Tip Top: The food may be bad. The service may be dreadful. But unless servers pour hot coffee on their laps, or insects run across their plates, most diners can be counted on to leave a tip. Last year, Americans left about $12 billion on the table, an average of…
Channel Eight Is Enough: If you watch public television’s KAET-TV, you’ve probably seen enough promos for its new cooking series, Savor the Southwest, to think you’ve already sat through all 13 episodes. The shows are hosted by Barbara Fenzl, a local food maven who has run Les Gourmettes Cooking School…
Flo’s, 14850 North Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, Scottsdale, 661-8883. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 4:30 to 10 p.m. Most things in life are routinely predictable, aren’t they? You expect your blind date to be ugly. You can…
Critical Face Off: By now, even folks who don’t care anything about restaurants or critics have heard the Ruth Reichl story. The former all-powerful restaurant reviewer at the New York Times (she just resigned to take the editor’s job at Gourmet), Reichl was recognized by the owner when she tried…
Convivo, 7000 North 16th Street, Phoenix, 997-7676. Hours: Dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 5:30 to 10 p.m. Some restaurants make me want to throw in my napkin and look for another line of work. No, it’s not the lousy places that inspire fantasies of a career change. Bad restaurants actually stir…
How Not to Succeed in Business: Will somebody please explain to me how Michael Jordan could have ever thought of giving up basketball for baseball? Can somebody tell me why Mel Gibson insisted on playing Hamlet? The urge to be something we’re not isn’t confined to athletes and movie stars…
Alice Cooper’stown, 101 East Jackson, Phoenix, 253-7337. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, Saturday and event nights, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. It’s spring, and our senses are awakening after a long winter’s hibernation. Watch the blooming wildflowers swaying in the breeze. Sniff…
Chaparral, 5402 East Lincoln Drive (Marriott’s Camelback Inn), Paradise Valley, 948-1700. Dinner: 6 to 10 p.m., seven days a week. About a year ago, management at the five-diamond, superluxe Camelback Inn resort decided to jettison everything about the high-end Chaparral restaurant except the name. No, the place wasn’t exactly broke…
Blame It on Rio: One of the restaurant industry’s hottest concepts is the rodizio. Think of it as a Brazilian grill, featuring endless courses of skewered meats, lavishly presented. Typically, waiters dressed as gauchos bring sizzling, sword-size skewers to the table and dramatically slice everything from beef to chicken hearts…
Variations on a Theme: Ever since Hard Rock Cafe became an international success a generation ago, copycat theme restaurants have rushed in to nab a share of the market. In what’s called the “eatertainment” business, no imitator has made as big a splash as Planet Hollywood. For several years after…
Biltmore Afternoon Tea, Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa, 24th Street and Missouri, 955-6600. Afternoon Tea: 2:30 to 4:30 p.m., seven days a week. How come Americans drink coffee instead of tea? You can trace the answer back to 1773, when 60 men, dressed as Indians, dumped 340 chests of tea…
Art of Cooking: Some weeks back in this space, I took a few swipes at a new book, Dining Out: Secrets From America’s Leading Critics, Chefs, and Restaurateurs, by Andrew Dornenburg and Karen Page. I thought the level of pretension was pretty high. What most rankled was the notion that…
Nixon’s, 2501 East Camelback (Shops at the Esplanade), Phoenix, 852-0900. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Dinner, Sunday, 4 to 11 p.m. A grateful nation remembers its first president as the “Father of Our Country.” He’s famous for saying, “I cannot tell a lie.”…
Steakout: Do you think this is still a cow town? Judging by the number of new steak restaurants that are opening, you’d be right. The only other place on earth where cows receive such reverential worship is India. Three upscale steak houses are set to do business in Scottsdale, where…
What kind of south-of-the-border traveler are you? Do you get on an airplane and head to a fancy resort? Do you stay where the drinking water is pure, the swimming pool is heated, the flies have been banned, all major credit cards are accepted and the employees speak faultless English?…
Caveat Emptor: I’ve said this before, but it’s worth saying again: If my e-mails, letters and telephone calls are any indication, Valentine’s Day is number one when it comes to generating eating-out complaints. It makes sense. It’s the second-busiest restaurant day of the year (only Mother’s Day is busier), but…
Bistro Provence, 8900 East Pinnacle Peak (La Mirada Plaza), Scottsdale, 473-2884. Hours: Lunch and dinner, 11 a.m. to close, seven days a week. Attention, men: Have you remembered to pencil in Valentine’s Day on your calendar? Better do it now, because you can bet your sweetie has circled the date…
Soupy Sales: There isn’t much of a soup season in the Valley of the Perpetual Sun–maybe a three-month window lasting from about Thanksgiving to the beginning of spring training. For soup lovers like me, though, ’tis the season to be jolly. A steaming bowl of soup can really take the…
A James Beard award-winner, Christopher Gross has been one of this town’s most accomplished and sophisticated chefs for more than a decade. His wife, Paola, is a highly credentialed wine expert. Biltmore Fashion Park is a chic, swanky mall. At most of its shops, if you have to ask how…
If You Knew Sushi: Every restaurant needs a gimmick, right? Well, one German restaurant has taken the Hooters concept way beyond the next level. According to Nation’s Restaurant News, an industry trade paper, a sushi restaurant in Hanover, Germany, has come up with a novel way to serve sushi: on…
Al Dente’s, 14850 North Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard, Scottsdale, 657-9322. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Saturday, noon to 10 p.m.; Dinner, Sunday, 4 to 9 p.m. Next year, the census takers will be fanning out around the country, counting heads and gathering information…
Eddie Matney’s Epicurean Trio, 2398 East Camelback, Phoenix, 957-3214. Hours: Fine-Dining Room–Dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 6 to 10 p.m; Bistro–Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 5 to 10:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5 to 11:30 p.m. For most of the 1990s, Eddie Matney,…
