I’m going to say something that goes against my own conscience and the warnings of the U.S. surgeon general. You single women out there: If you want to be a player in the Valley mating dance, you’d better be holding something like a Macanudo Petite between your fingers. I’ve recently…
Ten years is a long time. When I moved here from California a decade ago, I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry. I was thrilled with the affordable housing. I was thrilled that my kids could walk to school unescorted. I was thrilled that my car insurance rates…
LEO the Delicatessen, 5101 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 480-941-4477. Hours: Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, Tuesday through Sunday, 6:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. Call me the Deli Lama. Like my Tibetan counterpart, I’ve spent a long time in exile, far from the native foods of the Brooklyn streets of my youth…
Cell-ibate: Attention, restaurant owners! It’s time to take a stand. Right next to the “No Smoking” sign, please put up a big picture of a cell phone surrounded by a circle, with a red slash running through it. I find it astonishing that diners who wouldn’t otherwise dream of, say,…
Edward’s of Scottsdale, 9619 North Hayden (Mountain View Plaza), Scottsdale, 480-9223567. Hours: Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 5 p.m. to close. “There is no new thing under the sun,” according to Ecclesiastes. So much for unerring Biblical certainty. Obviously, the man has never been to Scottsdale. How else can you explain…
Give Me a Pizza Your Heart: No one in America had thought to put exotic toppings on pizza until two decades ago, when Wolfgang Puck pushed the envelope at Spago. Suddenly, pizzas heaped with barbecued Thai chicken, goat cheese and escargots became the rage. Still, after all these years, the…
Cafe Express, 2525 East Camelback (Shops at the Esplanade), Phoenix, 602-522-9199. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. Self-service restaurants have never had much of a culinary reputation. Who can think of cafeterias without recalling the dreaded high school lunch hour? Remember reluctantly pushing…
Bay Tripper: It’s easy for food lovers to leave their hearts in San Francisco. It’s even easier for them to leave their wallets there. But when I visit, I don’t blow big bucks eating in this town’s world-class restaurants. I head for North Beach and Chinatown, in search of the…
Tequila Grill, 4363 North 75th Street, Scottsdale, 480-941-1800. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week; bar stays open until 1 a.m. Almost 500 years ago, Spanish explorer Francisco Coronado led an expedition through the American Southwest, searching for the legendary Seven Cities of Cibola…
Rules of the Game: One of the great benefits of this job is all the perks I’m offered: fabulous weekends at first-class resorts, stacks of invitations to dine on the house at the swankiest restaurants, bottles of fine wine in my mailbox. And one of the great drawbacks of this…
In New York City, there are more Jews than in Tel Aviv and more Puerto Ricans than in San Juan. Guatemalans in Los Angeles outnumber those in every Guatemalan city except the capital. Count just L.A.’s Iranians, and the city’s population would still top Baltimore’s. Only Warsaw has more Poles…
Witness for the Prosciutto: Should a restaurant reveal a dish’s every ingredient on its menu? That’s the question a reader asked me, after an upsetting experience at an Italian restaurant. It seems the couple, neither of whom ate red meat, ordered chicken parmigiana. They expected a chicken breast draped with…
Easterners come to live in the Valley for a variety of reasons. Indeed, the metro area is beginning to split at the seams, the air to curdle and the pavement to crack under the strain of all the people from the East, and elsewhere, who found so many good reasons…
Arisoo, 3002 North Arizona Avenue, Chandler, 4806325655. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 10 p.m. I’m a Seoul man. Despite the explosion of Asian ethnic restaurants in the Valley, you can still count the number of Korean restaurants here on one…
Future Shock: Remember the movie Soylent Green? It’s set in the nightmarish future, a time of Malthusian misery and want. Everyone’s hungry — there’s almost nothing we’d call food available. Instead, folks are nourished by “soylent green.” The movie’s shocking finale: It turns out that soylent green is made from…
Tal’s, 13610 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 480-348-0086. Hours: Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 5:30 to 9 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.; closed Sunday. When is disappointment the keenest? The moment you realize your wildest dreams will never come true? No. People get on with their lives even though…
Gregorian Enchantment: What’s the best restaurant in town? There’s no indisputable answer. But right now, after a memorable revisit, my list of top contenders would have to include Gregory’s Grill. Gregory Casale, a young chef with a very promising future, calls his fare “new world cuisine.” I wouldn’t. I’d say…
Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, 6333 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 4805968265. Hours: Dinner, 5 to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Move over, Morton’s. Move over, Ruth’s Chris. Move over, Don & Charlie’s. Move over, Harris’. Move over, Grill at the TPC. The list of topnotch Valley steak houses…
Jinxed?: I don’t know what it is about this particular restaurant space, at 7373 Scottsdale Civic Center Mall. I’m talking about the storefront next to Pepin, and downstairs from Backstage. Maybe a long-ago Hohokam shaman put a hex on it. Maybe somebody blasphemed on the property. Maybe it’s just plain…
Four Peaks Brewing Company, 1340 East Eighth Street, Tempe, 480-303-9967. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Sunday, 1 to 11 p.m. In spring, the poet says, “a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love.” But once spring turns to summer, just about everyone’s…
The Write Stuff: The name of the restaurant and the name of the unhappy customer don’t matter. What does matter is how the aggrieved party expressed his annoyance. And how the restaurant responded. Here is an edited version of the correspondence: Dear [Owner], I have enjoyed your establishment for years,…
Kona Grill, 7014 East Camelback (Scottsdale Fashion Square), Scottsdale, 480-429-1100. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Thursday, 10:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to midnight; Dinner, Sunday, 5 to 10:30 p.m. Empires don’t spring up overnight. Rome wasn’t built in a day: It took centuries of…
