Food & Drink

When it comes to restaurant openings, I’m like a hungry kid who wants another helping of mac ‘n’ cheese. Another new place? Yes, please! The latest place I’m looking forward to checking out is called dish: a food experience, a new market and bistro that’s set to open this Friday,…

Wow, this is a first: having a server blame you for your shitty food. I met my friend at Pho Bang for lunch — we usually frequent Da Vang — and her order of catfish came out smelling very, very wrong. She told me to taste it to see if…

If this were 16th-century Europe, David Pham would be considered a renaissance man. Not only does Pham, hands-on owner of Bamboo Bakery on West Glendale Avenue, have a degree in computer science from Phoenix College, he’s also an artist and painter, as well as a radio host whose weekly, three-hour…

A cute little ningyoyaki (spongy cake filled with, you guessed it, sweet red bean paste) that says “Kaminari Mon” (Thunder Gate, the famous gate at Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa). Does it remind you of the Phoenix skyline? (Ha.) The view from the observation level of Roppongi Hills was almost as…

The day after I got back to Tokyo, my sweetie and another friend and I trekked up to Mt. Takao, outside the city. So many restaurants have plastic models of food on display outside, but at one place, they had a cute display made out of papier-mache. Engrish is everywhere!…

The lunch set at Imobou, this tiny restaurant on the northern edge of Maruyama Park in Kyoto. The place has been there for generations, and it’s famous for the dish on the lower left: a kind of boiled potato with dried cod. I dutifully ate it, but it had a…

Edible souvenirs in Himeji: Bean-paste-filled pancakes with images of Himeji Castle. Can you imagine having this right in the middle of town? This castle is the pride and joy of Himeji, a.k.a. Phoenix’s sister city in Japan. I’d been there eight years ago, but it was fun all over again…

Aw, thanks for worrying about me, guys! Everything’s cool, I’m alive and well, but just a little jet-lagged. As some of you know, and some have correctly guessed, I was on my annual jaunt to Japan, this time for a bit longer than in years past. My pre-vacay trying-to-get-ahead workload…

Last August, when I heard that Sabuddy, the popular Israeli restaurant in Tempe, had opened a second location in Scottsdale, I took it as a sign of progress (and felt a pang of envy of folks who live and work near the new spot on Shea Boulevard). I’m not a…

When I heard chef Brian Ford was opening his own place, I got excited. The last place on his resumé was Quiessence, the wonderful fine dining spot at the Farm at South Mountain, so I expected something good from Madelyn’s Restaurant & Wine Bar. But when I heard the new…

Just when you thought the intersection of 40th Street and Campbell couldn’t get any more mobbed, along comes radioMILANO, the latest hotspot from LGO Hospitality (the folks behind Postino, La Grande Orange, and Chelsea’s Kitchen). Imagine a cocktail-centric Postino with the frenetic, open-kitchen buzz of La Grande Orange, and then…

If you’ve been pining for piroshki (Russia’s answer to the Hot Pocket) like your dear departed babushka used to make — or maybe jonesing for some nose hair-singeing adjika sauce from Georgia (and we don’t mean Jimmy Carter’s peanut-peddling state) — your feeble prayers to the ex-Soviet culinary gods have…

I just confirmed with the folks at Market Street at DC Ranch that two upscale eateries — The Tavern and Baroque Luxe Lounge — closed at the end of last week. The former started off as Star-Spangled Tavern, a spendy comfort food concept from Blue Wasabi owner Jimmy Carlin and…

In observation of National Independents Week (clever name!), Local First Arizona, the new face of Arizona Chain Reaction, is offering a sweet 20 percent discount coupon for 35 participating local businesses (including lots of great restaurants, such as Kazimierz, Duck & Decanter, Twisted, Uncorked, and more) if you pledge to…

So I heard from Carson Quinn yesterday. He’s the owner of Camus, the scene-y bar/restaurant at the Clarendon that’s been closed since late April. Quinn couldn’t talk about the current legal troubles between Camus and the Clarendon that spawned from the incident that shut down the restaurant, but he did…

Just because Phoenix doesn’t have a Little Italy doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of Italians here. You just have to know where to look. A few months ago, when I was researching a story about Arlecchino Gelateria (“The Big Chill,” May 3), I was pleasantly surprised to see so many…

According to Ben Bethel, the owner and general manager at the Clarendon, a new restaurant will debut at the hotel by late summer. It’ll be called C4, and the menu will feature casual Asian fusion dishes with a Southwestern touch — sunomono with chili flakes, gyoza with habanero sauce, ramen…

For me, reviewing restaurants is so personal, so subjective, that it’s hard to imagine anyone doing it with an actual checklist in hand. But for employees of AAA whose full-time job involves judging more than 60,000 dining establishments across the nation, determining a restaurant’s Diamond Rating comes with a set…

Hey, it’s nice to finally see some more action at Artisan Village — Sister’s Homestyle Cafe Express just opened for business last Friday, serving barbecue, fried chicken, jambalaya, and all those tasty-sounding sides that caught your attention in the subject line. (Sorry — I make myself hungry, too, just so…