I must be paying for the sins of a past life. Why is it every time I locate a new sushi purveyor that I’d like to put into heavy rotation for my weekly feeding rounds, the joint is inevitably 30 minutes to an hour away from me? By Thor’s mighty…
On paper, the whole concept of tapas must seem a boon to money-grubbing restaurateurs everywhere, which is why nearly every upscale nightclub you waltz into these days serves what they refer to as “American” or “International” tapas, basically a catchall meaning, “Tonight, we’ll be serving you a third of the…
The ofays in this town would starve without Mexicans, whether legal, illegal, or full-blown citizens. Seems like just about every eatery in Maricopa County has Spanish-speaking help in the cocina, from cheapo fast-food outlets and slow-food bistros to those wallet-draining nose-in-the-clouds gourmet spots that bother with only the highest of…
In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been burning a humongo hole in my billfold the past few weeks, eating out at all these high-dollar grubbaterias, and stacking so much credit card debt that Visa should consider taking out a life insurance policy on me. How else would the company survive…
If there’s any place in town that has me daydreaming about bloody guillotines and headless aristocrats, it’s Kierland Commons, though my 18th-century fantasy is more Monty Python than History Channel. First, we’ll erect the infernal machine in front of Restoration Hardware, with executions beginning at noon. All Cialis-popping, nouveau riche…
Halfway through the slightly acidic creaminess of my sorrel bisque, and well into a second bottle of value-priced Pinot Noir with my dining companions, I feel unusually blessed. Seated amidst the colorful hodgepodge of art and antiques that is the Backstreet Wine Salon, all alone on a Thursday night (save…
Hoist the Belgian tricolor and strike up that kingdom’s national anthem, “La Brabançonne.” Chart a course for the ancient port city of Antwerp, and make it snappy. We sail for the land that gave us mystery writer Georges Simenon and the Singing Nun, Audrey Hepburn and René Magritte, pommes frites…
I’d have a rough time coining a more idiotic name for a restaurant than “Cocono’s,” the d.b.a. of the new West Valley venture brought to us by members of the Salazar family, proprietors of the mostly mediocre Manuel’s Mexican Restaurants. The handle’s too close to “Coco’s,” that family-friendly peddler of…
I’ve had New Orleans on the cerebrum lately, and not just because the Katrina disaster remains an open sore on the American body politic. I picked up this recently published comic novel Tremble and Ennui by New Orleanian Edgar Nicaud the other day, and had great fun following its ne’er-do-well…
Holy headcheese, not another freakin’ Irish place! Now, don’t ruffle your kilts, lads. After all, it is St. Paddy’s Day, and this is the only time of the year I’d bother writing up two new purveyors of Celtic comestibles in a row. Last week, it was Scottsdale’s smashing Skeptical Chymist,…
Irish Disneylands? You bet they exist. Actually, I’m as sure that Shane MacGowan likes his Jameson that you’ve been to one. Hard to avoid ’em in this town or any other American city. They’re called Irish pubs. And if a little green man approaches you in one of them and…
Outstanding sushi in the wiles of the northwest Valley? Yeah, right. Now you’ll be telling me that President Bush has been secretly planning to sell U.S. shipping ports to some Arabic-speaking emirate in the Persian Gulf. Huh? He did what? Guess I have to start watching Jon Stewart more often…
Would it trouble you terribly if I told you that I’m guilty of murder? The murder of a strapping, dark-haired chap, whom I’d only just met in Chandler? The homicide would cause me more grief had it not been so much bloody fun. Oh, I know I’ll suffer in the…
By the Great Seal of Solomon, they were the most treacherous 18 holes I’ve ever encountered in all my years as a golf enthusiast. I don’t know what made me want to hit the links in Mesa recently. Perhaps it was seeing Bill Murray at the FBR Open. Or catching…
How’s this for synchronicity, Carl Jung fans: I’m driving down Broadway in SoPo (a.k.a. South Phoenix), my windows open and my system blasting the title song of Damian Marley’s brilliant CD Welcome to Jamrock. My head’s in the clouds, and I’m lost. Lost in some daydream based on the end…
Did you know that the German fashion house Hugo Boss outfitted the Nazi SS during WWII? That many of the clocks in Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction are set to 4:20, a.k.a. international tokers’ time? Or that actor Kevin Spacey’s dad was supposedly such an impassioned admirer of Adolf Hitler that…
The classic rock jams filtering through the stereo system at the Yard House in Desert Ridge are hand-picked at the corp’s Irvine HQ by none other than The Founder himself, Steele Platt, whom I imagine as a dead ringer for The Architect in The Matrix Reloaded. Dressed in white, with…
I was home alone, meditating in the buff after a particularly sweaty yoga workout, when he appeared to me in a blaze of glory: the four-armed, elephant-headed Hindu deity Lord Ganesha, that potbellied avatar of wisdom, success and prosperity, revered on the Subcontinent and elsewhere as “the remover of obstacles.”…
Like Scottsdale really needs another Ho, one more glamour gal about town who lives to slink sexily through Valley nightlife, turning heads, breakin’ hearts and bleeding wallets dry. And yet, the newly revamped Hotel Valley Ho, with its recently completed $80 million face-lift and its George Jetson-Googie-Mid-Century swankiness, is really…
Selective amnesia and creative revisionism run rampant this time of year, like social diseases in a pre-penicillin bordello. I can’t frown too much upon my comrades in criticism for wanting to repress the negatives and stack up the positives in their year-end catchalls like a pack of lily-livered Panglosses. I’ve…
Anyone remember Uptown 713, that ghastly excuse for a grub-ateria that once occupied a little shoebox-size space behind Apollo’s Lounge, near Seventh Street and Bethany Home Road? Believe me, it’s not worth remembering. The only reason I haven’t completely erased it from the memory banks is that after I wrote…
It’s as if jolly ol’ Saint Nick himself laid a massive Yule log right in front of my Xmas fir with a missive ordering me to burn, baby, burn. Sure, this time of year, most good little boys and girls are having sugarplum dreams of iPods and Xboxes, but I’d…
