Reading, Writing and Halibut: L’Ecole and the Culinary Arts Dining Room are not the only places in town to chase down gourmet eats prepared by student-chefs. Believe it or not, there’s a Phoenix vocational high school, Metro Tech, with a culinary arts department. And it offers one of the better…

L’Ecole, Scottsdale Culinary Institute, 8100 East Camelback, Scottsdale, 990-7639. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Friday, reservations from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Giving students hands-on experience in real-world situations sounds like a useful training technique. Unless, of course, the victim the students happen…

Krabby Appleton: Does anyone else remember this cartoon villain from the early days of television? As I recall, the hero, Tom Terrific, called him “rotten to the core.” He was unredeemably mean and nasty. That’s how I feel about a food “product” that I seem to run into every week:…

Saigon Healthy Cuisine, 820 South Mill, Tempe, 967-4199. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Everyone except Middle Eastern potentates sitting on large oil reserves gets strapped for cash once in a while. Recently, not through choice, I was forced to ponder the problem of…

Where’s Franco?: That’s Franco Fazzuoli, proprietor of Franco’s Trattoria, one of the best Italian restaurants in the Valley. He’s been looking for larger digs ever since his old lease expired and he closed up shop last April. After months of searching, Franco’s Trattoria has found a new home at 8120…

Kampai, 2945 East Bell Road, Phoenix, 482-3260. Hours: Lunch, Tuesday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m. Japanese food, I think, is never going to be as wildly popular with Americans as other ethnic fare. Unlike, say,…

Cola Wars: Can there be more worthless beverages in the world than Coke and Pepsi? They don’t quench your thirst. And they’re nutritionally empty, except if you require ten teaspoons of sugar (or the equivalent amount of corn syrup) in every 12 ounces of liquid. My adult hostility toward carbonated…

Justin’s Ragin’ Cajun, 13416 North Cave Creek Road, Phoenix, 404-2900. Hours: Lunch, Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Dinner, Tuesday through Thursday, 6 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 6 to 10:30 p.m. You can’t live in the Valley very long without becoming aware of a local affliction:…

Eat Your Vegetables: What’s the question I am asked most often? No question about it: What’s a good vegetarian restaurant? I got that question, but with a different twist, a few weeks ago. A guy called and explained that his wife was a strict vegetarian, but that he himself had…

Buddy Ryan’s Bar & Grill, 122 East Washington, Phoenix, 258-4646. Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 1 a.m. Earlier this year, a large, round man swaggered into the Valley. He assured us that our years of wandering in the…

Coyote Grill, 3202 East Greenway Road, Phoenix, 404-8966. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. Years ago, as a Peace Corps volunteer, I spent a few days in a dirt-poor, mud-hut African village–no electricity, no plumbing, no…

Taste of the Southwest: Aside from Coyote Grill, I can think of two other Valley restaurants at which judicious ordering can get you a topnotch Southwestern dinner and a dollar or two change from a twenty. One is Z’Tejas Grill at Fashion Square, Scottsdale and Camelback roads in Scottsdale. But…

Moving, Shaking and Baking: The proprietors of the excellent Rancho Pinot Grill have moved out of Town & Country Shopping Center and headed for new digs in Scottsdale. They hope to open in their new location at 6208 North Scottsdale Road sometime in mid-October. There won’t be many changes. The…

I’ve long considered Sonoran-style Mexican food as snoozingly dull, a deadly collection of belly-busting burros, tamales, enchiladas, tacos, chimichangas. But visits to several combination-plate parlors have begun to work away at my south-of-the-border cynicism. In fact, El Bravo has almost turned me into a fan. Without question, this is some…

There’s a branch of the Men’s Movement that urges men to get in touch with their primal, hunter-warrior selves. This group likes to go off for weekends in the woods, where they pound drums, dance naked and generally unleash repressed testosterone. But I know an easier way to get that…

Porking Out: Over the past couple of years, I’ve sampled enough smokehouse barbecue to be declared the country’s first ambulatory toxic waste site. After a week like this one, my friends can smell me coming before they actually see me. Here are my choices if you’re looking to eat high…

And the Winner Is: Since the New Times Best of Phoenix supplement comes out next week, I thought I’d get the jump on it by putting together a personalized list of prize-winning platters. Here are my selections for the best dishes I’ve consumed over the past 12 months. Starters: Chicken-in-the-blanket…

Feeney’s, 6314 North 12th Street, Phoenix, 274-9700. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 4 to 10:15 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11:15 p.m. There’s no accounting for people’s tastes. And I don’t mean likes and dislikes that stem from differences in…

Adventurous Dining: Saluting the 13th-century Italian merchant who spent some 20 years in China, Marco Polo Cafe is certainly aptly named. Although the poet wrote that “East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” the proprietors here disagree. They call their cooking “East meets West,”…

Chinese Class: When I want the kind of Chinese food I used to get on New York’s Mott Street and San Francisco’s Grant Street, I don’t spend much time mulling over the options. It’s clear to me that C-Fu Gourmet is the closest thing we have in the Valley to…

New Hunan Restaurant, 1575 East Camelback, Phoenix, 265-9484. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to midnight; Sunday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. A couple of years ago, my younger daughter had an epiphany at a Chinese restaurant. She was…

Goldie’s Sports Cafe, 10135 East Via Linda, Scottsdale, 451-6269. Open Sundays at 9 a.m. during football season. “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in,” wrote Robert Frost. Frost obviously never encountered my televised-sports-hating family. When football season rolls around, home…