Note to my editor: I worked really hard on this article. It’s about Colombian food, so I flew to the South American country’s capital, Bogotá. I spent weeks there doing in-depth research, talking to the locals about what they eat, visiting dozens of neighborhood restaurants, and shadowing cooks as they…
You have to figure a university president for the PC crowd, but University of Arizona honcho Peter Likins went beyond the pale when he linked the humble tortilla with racial politics. The college jefe could have just said he thought it was tacky that Wildcats heave the food products like…
At the risk of sounding as tacky as the guy who admits he eats at Hooters for the view, I must be blunt: I go to Pasta Brioni for the gorgeous waiters. Yeah, I’m guilty: I stop in for spaghetti and meatballs knowing that my meal comes to me courtesy…
Talk about returning to your roots — some Latinos are resurrecting old traditions without even realizing it. At least that’s the sense you get talking with people who know what’s going on with the quinceañera, that well-known rite of passage for the daughters of Latin American immigrants on their 15th…
Go to the 99 Ranch Market at the COFCO Chinese Cultural Center and you’ll see foods from several different cultures — Chinese, Japanese, even Indonesian. But the crowd at the back of the store waiting several lines deep for fish might surprise you. The place is filled with Mexicans. On…
Bite Me knows her history, dammit. Cinco de Mayo ain’t truly a big Mexican holiday. But anything for an excuse to go out on a Monday night, ya know? Bite Me had her sights set on Dos Gringos and was en route when she received a call from trusty photog…
Berry Hom could do fine without another trip to Sky Harbor Airport, thanks very much. What with the heightened security there, and the never-ending construction in the area, it’s an ordeal to navigate the sludge of traffic circling the terminals. But Hom does it, day in and day out, picking…
Fusion co-owner Jennifer Long is apologizing that the restaurant has run out of field greens. Would romaine be okay in my melon salad, she wonders? Absolutely, I assure her. By the way, she adds, the menu description of “melon” salad is kind of misleading, too, seeing as there’s no melon…
It was in search of a java jolt at the Willow House that I first came across Los Mestizos and their funky Chicano art. Lots of local artists place their wares in the hippie hangout, a coffee-house conversion of a century-old house downtown. But it was the colorful paintings and…
Bite Me will be honest with y’all. She ain’t always on time. She’s been known to be late. Like frequently. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But she always, always intends to be prompt and means to arrive at a predetermined location at an agreed-upon time. Seems, though, that there’s always some barrier…
The night was cool and I was into the groove of old-school Chaka Kahn blasting on my car stereo as I cruised down Central Avenue in Phoenix. But my music high came to a sudden end when I heard the DJ make an announcement. “Come witness the world’s largest nachos…
For her 14 devoted readers, Bite Me will explain her absence last week. She scared the bejesus out of her co-workers by fainting dead away at the keyboard — no lie, this really happened — and hit her head on her way to the office floor. Blood. Screaming. Calls to…
I’m in mourning. My favorite Mexican restaurant in the world has closed. It blew up, actually. Earlier this month, Costa Brava was flattened by a gas explosion. So what if the cafe is an almost five-hour drive away, in Rocky Point, Mexico? I’ve been known to make the journey for…
Years ago I discovered a little hole-in-the-wall bakery on 16th Street. The bread is terrific. But what really got my attention was the lady standing in front of the building. Maybe five feet tall, she had a solid and plump build. Her skin was very dark, partly from her genes,…
There’s no question why my mom and I have decided to eat at the new Franco’s Italian Caffe tonight. We can pretend it’s convenience — the restaurant is located in the Esplanade, arguably the center of the Valley, and other members of our dinner party are driving in from different…
Bite Me was having her hair, er, styled the other day and found herself deeply engrossed in a conversation with her mane magician Katrina about passion fruit and mango. Not the kind they pretend to throw into shampoo so you think you’re scrubbing your strands with au naturel ingredients. No,…
“Eloooootes, eloooootes,” chanted Jaime, an awkward and petite man. As though in a trance he stood there, all five feet of him, dressed in his white cotton manta pants wrapped tightly around each leg, selling his young, white, tender and sweet corn on the cob. In Mexico, you see them…
I’m feeling like that guy in Mystic Pizza, the cozy Julia Roberts movie from 1988. Remember him? He played “The Everyday Gourmet,” a TV restaurant critic who traveled to Mystic, Connecticut, just for a bite of Mystic Pizza pie. He was endearingly pompous when he arrived, making high theater of…
Bite Me was longing for the hot, sexy strip club vibe of Sunset Boulevard, so she started asking around about strip clubs in Phoenix. She was concerned that they may not exist in abundance, since Phoenix seems to be all too rife with family values and God Bless America vibes…
The war has stimulated some interesting conversation in my group. As my friends and I reflect on what’s been unfolding on our television sets, one question keeps coming up: “What do people in Iraq eat?” Hey, it’s not just my food obsession. An internationally award-winning photojournalist friend of mine just…
It’s only April, and already I’m waking up in a pool of sweat. Ugh. Like insects crawling over a corpse, an army of air-conditioning repair trucks is beginning to fan out over the city as we begin our inevitable death-spiral into summertime heat. Like everyone else, I’ve developed my own…
