Welcome to Chow Bella’s Bites & Dishes, where Valley chefs and restaurateurs respond to a question New Times food critic Laura Hahnefeld has on her mind. Have a question you’d like to ask? E-mail laura.hahnefeld@newtimes.com. Miss a question? Go here. Black cats, the evil eye, knocking on wood — most…
If you’ve visited Stanley’s Homemade Polish Sausage Company on McDowell Road lately in search of a damn good smoked sausage sandwich (or other meaty delights) only to find it shuttered with a sign on the window noting the address and hours of its retail-only location on Bell Road, fear not…
Spring is fast becoming a distant memory, but Dwayne Allen and Danielle Leoni of The Breadfruit and Rum Bar captured a lovely bit of it and stuck it in a jar. About two months back, they found a lemon tree loaded with blossoms (more on that momentarily). What they eventually…
Not the prettiest sounding word to American ears, you could call larb (pronounced “lawb”), the meat salad originating in the country of Laos, by its “street” name: Lao-style, or Laotian-style, salad. No matter what the moniker, this meat-minded, fresh, and spicy salad, regarded as the national dish of Laos, is…
From now ’til we publish the 2012 edition of Best of Phoenix, New Times and Chow Bella present 100 Tastemakers — Valley residents who make the cut in our culinary scene. Some you’ll know; for others, it’ll be a first introduction (but likely not the last). While you’re here, check…
Lori Hashimoto Hana Japanese Eatery 5524 N. Seventh Avenue 602-973-1238 www.hanajapaneseeatery.com This is part two of my interview with Lori Hashimoto, co-owner and sushi chef at Hana Japanese Eatery. In case you missed it, you can read part one of my interview with Lori Hashimoto of Hana Japanese Eatery, which…
So you’re planning on jumping the hipster bandwagon and getting a farm animal. No judgment here — chickens yield free eggs, goats give free milk, and micro pigs are, well, a mess, but if Clooney can fall for the real deal, so can we. But before you start building a…
For those of you lamenting downtown’s lack of exciting restaurant choices, please direct your attention for a moment to an arguably more disturbing development going on at the intersection of Seventh Avenue and McDowell Road — an intersection that touches the F.Q. Story, Willo, and Encanto-Palmcroft historic districts — and…
Lori Hashimoto Hana Japanese Eatery 5542 N. Seventh Avenue 602-973-1238 www.hanajapaneseeatery.com This is part one of my interview with Lori Hashimoto, co-owner and sushi chef of Hana Japanese Eatery. You can read part two of the interview with Lori Hashimoto of Hana Japanese Eatery here. To understand Lori Hashimoto, you…
From now ’til we publish the 2012 edition of Best of Phoenix, New Times and Chow Bella present 100 Tastemakers — Valley residents who make the cut in our culinary scene. Some you’ll know; for others, it’ll be a first introduction (but likely not the last). While you’re here, check…
When a new spot opens in town, we can’t wait to check it out — and let you know our initial impressions, share a few photos, and dish about some menu items. First Taste, as the name implies, is not a full-blown review, but instead a peek inside restaurants that…
When news broke last week that Urban Grocery and Wine Bar was closing, it didn’t take long for the rumor to start circulating that an undisclosed chef had expressed interest in the space. Turns out, the rumor was true. Aaron Chamberlin, chef-owner of St. Francis, confirms for Chow Bella that…
Every week, there’s a cornucopia of new Phoenix food news, features, and reviews to report here at Chow Bella. If you’re like most people, you probably just don’t have the time to get to all of it. It’s kind of like those burgers at Old Town Whiskey; it just won’t…
Latin American cuisine often gets grouped together in one big category, but since the region spreads across two continents, it should go without saying that the culinary traditions are incredibly diverse. Located on the Western coast of South America, Peru offers very different tastes than the Mexican cuisine that Arizonans…
From now ’til we publish the 2012 edition of Best of Phoenix, New Times and Chow Bella present 100 Tastemakers — Valley residents who make the cut in our culinary scene. Some you’ll know; for others, it’ll be a first introduction (but likely not the last). While you’re here, check…
Happy Mother’s Day weekend to all you moms out there! I hope the kiddos take you somewhere nice to eat and shower you with presents (and if they still need a little help figuring where to take you, send them the link to our Mother’s Day Brunch/Dinner Roundup). My kids,…
We had so much fun chucking Chow Bella contributors Ando Muneno and Lauren Saria into the ring over Alton Brown and food trucks, we put them back at it again. This week’s topic: Dine-in movie theaters. Lauren: A few weeks ago, a friend invited me to a screening of a…
It’s been nearly a week since news broke that the Urban Grocery will be closing Saturday, May 12, at 5 p.m. Now that the dust has settled and tempers have cooled, it’s easier to see why. And why it’s highly unlikely — despite all petitions, protests, and the creation of…
This week, we brought you the story of La Fontanella, the Italian restaurant in Arcadia owned by Isabella Mannone-Bertuccio. For nearly three decades she’s been serving her authentic Italian cuisine to Valley diners looking for a taste of the Old World. Her story began with her parent’s restaurant in Chicago…
Recently on Pinterest I came across the idea that one could actually clean nasty old cookie sheets to the point where they looked new. Immediately I envisioned myself sharing my own image like the one below: Before I go on, I have to tell you that I know how to…
Like a Cuban cigar, a decent Cuban sandwich can be tough to find. A take on mixto sandwiches in Cuba and an invention of cigar workers in Tampa’s Ybor City in the early 1900s by Spanish, Italian, and Cuban immigrants fleeing poverty to seek new lives in America, the main…
Cilantro and its distinct flavor are to food (and food blogs) what abortion, immigration, and gun control are to a presidential election.
