Is it possible to predict a lousy dining experience as soon as you enter a chow house, without a peek at the bill of fare? You betcha. For instance, if the teenage hostess is on her cell phone calling her boyfriend, or the waitstaff’s forced to wear suspenders adorned with…
Harvard prez Larry Summers has been excoriated in the past few months by feminists, fellow academics, and the politically correct for suggesting that innate differences in guys and dolls might help explain why there aren’t more ladies present in the upper echelons of science and math. You know, the old…
A lot of what’s appealing about greater Phoenix falls into the classic can’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover category. I don’t mean the lusher parts of Scottsdale or the desert vistas out by Carefree. I mean just tooling about the city, parts of which, let’s be honest, can be less than enchanting. Ours is not…
Ah, the smell of chocolate and meat! Two great tastes that taste great together. Okay, maybe not. Still, this is what my olfactory nerves deal with each time I enter Chandler’s 4-week-old Shabu Fondue, a hip, nightclubby eatery that looks like it belongs catty-cornered from Stingray Sushi in Scottsdale. Instead,…
God, I could go for a pint of Stella Artois, or “wife-beater,” as it’s sometimes referred to in merry ol’ England. I’m in a black-and-white box of an eatery, surrounded by photos of Cornish tin miners, reading a biography of Hermann Goering. Halfway through my midday meal, it hits me…
Some bastards have all the bloody luck. Say, a year ago today, you signed a lease or bought a residence near 70th Street and Shea Boulevard in Scottsdale. Then you wake up one morning to discover that not only does the cul-de-sac there boast Sushi on Shea, but the Great…
Might there be some redemption for what I like to call the swill on and around Mill? As I mentioned in my recent write-up of Mucho Gusto Taqueria and Mexican Bistro, just west of Mill Avenue on University Drive (“Taste Magnet,” January 20), Mill Avenue generally holds as much fascination…
I have the funny feeling Mike Tyson knows something I don’t. Other than how to land a right cross that’ll knock a 230-pound boxer on his ass. See, I’ve started compiling a little list of the places where I’ve spotted snapshots of the former world heavyweight champ around town, and…
Does Phoenix really need another steak house? That’s what pops to mind considering the recent arrival of the swank, upscale Donovan’s near 32nd Street and Camelback. I mean, if there’s anything you can say definitively about Phoenix, other than the temperature of the sidewalk in August, it’s that we’re one…
Tina Tamrat Hildebrand laughs and smiles shyly when I play reporter rather than gentleman, and ask her age. This fetching little Ethiopian lady could pass for someone in her mid-to-late 20s, but curiosity has yet to kill the culinary critic, which is why I pose the question. “You know, in…
The ker-plunk and whoosh is most pronounced right around the intersection of Tempe’s Fifth Street and Mill Avenue, or, as I like to call it, the corner of Hooters and Gordon Biersch. No doubt you’ve heard it before: the sound of your soul being flushed into the rancid sewer of…
I’m convinced there’s a conspiracy of dunces out there, hell-bent on making the dining experience as consistently staid and by-the-numbers as an effin’ copy of Reader’s Digest. Scribblers of that pinkie-in-the-air genre known as “food writing” — the unfortunate tribe in which I’m lumped — are by far the worst…
Sitting in the dark-orange, Dr. No-like bar at Scottsdale’s Stingray Sushi, drinking a tall glass of Kirin draft and watching the promising Phoenix Suns get spanked by San Antonio recently, it occurred to me that I probably feel the same way toward Stingray Sushi as I do toward our basketball…
On the whole, 2004 has been a good year for this portly penman, as enjoyable dining experiences have easily outweighed poor ones. Indeed, what stays with me, in the form of fat cells as well as recollections, are the great meals I’ve had on my various eating expeditions throughout the…
What a colossal difference a second visit to a restaurant can make. See, my modus operandi as a critic is generally as follows: I pick a place I want to review, then I dine there at least twice, usually with guests, so I can nibble off their plates unsuspected by…
Everyone knows about Pavlov’s dogs: those canines that helped Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov demonstrate that the natural flow of saliva in Sparky’s mouth could be induced by external stimuli, like a bell ringing. Pavlov referred to this as a “conditioned reflex,” and his findings netted him a Nobel prize way…
Hey, I may come off in print as a bloated narcissist, but I do get my comeuppance often enough. Take, for example, a question I had for a colleague after visiting the six-month-old Coyoacán steak house on South Central Avenue. The restaurant sits nearly at the foot of South Mountain,…
It’s a fine Tuesday morning, and I’m seated at a table in Matt’s Big Breakfast, the new diner that opened a month ago on First Street and McKinley, next to the Coronado Hotel, in the same spot where the eatery Chez Bubba used to do business. The sun is shining,…
I’ve always loathed Thanksgiving, so don’t expect some column from me telling you how to cook a turkey with a beer can stuck up its butt, or where to snarf the best stuffing in the Valley. Everything about the holiday nauseates me: the enforced familial bonding; the orgy of unoriginal…
Folks call and write me with some amazing requests. Usually, I do my best to reply in a timely manner, but occasionally, the inquiries veer into the asinine zone, in which case, I may never respond. For example, if you’re a PR flack who wonders why I never called back…
I’ve been jonesing of late for some really excellent house-made pasta. No doubt what brought this on was my slightly disappointing visit a couple of weeks back to the James Hotel’s Fiamma Trattoria, where it seemed like everything but its house-made pasta was first-class. Since the James tirelessly trumpets the…
I am terribly pained that all the fuss concerning the Boston Red Sox, the World Series, and the Curse of the Bambino is finally over. Not that I cared a whit for a bunch of gum-chewing knuckle-draggers running around a diamond to the cheers of the hoi polloi. I prefer…
