Ristorante Sandolo, 7500 East Doubletree Ranch Road (Hyatt Regency at Gainey Ranch), Scottsdale, 991-3388. Hours: Dinner, 6 to 10:30 p.m., seven days a week. Gondola rides make me very nervous. In the old neighborhood, a gondola trip was the fourth step in a four-step program. Step one: waking up next…
House of Tricks, 114 East Seventh Street, Tempe, 968-1114. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 4 to 9 p.m. It’s amazing what insights you can get when you’re strapped into a dentist’s chair. For the past few weeks, I’ve been undergoing treatment…
Luby’s Cafeteria, 4550 East Cactus (Paradise Valley Mall), Phoenix, 494-9722. Hours: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m., seven days a week. I can’t set foot in a cafeteria without thinking about The Goon. The Goon remained an 11th grader throughout the LBJ presidency. For three years, in my tough New York…
Citrus Caf‚, 2330 North Alma School, Chandler, 899-0502. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m. Ignore the fact that you’re in Chandler, where washing your recreational vehicle is considered a cultural statement. Forget about the strip-mall location, flanked by a Sizzler and a slew of depressing, empty storefronts. Focus…
Ireland’s Black Rose, 4341 North 75th Street, Scottsdale, 941-0040. Hours: Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 5 p.m. to 1 a.m. Almost 1,600 years ago, Saint Patrick converted Ireland’s heathens to Christianity and drove all the snakes into the sea. But before the pope sent…
Felsen Haus, 1008 East Camelback, Phoenix, 277-1119. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 4 p.m. to closing; Sunday, noon to closing. If Family Feud surveyed 100 people with the question, “Name something associated with Germany,” I suspect the top half-dozen answers would…
Wolfie’s, 5010 East Shea, Phoenix, 991-0707. Hours: Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Saturday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Remember the most memorable hamburger you ever had? Lee Iacocca does. In his best-selling autobiography, he lovingly…
Un-Bacio Ristorante, 4400 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 994-0606. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Friday, 4:30 to 11:30 p.m.; Saturday, 4 p.m. to midnight; Sunday, 4 to 10:30 p.m. Great scientific theories that upset conventional thinking require lots of research before the world…
Jerome’s, 4503 Paradise Road, Las Vegas, 1-702-792-9539. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Dinner, seven days a week, 5 to 11 p.m. Every Super Bowl weekend, I make a male-bonding, gambling-and-eating pilgrimage to Las Vegas with two old buddies. This is the neon forest primeval, where…
T-Bone Steak House, 10037 South 19th Avenue, Phoenix, 276-0945. Hours: 5 to 11 p.m., seven days a week. All over the country, people pick up on the little clues that signal the change of seasons. Back East, for example, autumn is on the way when the nights turn brisk and…
Hops! Bistro and Brewery, 7000 East Camelback, Scottsdale, 945-HOPS. Hours: Lunch, 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., seven days a week; Dinner, Sunday through Wednesday, 5:30 to 10 p.m.; Thursday through Saturday, 5:30 to 10:30 p.m. You have to wonder about the state of American education. My kids may not be…
Haji-Baba, 1513 East Apache, Tempe, 894-1905. Hours: Monday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 6 p.m. When you walk into any marketplace in the Middle East, you’re likely to be assaulted. But not by thugs, terrorists or revolutionaries, those staples of television news, pulp fiction and…
Great Wall, 5055 North 35th Avenue, Phoenix, 973-1112. Dim Sum Hours: Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. There are three times in life when you should choose your partner very carefully: when you get married, when you climb Mount Everest…
Todd’s, 8380 East Via de Ventura, Scottsdale, 443-9100. Hours: Lunch, Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 11 p.m. Everyone starts the new year with high hopes. Horse trainers who can outrun their 3-year-old nags think about the Kentucky Derby. Unpublished novelists stand…
Casa Carmen, 6840 North 35th Avenue, Phoenix, 973-8556. Hours: Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The hustle and bustle of the holidays are just about over, and I’ve got a long list of things I don’t want to see again…
Timothy’s, 6335 North 16th Street, Phoenix, 277-7634. Hours: Dinner, 5 p.m. to midnight, seven days a week. A.J. Liebling, the great New Yorker wit, once spun out his version of the ultimate male fantasy. The first part of the evening naturally involved a cooperative young blonde. After a passionate session,…
CasseRoley’s, 8021 East Roosevelt, Scottsdale, 945-0198. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 5 to 9 p.m. I’m a Dan Quayle, family-oriented sort of guy. Our family bond is tight, our values firm. My wife and I both agree, for example, that we…
Sitting in a defensive-driving class the other day, I was reminded of those Raymond Carver short stories. You know the ones I mean. Everything is so calm and ordinary, but the surface only covers a desperate unhappiness. At any rate, I was there because I am one of the city’s…
Havana Patio Cafe, 6245 East Bell Road, Phoenix, 991-1496. Hours: Tuesday through Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 9 p.m. In these politically correct times, everyone knows Columbus didn’t discover the New World–he stumbled onto it. He and those who sailed after him shared a common human…
Kibitz Delicatessen and Restaurant, 430 East Bell Road, Phoenix, 548-1918. Hours: Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. A receding hairline and an expanding paunch are not the only signs of growing older. I look in the mirror and ask: What…
Il Forno, 4225 East Camelback, Phoenix, 952-1522. Hours: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week. Uh-oh. Whenever I hear the mandolin strains of “Santa Lucia” and “Come Back to Sorrento” as I enter an Italian pasta restaurant, I’ve not only got a fix on the decor and menu,…
Landmark Restaurant, 809 West Main, Mesa, 962-4652. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11:30 a.m. to 2 p.m.; Dinner, Monday through Saturday, 4 to 9 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 7 p.m. Do you ever get tired of rich French sauces? Do you recoil from spicy Szechuan cuisine? Do Indian curries turn…
