Cave Creek might as well be the dark side of the moon as far as this city mouse is concerned. I know, I know. It’s scenic and all that crap, but in my book, any area so lacking in streetlights is the sticks. And as I wend my way up…

According to the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Anubis, the jackal-headed judge of the underworld, weighs the hearts of men against the feather of truth and justice. As long as the organ does not tip the scale, the deceased is granted immortality. But if the heart is too heavy with…

For some, the word “fez” might conjure up romantic images of the ancient Moroccan city of Fez with its walled medina and medieval mosques, the setting for Paul Bowles’ brilliant, intricate novel The Spider’s House. Others might picture my hero Sydney Greenstreet as Signor Ferrari, wearing a fez and swatting…

Regarding the fleeting nature of human achievement, I’m reminded of the words of that controversial icon of early cinema, director D.W. Griffith, who once stated, “Movies are written in sand: applauded today, forgotten tomorrow.” Some movies more than others, I reckon. Griffith’s sentiment also applies to great and not-so-great meals…

I’ve had it up to here with work, so I’ve decided to phone in my column from the thriving Mexican city in which I’m vacationing. I’m seated on a long, brown and green picnic table with clusters of Hispanic families and couples, all speaking so fast in Spanish that about…

If Gotham is the city that never sleeps, then culinarily speaking, Phoenix gets all its beauty rest and then some. The primary complaint I hear from freshly unpacked twenty- and thirtysomething transplants concerns the lack of late-night nosheries. And indeed, the pickings are slim here past 9 or 10 p.m.,…

Super Dragon, I know, sounds like one of those fantastic drawings Jon Heder does while portraying ultra-nerd Napoleon Dynamite in the flick of the same name. You know, like Napoleon’s “liger,” a cross between a male lion and a female tiger that, according to Wikipedia.org, actually does exist in the…

I have been to the mountaintop, and, yes, I’ve eaten it, because that’s just the kind of guy I am. The edible pinnacle of which I speak is as formidable as Mexico’s Popocatepetl volcano, and while devouring it, I felt like the food-critic equivalent of some intrepid mountaineer determined to…

Unless you have a tongue made of cast iron and a mouth lined with ceramic tiles, the clear noodle salad at Sala Thai Restaurant on 32nd Street, a quarter-mile north of Shea Boulevard, should set your gob ablaze like Los Angeles during the riots, and that’s at the “medium” level…

Are all restaurant chains doomed to suck eggs like Old Yeller? Not necessarily. It’s hard to find fault with a Chambord margarita from Z’Tejas, for instance. And I do occasionally get a craving for an In-N-Out burger or a roast beef sammy from Arby’s. Don’t even get me started on…