danger in restaurant reviewing: unwanted pounds. Despite careful eating on nonreview days and a very close relationship with an exercise bicycle, I found myself carting around a few more pounds than I did five years ago, when I started this line…

Farmhouse, 11421 South Gilbert Road, Gilbert, 926-0676. Hours: Breakfast and Lunch, Monday through Saturday, 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. I’m not much of a morning person. My blood doesn’t usually start stirring until the crack of noon. How do I deal with the rising sun? Throw the covers over my…

Copycats: A few months ago, I spoke with Robert Stempkowski, manager of Richardson’s, a longtime Valley New Mexican restaurant favorite at 1582 East Bethany Home. He was upset that some of Richardson’s signature dishes were showing up on the menus of several new restaurants in town, allegedly brought over by…

Zinfandel, 6522 North 16th Street, Phoenix, 277-7887. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 5 to 11 p.m. The poets and sages have always been willing to testify to the charms of wine. “In wine there is truth,” asserted Pliny the Elder. “From wine…

Tickle My Ribs, 13610 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 869-7427. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Life in an affluent section of town has its appealing certainties. Residents can generally expect the parks to be well-tended; the school district to be adequately funded; the trash…

Let’s Give Them Something to Pork About: Although the northeast Valley may be somewhat barbecue-challenged (see this week’s Cafe review), that doesn’t mean barbecue lovers are stranded in the desert. Here are four places that smoke up some mean bones: * Buck-A-Rue Bar-B-Que, 15840 North Cave Creek Road, Phoenix, 971-6107…

Neighborhood Update: Restaurant trends may come and go, but there’ll always be room for two kinds of places: a reliable neighborhood Chinese restaurant that dishes out all the old favorites, and a dependable, budget-friendly neighborhood joint that dishes out good food and 100 cents of value for your dollar. I’ve…

Don & Charlie’s, 7501 East Camelback, Scottsdale, 990-0900. Hours: Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 10:30 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 to 9 p.m. I strongly suspect that we live in a world teetering on the edge of breakdown. Every day, it seems, I run…

Done to a Turn: You’ve read through the menu and decided on your entree–maybe a steak, prime rib or lamb chops. The server asks how you’d like your meat cooked. Medium-rare, you answer, since that’s the way you’ve always ordered it. But when you cut into your animal protein, there’s…

San Diego Bay Restaurant, 9201 South Avenida del Yaqui, Guadalupe, 839-2991. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. We Americans can do a lot of things better than foreigners can. We have the world’s most sophisticated science…

Che Bella Tuscan Grill & Bakery, Biltmore Fashion Park, 24th Street and Camelback, Phoenix, 956-5705. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to midnight. What comes to mind when you think about improving the Valley’s quality of life? Reliable mass…

Ve Haf Vays of Making You Eat: The staff at a casual eating spot in the tony Borgata could probably benefit from a couple of extra minutes of training, if you can believe one patron’s story. At lunch recently, she asked the young server what the soup of the day…