Happy Cinco de Mayo, Chow Bella readers! Last week, we got your mouth watering with our Salsa Showdown — four different salsa recipes prepared by our contributors, all sampled by yours truly. They were so good, I made a mini-meal out of them, nibbling back and forth between Claire’s deliciously…
Happy Cinco, everyone! In honor of the Mexican holiday that most Mexicans don’t actually celebrate, we’re battling the most gringo-friendly item on any Mexican restaurant menu: fajitas. You can’t help but love a dish that arrives on your table sizzling. For this week’s battle, we pitted one margarita-inspired restaurant against another. After…
Carol Blonder Fresh Green Almonds Beginning this week, I’ll be writing a weekly entry called “Ask the Chef”. Who am I, you might ask? My name is Carol Blonder. I’ve been contributing to Chow Bella for a few weeks. I have worked as a pastry chef, private chef, caterer and culinary…
Our sister paper, Westword, has a tasty interview today with Mark Tarbell. His Phoenix restaurant, Tarbell’s, has long been a Valley favorite, and he also runs two organic pizza joints in the Denver area. The always-entertaining Tarbell — one of his claims to fame is beating Cat Cora on Iron…
Executive Chef Payton Curry of The Original Caffe Boa on MillAve. and Caffe Boa Bistro is best known for championing the farm-to-tabledining philosophy in Arizona. What is the best dish your mother ever made? My mother makes the world’s greatest chicken noodle soup. It’s something that I crave when I…
An early morning serving of food news, with no preservatives or additives. It’s Cinco de Mayo or cinco de drinko yourself sick on margs and tequila shots. Either way, it’s an excuse to get out on a Wednesday. Don’t have any plans? Click here and find something to do with…
photo by Claire Lawton Nick Sheley’s boss, Chef Payton Curry is hard to catch. Between his two restaurants, Caffe Boa in Tempe and the newly opened Boa Bistro in Mesa, Curry clocks in around 90 hours per week. Luckily, we were able to nab his sous chef for a quick rundown on…
On the list of things that can’t be ignored, a box full of beer is fairly high. So you’ll understand my position when I tell you that this is the precise situation I currently find myself in. Sitting in and about my office are no fewer than twenty bottles of…
The process of choosing which restaurants to review is a perennial subject of inquiry. How do you decided where to go? Does someone assign it to you? Actually, I pick the places, although I’m always open to suggestions (especially since I spend so much time picking people’s brains about where…
A quick run down of our new food friends the month of April introduced us to. Echo Coffee Chez Vous Creperie & Gelato Lush Burger Calico Jack’s Big Daddy’s BBQ Thai Café in Chandler Tara Thai Zoyo Frozen Yogurt (red velvet frozen yogurt — Thank you!) Bogey’s Steak and Seafood…
Cheba Hut “Toasted Subs” is silly. Cheech and Chong posters on the wall, big paper mache blunts hanging from the ceiling that say “order here,” and a menu that reads like an honor roll of marijuana varietals over the years. Most of the sandwiches have been named after strains of…
. What is the best dish your mother ever made? Sweet and sour meatballs from scratch. No frozen store-bought meatballs. We didn’t have that when I was a kid…
How well do you know your favorite cookhouse contraptions? See if you can guess today’s gadget and check back next week for the answer, and to see if you’ve won a most-awesome prize. Here are a few shots at this week’s trickster, add yours to the comment box below: -…
Our calendar is chock-full of pointless holidays: Sweetest Day, Arbor Day, National Boss Day, there’s even a National Children’s Day (yeah, like they need another one). So when a holiday in May comes along called National Burger Month, I don’t ask questions. What’s the history of it? Who knows? Where…
Painter Suzanne Falk, who is part of the Seventh Avenue Streetscape in Phoenix, has a show at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale through the end of May. What’d you eat for dinner last night? Yellow curry with tofu and veggies. Favorite food: Fruits and veggies or Odwalla Sweet and Salty…
An early morning serving of food news, with no preservatives or additives. From now until Sunday, May 8th, show your support for finding a cure for breast cancer. Bake for Hope Week is a nationwide, volunteer-run bake sale event with all proceeds donated to Susan G. Komen for the Cure…
Sitting at Welcome Diner this afternoon, we asked the folks behind MF Tasty, a monthly “secret” dinner (or in this case lunch) held at a different location each time, what the MF stands for. Chef Eric, the culinary mastermind behind the event, told us that if his grandmother’s around it…
On the list of things that can’t be ignored, a box full of beer is fairly high. So you’ll understand my position when I tell you that this is the precise situation I currently find myself in. Sitting in and about my office are no fewer than twenty bottles of…
A few months ago, owners Marcellino and Sima Verzino of Marcellino Ristorante announced that they were leaving their longtime home on Northern Ave. in Phoenix for classier digs in Scottsdale’s SouthBridge plaza. Regulars — and believe us, there were plenty of em’! — worried that a Scottsdale Marcellino’s would lose…
Salsa fundamentals=tomatoes, peppers (hot or not), onion, garlic, salt and lime juice. We love it to drape, drizzle or dip. The mood and the accompanying food encourage enhancements to salsa fundamentals. This time it was a little sweet (the mango), and a little heat (chipotle and adobo). The avocado snuck…
