I ate at four new places in my run through Arizona last week, as well as hitting several old favorites – The Hillside Spot, FnB, Crêpe Bar, Matt’s Big Breakfast, and Cartel Coffee – and making a day trip to San Diego, where I went to The Mission for breakfast and Juniper & Ivy for dinner around a visit to see Brooks Lee play. I’m thrilled to see so many places still open given the industry attrition during the pandemic.
Fabio on Fire is an Italian restaurant out in Peoria, less than ten minutes from the Padres/Mariners complex, across Lake Pleasant Parkway from Sala Thai, which I recommended in October. Fabio was indeed running around the restaurant, although he was not actually on fire himself. I went with a friend for the pizzas, which were fantastic, Neapolitan-adjacent but with more toppings than you’d find in traditional Neapolitan pizza. I got the white pizza with prosciutto and arugula, one of my favorite combinations, and it was a real effort to stop eating it at the two-thirds mark. The edges are crusty but not charred, so I assume their oven temp is a little lower than the traditional Neapolitan standard, and have the flavor and texture you get from slow fermentation. There was so much on the pizza it could hardly hold the weight of the toppings, and despite a generous amount of prosciutto and shaved Parmiggiano on top, the balance of salt was good. We also shared a starter of fried calamari and zucchini that was a little underdone.
Myke’s Pizza is located in Mesa inside Cider Corps, a huge craft cider bar with a great selection of crisp ciders on draft with different flavors. Myke’s grew out of a successful pizza truck business and operates independently in the same space – the cider folks seat you, then you go to the pizza stand in back to order food. I got the arugula pizza, a margherita with smoked gouda and arugula added. It’s not quite Neapolitan style, but probably closest to that among common types of pizza, with a thin crust and a lot of air in the outer edge, just not as puffy on the outside or soft in the center. I enjoyed the cider as well, which for whatever reason never hits me the same way that beer does despite similar ABVs.
Kabob Grill-and-Go in downtown Phoenix has shown up on several best-of lists in the last year; I tried to go there during my trip to Fall League in October, but the wait for the food was too long for my narrow windows on those trips. I had some more time to work with this year, and was eating early enough that I only had to wait about 20 minutes, which is around the minimum they request for any order, to get my food. I went with the chicken thigh platter, which was probably two meals’ worth of food: two skewers of incredibly flavorful grilled chicken thighs on a bed of rice with a grilled Anaheim pepper and two enormous grilled tomatoes, along with a side of sauce and a small shirazi (cucumber & parsley) salad. The food is Persian-Armenian, and I think what I ate was jujeh kabob, chicken marinated in saffron, onion, garlic, and lemon juice. It was bursting with flavor – salty, tangy, a little spicy, the kind of dish you want to keep eating even when it’s too hot to eat or you’re already kind of full, both of which I experienced. The rice had very little taste, even of salt, so I assume the point is to just eat it with the meat. When I go again, and I will, I’m going to get one skewer and get a grilled eggplant salad on the side instead.
Da Vàng is a popular Vietnamese place in Phoenix just east of I-17, in an area with a cluster of other Vietnamese restaurants; it made Eater’s top 38 restaurants for Phoenix last May, a useful resource that includes many restaurants I already know and like (Tratto, Welcome Diner, Barrio Café, Glai Baan, Pizzeria Bianco, FnB, Little Miss BBQ, Chou’s Kitchen, Haji Baba, and Tacos Chiwas). It’s solid and very reasonably priced, with all of the staples I am used to seeing on Vietnamese menus; I went with a scout friend and we ordered spring rolls, bun (vermicelli noodles), and the savory crepe called bánh xèo, a crispy rice-flour pancake folded over a filling of shrimp and pork. I’d recommend getting that regardless of what else you order.