Recently, I was struck by some pleasant surprises at District, a downtown eatery that didn’t exactly give me high hopes from the get-go. And this week, I find myself considering the exact opposite kind of place: a restaurant where I couldn’t help but have inflated expectations. In business since late…
As I’ve written before, here in Phoenix we have amazing access to Mexican sodas – not to mention a store that sells nothing but soda – making this a truly great place to explore unusual soft drinks. Peñafiel Strawberry isn’t quite an obscure soft drink, but it’s not widely available…
Who’s hungry for some hot meat? You know you want it, and the folks at Scottsdale’s brand-new Fogo de Chao (6300 N. Scottsdale Rd.) are happy to serve it up just the way the gauchos like it in Brazil. At this traditional churrascaria, servers bring around 15 different sizzling cuts of meat and serve…
After posting about Luc’s sudden shutdown yesterday, I heard a rumor that Luc’s won’t change its concept to Bistro G after all. Apparently the landlords at El Pedregal wouldn’t approve the new concept unless the restaurant owners committed to keeping Bistro G open seven days a week, for both lunch…
Gotta love the name: Recession Proof Tuesdays at Tapino Kitchen & Wine Bar. It’s the budget-friendly new event that launches tonight, and it looks like a great excuse to knock back a few. They’re offering all of their more than 300 bottles of wine for half off, and it’s only…
I spent a few years living in Seattle, and today feels just like a typical day up there — gloomy and gray, with softly falling rain and car headlights making everything a little fuzzy and shiny. In a typical week, I’d eat Vietnamese food at least three times for lunch. So today,…
A big Italian feast sounds good any time of year, but somehow the chilly weather this time of year makes it so much easier to splurge on platters of prosciutto, luscious homemade pastas, and meats dressed up with pancetta or wild mushrooms or heady sauces. On that note, Sassi’s executive chef Peter…
Nope. Luc’s is no more. In a little more than a year in business, the swanky El Pedregal restaurant went through four chefs and a couple of concept switcheroos, from Asian fusion to contemporary American. Why did it close? Was it because nobody could get “Luc’s sucks” out of their head…
There’s no such thing as too much pizza. Good pizza, that is. And in this instance, I’m thinking of the crispy-chewy pies they turn out at Humble Pie, at Scottsdale’s Hilton Village. You can’t find toppings like shrimp and burrata with basil and lemon zest just anywhere. But now you lucky…
When preparing food, one must not discount the importance of presentation. Perhaps this is the thought that has compelled the artist behind “Lunch Bag Art” to present his children with stunning, hand-drawn pieces right on their brown lunch sacks. Unfortunately, we can not know for sure. The contents of his mind,…
Before I forget, I wanted to remind you to flip through that new issue of Bon Appetit that just landed in your mailbox the other day. I finally sat down to read mine, and guess what? The sidebar to the “A Chef’s Breakfast” feature lists Matt’s Big Breakfast as the…
Looking for a new breakfast option this weekend? A friend just passed along the news that La Piccola Cucina is opening in the a.m. this Saturday and Sunday. Check out the menu: La Piccola Cucina – Breakfast Menu.doc It sounds like this is on a trial basis — they’ll…
The torturous thing about watching Bravo’s Top Chef is that it tends to leave viewers with insatiable cravings for food that only exists in TV land. You watch the chefs hustle to create a dish, you cheer them on… and then, you go to bed very, very hungry. So here’s your…
My friend Pamela Hamilton, editor of Edible Phoenix, just sent an invitation to Chow Bella readers to vote online for this year’s Local Hero Awards, the annual accolades given to hard-working people in the culinary community. Friday’s the last day. If you’re familiar with the mag, then you’ll recognize the past…
In the past few months, a lot of local restaurants have postponed openings (indefinitely, for some), but the most high-profile, highly anticipated one is making its debut before the end of this year, as promised. It’s J&G Steakhouse, chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s upscale steakhouse at The Phoenician, scheduled to open on Monday,…
From indie restaurants to indie rock, my tastes are all about the little guy. I come from an entrepreneurial family, and I know a lot of small-business owners. And if given a choice, I prefer to stay in quirky little hotels when I travel. So it goes without saying that…
Normally the tasting team and I go in to these pop culture reviews on essentially equal footing, none of us terribly familiar with the product at hand. This time I threw the tasters — Jonathan, Jasmine, Peter and Jay — a bit of a curve ball, serving up one of my all-time favorite sodas, Wal-mart’s…
Johnny Chu is locked out of Fate, the downtown Asian restaurant he created six years ago. Longstanding disagreements between him and partner/landlord Norman Fox boiled over last Wednesday afternoon, when Chu says he discovered that Fox had changed all the locks on Fate and Next Door, and obtained a restraining order…
This news is bad enough to make any chocoholic ache with disappointment: Chatham Kitz, owner of Chatham’s Fine Chocolates, says he’ll be permanently closing the doors of his wonderful Camelback Road chocolate boutique by the end of this month. “We’ll be open ’til we sell all of our inventory, and that’s it,”…
Rumor has it that there’s been a split between Fate chef Johnny Chu (who recently opened Sens, the sake bar that I just reviewed) and owner/landlord Norman Fox, and that one of the key players involved in the restaurant has taken the liquor license. From the looks of the sign…
You’ve heard it before: Spend your hard-earned cash at local businesses, and that money will benefit your community a lot more than if you’d blown it at a national retailer or a chain restaurant. But there’s nothing wrong with a little reminder this time of year, when there’s too much shopping to…
Talk about filling a niche. When it comes to Asian food in downtown Phoenix, the offerings are definitely sparse, but now there’s a new restaurant that takes the scene a big leap in the right direction, catering to diners’ culinary wanderlust with Chinese, Japanese, Thai, and Vietnamese dishes. I’m talking…
