The Restaurant: Restaurante Salvadoreño The Animal: Beef The Dish: Lengua de Res Guisada Have you ever eaten beef tongue? Most cultures (excluding our squeamish, wasteful American one) use all edible parts of the animal, routinely taking the snout-to-tail approach that chefs have made fashionable here in the States in recent…
This is part two of my interview with Mark Tarbell, owner of Tarbell’s in Phoenix and The Oven Pizza E Vino in Colorado. Part one of our interview with Mark Tarbell appeared Monday on Chow Bella. How and when did you learn so much about wine: I was in wine…
After four years away from the food business, Daniel Malventano, who formerly owned the elegant Daniel’s Italian Restaurant on Camelback near 44th Street, will soon be back in action. If all goes as planned, he will open Café Daniel at 32nd Street and Lincoln on October 1. This go-round, Malventano…
Mark Tarbell Tarbell’s 3213 E. Camelback Road 602-955-8100 www.tarbells.com This is part one of my interview with Mark Tarbell, owner of Tarbell’s in Phoenix and The Oven Pizza E Vino in Lakewood, Colorado. In Part Two,Tarbell talks about how he discovered wine and his advice for aspiring chefs. Mark Tarbell…
Summer’s heirloom tomatoes are in season, and Kevin Binkley wants to celebrate. From 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. on Wednesday, June 13, Binkley’s Restaurant will host an heirloom tomato dinner, featuring 10 different heirloom varieties, courtesy of local farmer Bob McClendon…
Phoenix might be the sixth-largest city in the nation, but when summer hits (and the unofficial worm-turner is usually the week after Mother’s Day), the local restaurant business drops like a rock. Servers who were busting their butts and making bank a few months earlier slowly turn into coral reefs…
If you’ve ventured beyond the gringo-ized Mexican food served at chain restaurants or wandered into a Latino grocery store, chances are you’ve run across aguas frescas (fresh waters) — the non-alcoholic coolers that combine fruits, cereals, or seeds with sugar and water. Kept in clear jugs and dipped out with…
Minerva Orduño Rincón, the pig-tailed line cook at FnB, swears she’s not a pastry person by nature, citing her lack of patience for “all that measuring” as the reason. But the proof is in the pudding, or, in this case, the coyota ($3), an utterly delicious little Mexican pastry she…
There was a day when a bartender was a bartender. Period. The end. But in recent years, more and more bartenders have begun calling themselves mixologists, a term with a distinctly academic ring to it. You don’t have to be a semanticist to imagine how that sits with some people,…
Josh Hebert Posh Improvisational Cuisine 7167 E. Rancho Vista Drive, Scottsdale 480-663-7676 www.poshscottsdale.com How long has Josh Hebert been obsessed with food? Let’s put it this way: one of his first words was “breakfast.” It’s an elaborate family story his mother loves to tell, he says, adding that he actually…
Sneer if you will about the purported health benefits of green drinks and freshly juiced fruit “cocktails” — said to detox the body, flood it with nutrients, and stimulate weight loss. Whether these perks are real or pulp fiction, fresh juice drinks are more than a craze, they’re part of…
Pete DeRuvo — the peripatetic chef who made a name for himself at Sassi, then moved to Prado and later left Cuoco Pazzo in a huff — has landed a new executive chef position he’s pretty psyched about. He has signed on with the Chicago-based Francesca’s Restaurants Group, which will…
Bill and Lillian Buitenhuys aren’t bitter people. They’re bitters people, ardent food lovers whose interests have broadened from food-and-wine pairings to food-and-cocktail pairings to the distinctive components, such as bitters, that go into both classic and craft cocktails. Although the Buitenhuys hold down 9-to-5 managerial jobs, they spend most of…
Kevin Binkley Binkley’s Restaurant 6920 E. Cave Creek Road, Cave Creek 480-437-1072 www.binkleysrestaurant.com Cafe Bink 36889 N. Tom Darlington Drive, Carefree 480-488-9796 www.cafebink.com This is part two of my interview with Kevin Binkley, chef-owner of Binkley’s Restaurant and Café Bink. Read part one of the interview with chef Kevin Binkley…
Kevin Binkley Binkley’s Restaurant 6920 E. Cave Creek Road, Cave Creek 480-437-1072 www.binkleysrestaurant.com Cafe Bink 36889 N. Tom Darlington Drive, Carefree 480-488-9796 www.cafebink.com This is part one of my interview with Kevin Binkley, chef-owner of Binkley’s Restaurant and Café Bink. You can read part two of the interview with Kevin…
Love it or hate it — AZ Restaurant Week (Spring Edition) is officially over Sunday night. According to Bernie Kantak, chef and co-owner of Citizen Public House, this calls for a celebration. But then, with Kantak, what doesn’t? He and his partners Richie Moe and Andrew Fritz are hosting a…
Note: This post has been edited since its original version. A new reality TV show called Mystery Diners airs on Food Network tonight at 10 pm, and the “stars” — for the next five or six weeks anyway — are Phoenix area restaurant owners and their employees…
Chow Bella has confirmed that the chef at one of the most popular restaurants in town is suddenly gone for good — and during Restaurant Week. Awkward. Late Wednesday afternoon, the rumor leaked that chef Matt Taylor was no longer at Noca. I called Taylor on his cell and left…
When it comes to tripe, we Americans have it exactly backwards. We don’t have a problem reading tripe, viewing tripe, or listening to tripe. We even spout a good bit of it ourselves on Facebook and Twitter. As a culture, we pretty much swim in the stuff. But the other…
If you love cooking shows that focus on teaching — not drama — you’re in for a real treat at 7 p.m. on Monday, June 4. That’s when Eight, Arizona PBS premieres Jacques Pépin Cooks for Eight, a two-hour cooking special starring world-famous French chef Jacques Pépin and Arizona’s own…
Like the Pimm’s Cup featured on Chow Bella a few weeks ago, the Moscow Mule is another thirst-quenching summery cocktail, often served in bars in a cold copper mug. Where the Pimm’s Cup is a Brit invention, the Moscow Mule is purely American. Created in Los Angeles in the ’40s…
Staying in town this Memorial Day weekend? You cannot be bored. Not yet. Get up off your lazy butt and do something productive — like attending a class on outdoor cooking. Let’s embrace the season, people! This Sunday afternoon, May 27, Distrito will bring back its popular “Cook Like an…
