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…
After her St. Paddy’s Day whiskey and cabbage fest, the last thing Bite Me needed was another Bushmill’s hangover. But for weeks her editor had been bugging her about some place down by Arizona State University, Casey Moore’s Oyster House. He kept going on about how it was time Bite…
God bless my grandmother. Well into her 70s, she taught herself how to read by reading the Bible. Yes, this beautiful little wrinkled and toothless abuelita was a powerful and moral woman. But she had one vice: watching lucha libre, Mexican wrestling. Lucha libre literally means “free fight” or freestyle…
Bite Me takes St. Patrick’s Day very, very seriously. She’s got some Irish in her lineage and whenever she has the chance to be, ya know, a traditional gal, she jumps on it. Bite Me prepped for her trek to Rosie McCaffrey’s by cookin’ up some corned beef delights to…
Q. So where is the new Fusion restaurant you mentioned last week, really? A. I trusted the phone company directory. My bad. The two-week-old Fusion is at 4441 North Buckboard Trail in Scottsdale. For folks who also found only the fax number in directory service, the right phone number is…
No, I haven’t seen My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The premise rankles my sensibilities way too much (really, a chick is dried up and desperate because she isn’t married by 30?). Even though the public at large seems to love it, I have to keep in mind that this is…
Several years ago the Coronado Homeowners Association commissioned a mural as an effort to promote and clean up the historic Coronado neighborhood. Located on 16th Street just south of Thomas, the mural today forms a backdrop for one of the dirtiest bus stops in Phoenix. Its scenes move from downright…
The hook was a good one: the opportunity to hang out with a dozen of the nation’s favorite celebrity chefs and purchase autographed copies of their cookbooks. Yet really, the only truly big name in attendance at the recent Scottsdale League of Arts fund raiser was Jeremiah Tower, chef/owner of…
Bite Me has a loving, trustful friend who didn’t know what he was in for when he offered to treat your humble narrator to a birthday dinner just after she hit the Valley. The poor sap suggested a swanky joint, not realizing that, when she’s on a freebie, Bite Me…
You know there is something wrong when a gringo knows more about your own culture than you do. I felt this way about chef Rick Bayless. How can this skinny, freckle-faced guy be telling me how they eat in Mexico? Although Señor Bayless does an excellent job and is very…
Q.I’m stuck planning my office’s happy-hour party. Where’s a place that’s fun without being too loud and overrun with drunks? A.The only drunks at Cabo will be the ones you invite. The Mexican restaurant at Scottsdale Road and Frank Lloyd Wright Boulevard offers private parties on its patios, for up…
The best place to eat in all of Arizona is a tiny spot hidden away in Paradise Valley. It’s got limited seating: just one formal table, with eight chairs. If need be, overflow can fit more casually at a three-chair glass-topped nook table, or, in a real pinch, four diners…
The last thing Bite Me wanted to do last week was slosh around in the rain looking for the really hard-to-find AZ88. (Drought? What freakin’ drought?) She got the address and directions easily enough, but then found herself discombobulated in a Scottsdale parking lot. She called the restaurant on her…
“Excuse me, sir,” I said as I waved my arms, desperately trying to get the man’s attention. “You have a little something on your forehead,” I whispered, trying not to embarrass this complete stranger. But I turned out to be the one who felt stupid. Ah, Ash Wednesday, that day…
