Best Bargain Sushi 2002 | Sushi 101 | Prize-Winning Dishes | Phoenix
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Best Bargain Sushi

Sushi 101

We've dreamed of being trapped in a sushi restaurant. We try to run, but everywhere we turn, there teems more maguro, hamachi, tako, uni, ebi, sake, tobiko. The problem is not in escaping, it's in catching the slippery fish and shoveling it into our mouths before we wake up.

Now we're living the dream at Sushi 101, where there's an all-we-can-eat special for $19.95, no chasing required. There are some restrictions: Leftovers are charged at full price, including rice. This means that diners who bite off more than they can swallow face penalties on their bills. If we can't finish our shrimp tempura roll, or try to sneak in more value by not eating the rice on our nigiri sushi, we'll be charged the full per-piece sushi price on top of that $19.95.

We have no problem with that. We know, down to the grain of rice, exactly how much sushi our stomach holds (years of practice). And Sushi 101 servers warn us up front that this is not a buffet. We can order as much as we want, in as frequent intervals as we want, but we'd really better mean it.

Best Place To Pop The Question

El Encanto Mexican Cafe

A big part of popping the question is the style of how it's done. None of that "Well, we might as well get married, I guess" kind of stuff.

The thing about El Encanto is that it's centered on a beautiful lake, bobbing with graceful ducks and geese. While we're getting fed truly delicious Sonoran food (viva la margarita!), the waterfowl are hoping we'll spring a quarter into one of the grain-filled gumball machines. Turn the knob, fill a little paper cup with delicious goose chow, and the birds come flapping over.

Now here's our idea: Put the quarter in the machine. Fill the cup with grain. Then, take that expensive rock and stick it down into the bird seed. Hand the cup to your sweetie. Just be sure she doesn't toss the whole kit and caboodle in the pond. Isn't that romantic?

Best Sunday Brunch

T. Cook's

With just 166 rooms but Four Diamonds, it's clear that the Royal Palms understands how class cohabits with intimacy. Rather than catering to the masses and impressing with sheer quantity, Royal Palms puts exquisite effort into the tiniest details of every single element of its operation.

While other brunches use the flash factor of acres of food to draw oohs and aahs, T. Cook's offers a refined finish to the weekend, offering a prix fixe menu of à la carte Mediterranean-inspired classics. While we're not leaving as gluttons, what we do eat is guaranteed to be the very best in its league.

If we're feeling dainty, we can go for the $19 cold buffet, an all-we-can-eat extravaganza of fresh seafood, smoked salmon, gourmet salads, grilled vegetables, fruits, cheeses, breads, pastries and more. If we want to supplement -- or substitute -- our feast, we can select from T. Cook's regular breakfast and lunch. This means classy dishes like spinach and oven-dried tomato quiche; white truffle and fontina cheese omelet with chicken leek sausage; asparagus and wild mushroom soup; lobster and avocado with butter lettuce, shaved fennel and garlic jus; or seared pork tenderloin with sweet potato pancake, Savoy cabbage and apples.

All this in a brilliant, Southwestern hacienda setting lush with gardens, and T. Cook's is truly something for a special Sunday.

Best Wine List

Kazimierz World Wine Bar

When we began investigating Kazimierz's wine list, inspired by next-door cafe's Cowboy Ciao (same owner), we knew we had our work cut out for us. What a masterpiece of obscure, cult, sensual and surprising wines. The list spans page after page, and would be entirely intimidating if not for the fun narrative to help us along. If we had a flashlight, we could sit here in this dark cafe all night just reading the quips:

"NV Gruet blanc de noirs, New Mexico, half bottle. The expatriate Gruet family, tired of the ridiculous French tax laws, moved to the one area of the planet they felt most mirrored the soil and climate of Champagne . . . who would have guessed it was Truth or Consequences, New Mexico? (although rumors of it being tied to an alien experiment at Area 51 are surely false, or at least stretched a bit)."

"NV Mountain Dome brut, Washington. Flavor wise, this is crisp, clean, balanced and refreshing, but the reason we bought it was the little elves on the label."

"'98 Burge Family semillon, Olive Hill, Australia. This starts out smelling of rubber and chloroform (it's not important how I know the smell of chloroform, it's need-to-know basis and you don't need to know), then changes to multiple layers of tropical fruits, finally evolving into the exact aroma of a box of jujubes (and it's not important how I know that, either, I just do)."

And -- on New Zealand Merlots: "New Zealand is about as synonymous with Merlot as I am with kiwi juggling, but this one is a winner (I did once juggle a Lake Geneva Playboy Bunny and a Miss McHenry runner-up, but I was quite youthful and generally anesthetized at the time, consequently more nimble and courageous; nowadays, I'm lucky to find my pants)."

Best-Kept Restaurant Secret

Peter's Budapest Cafe

If people knew Hungarian food like we know Hungarian food, they'd be at Peter's Budapest Cafe every night of the week.

Prepare to indulge heartily here, and heavily. Hungarian food mostly is enormous platters of tender, juicy beef piled atop plump noodles; breaded, fried veal cutlets nestled alongside great hunks of buttery fried potatoes; and deep-fried mushrooms, proud of their grease and cloaked in fat suits of tartar sauce. It's classic comfort. Favorite dishes include gently sautéed chicken livers, oven-baked pork loin, meat loaf in chubby slabs, sausage-potato-egg casserole, and obese sausage links resting on a bed of glossy tricolor peppers. There's no holding back the good stuff, either, with pools of rich cream sauce, lava flows of molten cheese, dollops of tangy sour cream and desserts that are more huge, sugar-entombed shrines than simply food. But most gratifying for us, the cuisine is rapturous, thanks to creative use of distinguished spices like paprika (spicy-sweet crushed pepper powder) and poppy seeds, plus sour cream to enrich rather than overwhelm.

If people only knew. If they'd only give it a try. The Valley would be such a happier place.

Best Cookies

Chocolate Star Bakery

We're choosy about our cookies. None of the prefab, out-of-a-bag stuff for us, thank you. We want fresh-baked, with only the finest all-natural ingredients. And this is exactly what we've found at Chocolate Star, where the ovens are always on and the larder is always stocked with delights like Ghirardelli chocolate, fresh whole eggs, Arizona pecans, real butter, black strap molasses, old-fashioned oats and plump raisins. We can buy a dozen cookies for us, or baskets with coffee for gift giving. The selection is short but oh so sweet: royal chocolate chip, spicy ginger crisps, oatmeal raisin, pecan sandies, double fudge, peanut butter, snickerdoodles and mocha coco. For choosy cookie chewers like us, the choice is clear -- Chocolate Star shines.

Best Kosher Cookies

Cookies Amour

Cookies Amour owner Lynne Wellish doesn't just have to keep her customers happy. She's got to answer to the Greater Phoenix Vaad Hakashruth, the authority that determines whether a Jewish kitchen is kosher. She had a rabbi approve it before opening and pays a fee for ongoing inspections.

The result for her kosher-cookie-craving customers is a wide variety of premium treats, made with imported chocolate, real vanilla and butter (non-dairy types are available, too). They're baked daily; there is no freezer.

There's a favorite for everyone: chocolate chip, milk chocolate chip with pecans, oatmeal spice, apricot shortbread bars, classic peanut butter, raspberry shortbread bars, chocolate decadence and much more.

Best Ice Cream

Angel Sweet

A friend has been gushing to us -- endlessly -- about this exciting ice cream shop he'd found in Chandler. Huh, we thought, we certainly respect his taste, but could a small store be that much better than the superpremium, handcrafted scoops we find in our local gourmet restaurants?

Oh yeah. We finally got out there to try it, and now, just try keeping us away. Angel Sweet makes its divine gelatos fresh every day, and is this stuff a knockout. Somehow, it manages to be low-fat, but you'd never know to taste the thick, rich Italian ice cream. One glance at the more than two dozen flavors on display, and our heads are spinning.

Angel Sweet's recipes, and many of its ingredients, come straight from Italy. Fruits are in high form, intense and arrogant, partnered with classic concoctions like tiramisu, panna cotta with caramel, and stracciatella (Italian chocolate chip).

Which reminds us: We really should give that friend a call back and thank him. But we can do that later, after we finish our dessert.

best Healthful Eating

Persian Garden Cafe

This stuff is truly good for you, and truly special. You can eat like a pig, yet leave still feeling petite. Even better, it's one of the only health food places in town that looks like a real, elegant restaurant rather than a hippie hangout hut.

What's magical? How about merza farangee (grilled eggplant with sautéed onion, garlic, tomato, fresh herbs, feta and olive oil, dipped with toasted garlic pita and cucumber-yogurt sauce), hummus-tabbouleh pita, or tofu portobello (sautéed silken tofu, spinach, onion, garlic, ginger root, tomato, feta, olive oil, lemon and soy sauce with brown rice, toasted almond-saffron-raisin)? When we crave chicken, we get it spicy with mushroom, bell pepper, onion, scallion, ginger root, celery, garlic, tomatoes, fresh herbs, Persian spices, feta and soy sauce. And while there's no beef, we can get shrimp (scampi) and lamb (gyros).

Even dessert is delicious, with velvety vegan creations including pumpkin pie, carrot and cheese cakes, or Persian saffron rice pudding. It's all a dream, capped with a hot cup of Persian chai tea with rose water, rose petals and cardamom.

Best Place To Get Iced

Island Ices

Damn, it's hot. No matter what time of year you're reading this, we feel pretty safe in saying, damn, it's hot. So we find great relief in soaking our skulls at Island Ices, a funky place specializing in soft water Italian ices and frozen premium custards. A specialty of the house is ice and custard blended together as an Island Ice Shake.

It's as good for us as it tastes. Ices are made with real fruit, and custards are 90 percent fat free. Ice flavors are bright and refreshing, like cherry, lemon, mango, watermelon, piña colada, blueberry, grape, prickly pear and cotton candy. Custard comes in chocolate or swirl. And though we had to wonder when we heard about it, we're now devoted fans of the Island Breeze, a gelato combination of Italian ice scooped between two layers of custard. How cool is that?

Best Of Phoenix®

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