McDowell Road, in that sleepy stretch east of downtown Phoenix, has long been a reliable source for good, home-style Mexican food. There’s La Barquita, with its molcajete dinners for two, a pile of grilled meats, nopales, and fresh herbs that’s hearty enough to stretch into a light dinner for four…
The Guilty Pleasure: The Big Texas BBQ Dog Where to Get It: Doglicious Hot Dogs Price: $5.95 What it Really Costs: Your “cheat” day for the week, so you may as well double-down on calories and get a couple of hot dogs while you’re here. Is there a more quintessential…
One of the best-preserved downtown districts in metro Phoenix belongs to the city of Mesa, a town whose heritage includes pioneering Mormon settlers, historic citrus groves and cotton ranchlands, military airfields, and most recently, a thriving performing- and visual-arts scene. But even the most optimistic city booster would probably admit…
The Guilty Pleasure: Custom ice cream sandwiches Where to Get It: The Baked Bear Price: $3.95-$4.95 What it Really Costs: A hard fall off the diet wagon. But you can always climb back on tomorrow. For a certain set of Phoenicians, summer would not be complete without a beach vacation…
Japanese ramen, like Mexican street tacos and American regional barbecue, has in recent years become the object of intense connoisseurship. Ramen lends itself well to this sort of obsession because it offers a nearly endless variety of regional styles and preparation methods to ponder and study and argue over. You…
The Guilty Pleasure: “Dirty” soda pop Where to Get it: Sodalicious Price: $1.25-$2.00 What it Really Costs: The sweet, high-flying rush of fructose-fueled euphoria, followed by the cranky lows of the inevitable sugar crash. When it comes to drinks that are ruled by a slight sense of obsession and complexity,…
The Guilty Pleasure: Roasted garlic plate Where to Get it: Rokerij, Richardson’s, and Dick’s Hideaway Price: $16 (may vary by restaurant) What it Really Costs: A double-pack of extra-strength Altoid mints and possibly the inability to stand within breathing range of your significant other for days. The ancient Romans called…
Ghanaian cooking, and the cuisine of west Africa in general, is pretty scarce in metro Phoenix. If you’ve never experienced the pleasures of kenkey, banku, or peanut-butter soup, the place to go is Max’s Mukhaase in Mesa, a casual family-run restaurant that has been open for about a year now…
There are few places in central Phoenix as beloved as Lux, the gourmet coffee bar that has evolved over the past decade into more than just a place to sip espresso. Since owner Jeff Fischer made the decision to expand the coffee bar back in 2011 — relocating it from…
The Guilty Pleasure: The Ruben stuffed hamburger Where to Get it: Stufrageous Stuffed Burgers Price: $8.79 What it Really Costs: Your ability to eat a regular burger. You’ll want every other burger in your life to be as engorged as this one from here on out. The hamburger, as a…
Metro Phoenix is often accused of being too suburban, but if there’s an upside to so-called urban sprawl, it’s this: There’s nearly always something new to try somewhere around town, unexplored pockets of food and culture spread across something like 2,000 square miles. Your next great meal might come out…
Imagine a coffee universe where your favorite Mexican and Latin American sweet treats — we’re talking churros, dulce de leche, and tres leches cake — have been ingeniously blended into your morning latte. That’s the concept behind Tres Leches Café, a central Phoenix coffee bar with a menu of specialty…
The Guilty Pleasure: The Hair of the Polish Dog Where to Get It: Bacus Bros Hot Dogs & Beer Price: $8.50 What it Really Costs: Your ability to consume anything but light beer for a few days. This baby is loaded with so many calories, you’ll want to cut corners…
Is it possible to be seduced by, of all things, a half of a roasted chicken? Because at Ocotillo, the stylish new food and drink compound on the corner of Third and Flower streets in Phoenix, it might only take a bite or two of the restaurant’s namesake chicken dish…
Mexican sushi might be the biggest food trend to come out of northern Mexico since the Sonoran dog first landed in Arizona. If you’ve never tried the Mexican-Japanese fusion concept, prepare yourself for the slight shock of seeing your favorite maki rolls stuffed with unconventional fillings like carne asada, pollo,…
On a recent Friday night in west Phoenix, the neon-lit dining room of Sushi Loco was only about half full by the time the reverse happy hour started at 10 p.m. But even with the modest crowd gathered inside the restaurant and bar, if you closed your eyes, you might…
The Guilty Pleasure: Thai-style ice cream rolls Where to Get It: Nomadic Ice Cream Rolls Price: $3 (small), $6 (large) What it Really Costs: Your last ounce of willpower because these rolls are too much fun to resist. Just in time for summer, a new ice cream dessert has landed…
When a new spot opens in town, we can’t wait to check it out – and let you know our initial impressions, share a few photos, and dish about some menu items. First Taste, as the name implies, is not a full-blown review, but instead a peek inside restaurants that…
Things rarely stay the same in the restaurant industry. Whether it be a remodel, a menu overhaul, or a new executive chef, sometimes time and transitions mean we want to give a restaurant a second look. A Double Take, unlike a full review, revisits restaurants to check in and check…
Unless you happen to live or work nearby, it’s unlikely that your first visit to Cafe Agit will happen by accident. Most likely, you’ll be drawn to this nondescript Korean bar and grill in Mesa, which resembles any other number of aging strip mall bars from the outside, on the…
As a genre of cooking, New American — sometimes also called Modern American, among other names — is about as impossible to define as the American character itself. Nobody, it seems, can agree on exactly what it is, although you’ll often see the label applied to a certain kind of…
When a new spot opens in town, we can’t wait to check it out — and let you know our initial impressions, share a few photos, and dish about some menu items. First Taste, as the name implies, is not a full-blown review, but instead a peek inside restaurants that have…
