Best Bread Bakery 2000 | Willo Baking Company534 West McDowell602-254-0005 | Finefood | Phoenix
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Best Bread Bakery

Willo Baking Company
534 West McDowell
602-254-0005

Need to stock up for your next Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes? The angel-kissed golden crust of the bread churned out seven days a week at Willo is a real miracle in itself.

This small boutique bakery uses no sugar, meat or dairy products in preparing its heavenly roll call. We're especially partial to Willo's cranberry-hazelnut rolls and bread, generously studded with moist, sun-dried cranberries and large, crunchy chunks of toasted hazelnuts. And we'd even crawl on our bellies like you-know-who to get to Willo's divine kalamata olive bread, available in two loaf sizes, not to mention its only-on-Sunday onion rye.

With Willo's celestial manna, who needs Devil Dogs?

Readers' Choice for Best Bakery: Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

Best Mexican Bakery

La Purísima Pasteleria
4425 West Glendale Avenue, Suite 8, Glendale
623-842-1400

Short of driving three hours to Nogales, La Purísima is the most authentic south-of-the-border-style bakery you're likely to find.

Among its straight-from-the-oven offerings are pan dulce, a traditional slightly sweetened bread. Other Mexican taste-tempters include libros and orejas fashioned from flaky puff pastry and sprinkled with sugar, fruit-filled empanadas (including pumpkin and pineapple), galletas (cookies) frosted with eyeball-searing hot pink icing, and seasonal Day of the Dead pastries.

Should all this kitchen handiwork touch your inner mamacita, the bakery also carries fresh masa, savory corn dough that can be used to make your own tamales, sopas and chalupas.

Best Wine Store

Sportsman's Wines, Spirits and Other Flavours
3205 East Camelback
602-955-7730

"It doesn't matter how a wine is drunk, as long as you are."

So said legendary culinary writer M.F.K. Fisher. She was kidding. Great wines are serious stuff, and no one knows that better than the oenophiles at Sportsman's.

The Staff here is the most knowledgeable in town. We've never been able to stump them, even when it comes to arcane vintages. All the fancy labels are here, like Romanée-Conti and Yquêm (France), and Trockenbeerenauslese (Germany), as well as rare sherries, vintage ports and champagnes.

Sportsman's also has the largest selection of wines in the Valley, and if what you want isn't on the shelf, someone will get it for you. If money is an object, the staff at Sportsman's will help you find a luxurious choice for the few pennies you have to rub together. If you're not sure what you want, you can sample more than 60 wines by the glass at the tasting bar.

We'll drink to that.

Best Middle Eastern Grocery

Yusef's Middle Eastern Restaurant, Grocery & Deli
15236 North Cave Creek Road, Phoenix
602-867-2957

Yusef's is the one-stop-does-it-all shop for exotic Middle Eastern cooking ingredients -- so essential if you're in the throes of planning a big Ali Wood-style bash.

Though it may be short on veiled belly dancers, Yusef's does manage to cram in hundreds of fresh, frozen, canned, bottled and dried supplies your regular grocer would never dream of stocking in a thousand and one Arabian nights.

Like bulk packages of powdered sumac and Jordanian zaatar, a classic spice combo of thyme and sesame seeds used with pungent olive oil for warm pita bread dipping (Yusef's offers a nice selection of oil and various ethnic breads, too). Or kadaifi, shredded phyllo dough used to make Middle Eastern desserts just like Aunt Arpina used to whip up.

In fact, it's doubtful there's anything Yusef's doesn't carry in the way of hard-to-find North African and Middle Eastern culinary components -- except, maybe, bleating, ready-to-slaughter lambs for shish kebab.

Best Place to Find the Wurst

Schreiner's Fine Sausage
3601 North Seventh Street
602-265-2939

Better cancel that flight to the Bavarian Alps you booked because you're craving authentic, homemade European-style sausages. They're being stuffed and cranked out right here in the Valley by Schreiner's, whose funky smokehouse store has remained virtually unchanged since it opened in 1958.

On the off chance you can't find anything you like from more than 100 different international recipes owners Gary and Nancy Schiller use regularly (including ones for Polish kielbasa, German brat and bockwurst and Hungarian kishke), give Schreiner's your own secret recipe. For a price, you can get brats just like Grandmutti used to stuff. Or you can opt for Schreiner's special line of low-fat, high-flavor chicken sausages that rival its fat-filled kind.

And what to do with that wildebeest you shot on your last African safari? No worries -- Schreiner's will even make fresh or smoked sausages from any prepared game you deliver to them.

Best Brew Pub

Four Peaks Brewing Company
1340 East Eighth Street, Tempe
480-303-9967

This is getting annoying. Four Peaks is the Tiger Woods of Valley brew pubs, consistently topping every local publication's "best of" lists despite facing ever-increasing competition.

This year, the Tommyknockers Brewery & Pub chain opened a franchise near Bank One Ballpark, and damn, it was a close call. But Four Peaks' malty stout, its airheaded blonde and smoky-smooth amber triumphed once again. How do they keep winning? One year -- and beer -- at a time.

Readers' Choice: Four Peaks Brewing Company

Best Selection of 40-Ounce Malt Liquor

Roland's Market
1505 East Van Buren
602-353-9737

With its high alcohol content and low cost, a 40-ouncer of malt liquor is simply the cheapest way to get tanked. So it's no surprise that this bitter, golden blend is readily available in areas where most pants pockets jingle with welfare coins, minimum-wage earnings and the grimy coin of hard-earned handouts.

Near downtown Phoenix, the malt shop of choice is Roland's, a Van Buren market that offers a staggering array of decisions for those with few choices to make. Behind the cold glass, the 40s stand at attention like diabolical soldiers, their manly brand names stenciled across specious, stark labels: St. Ides and St. Ides Ice, King Cobra, Old English 800, Colt .45, Schlitz Malt Liquor and on and on.

No brand costs more than $2, and Roland's even tosses in a paper bag "coaster" for free.

Readers' Choice for Best Beer Selection: Timber Wolf Pub

Best Home-Delivered Certified Organic Produce

Boxed Greens
480-557-7060

Remember when deliverymen brought glass bottles of milk and fresh loaves of bread right to your doorstep? Neither can we.

But even if you aren't old enough to conjure up those comforting memories, you can indulge your nostalgia for the Good Old Days you never knew existed by calling Boxed Greens. They'll put you on their home delivery route for fresh, in-season, certified organic produce, most of which is grown right here in Arizona. The pesticide-free produce and herbs you'll receive are straight-from-the-earth, including exotic items you'll rarely see in the local supermarket produce section.

Deliveries are scheduled on a weekly or biweekly basis -- a Seasonal Box of preselected veggies runs from $30 to $65, depending on the size of your family. To tailor your order to more specific greens, choose your non-poison from the Boxed Greens Web site (www.boxedgreens.com) that's updated daily.

Best Ice Cream

Mary Coyle Ice Cream
5521 North Seventh Avenue
602-265-6266

Everyone's heard of the proverbial "golden oldie." And if you've lived in the Valley any length of time, you're already well aware of our own "colden oldie."

That would be Mary Coyle Ice Cream parlor, the local ice cream standard by which all others are judged. For 50 years, Coyle's take on everyone's "I scream, you scream" frigid dessert has ruled the Valley's roost, whether served up in cones, sundaes, sodas or the you-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it "The Mountain," a seven-pound Himalaya of various flavors, sauces, nuts and toppings that sell for $49. All flavors are made on the premises and most have an artery-clogging 19 percent butterfat content.

Freeze!

Readers' Choice for Best Ice Cream/Yogurt Shop: Cold Stone Creamery

Readers' Choice for Best Smoothie/Juice Shop: Jamba Juice

Best Bagels

Chompie's
3202 East Greenway Road
602-971-8010
(and other Valley locations)

Man does not live by bread alone. He needs a good bagel, too.

For more than two decades now, Chompie's has been surpassing our bagel expectations with always -- always -- the best bagels we've ever found in this town.

Chompie's was king of the bagels before the doughy works of art were cool (remember the bagel explosion in the '80s?). While many of the wanna-be bagel bakers in the Valley have gone extinct, Chompie's is still going strong.

Why? It's got 35 varieties of New York-style bagels, in our favorite flavors like salt, poppy, sesame and sourdough. But it's also got designer choices, like zucchini, Cheddar, banana nut, jalapeño and chocolate chip bagels. Most important, all bagels are handmade, baked fresh and smothered on both sides with their toppings.

You can't build a better bagel than that.

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