→ March 21, 2025
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Arizona eats, March 2025 edition.

The best thing I ate at any new (to me) restaurant this week was chicken, oddly enough. Mister Pio is a small Peruvian chicken spot in Arcadia that has a barebones menu: half chicken, quarter chicken, chicken sandwich, fries, drinks. The chicken comes with a side salad and aji verde sauce. The chicken is really incredible; I read online that it’s dry-brined with a mix of 21 spices (and then some) for two days, then it’s cooked for an hour and a half on a rotisserie over coals, but man, it’s just about perfect. It’s salty and deeply savory, and any fat under the skin has long rendered out, so the skin itself is paper-thin and just covered in flavor from the dry rub and the smoke, while the meat itself is extremely tender and juicy. The fries are fried to order (or at least mine were) and they’re properly salty. Mister Pio is only open noon to 8 pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Make a point of going if you’re anywhere in the vicinity – they’re less than 15 minutes from ASU’s park and not that much farther from Scottsdale.

Mensho Ramen is a Japanese chain that has three locations in California and now two in the Valley, one in Phoenix (where I went) and one in Mesa. Their menu is very simple, with just two broth types, one from chicken and one vegan, although the predominant protein across the entire menu is beef, specifically A5 Wagyu. I had their signature ramen, replacing the Wagyu with extra duck, although the pork was the best of the three proteins (there’s also chicken). This is really about the broth, which is as rich and savory as a typical tonkotsu broth, and the noodles, which are a little thicker than you might normally find, and are truly al dente. There’s less extra stuff in the bowl unless you chose more add-ins, but it doesn’t need anything more than the noodles and broth if the goal is flavor – and I say that as someone who likes all of the stuff you can typically add to ramen, like fish cakes or mushrooms or bamboo shoots. This is just exceptionally good, umami-rich broth, and I would guess it’s hard to mess up when you start with a base that good.

Uchi recently opened an outpost in Scottsdale, the seventh location of the award-winning sushi & Japanese restaurant by Beard winner Tyson Cole, whose first location is still going in Austin. (Now-disgraced Top Chef winner Paul Qui got his start there as well.) It’s a splurge meal to put it mildly, but this is some of the best raw fish I have ever had anywhere, and the best dishes I had during the omakase were generally the simplest. Highlights included the flounder, the Tasmanian ocean trout, the New Zealand king salmon, and their signature dessert called “fried milk,” which has a dark chocolate ganache, sweet cream ice cream, chocolate wafers, and little fried orbs that taste of coffee and whatever cereal they use that day as the coating. The worst dish was the grilled hamachi collar, which was an enormous portion but slightly overcooked and lacking much flavor on its own. It’s one of the most expensive meals I’ve ever had, so even saying “it was worth it” seems hollow, but at the least I can say that you are getting exceptional quality of ingredients for the cost.

Sfizio Modern Italian Kitchen is up north on the 101 just off the Tatum Road exit, run by a Calabrese chef named Rocco (of course). They make their pasta in house, so even though the pizzas looked good (baked in a giant oven right off the dining room), I had to go with the rigatoni alla vodka, which was delicious and different than any version I’ve had before. The sauce was extremely light in color and totally smooth, so I assume it used tomato paste or passata, and had no pork in it, coming with a dollop of fresh ricotta on top. I make it with onion, pancetta or guanciale (or bacon), hand-crushed tomatoes, and basil, so it’s a chunkier sauce with more texture. Vodka sauce isn’t a traditional Italian dish, and there’s a dispute over whether it’s even Italian in origin, so there’s no “right” or authentic way to make it. As long as you don’t overdo the cream, I’m probably going to like it. My friend and I split the focaccia starter, which comes with a delicious pesto-ricotta blend, but the focaccia itself was obviously made that day and served its primary function, sopping up some of the sauce that remained when I finished the pasta. The chef more or less forced me to try the tiramisu for dessert, and I appreciated the fact that it was less sweet than most varieties, with a little more kick from the rum. I do want to go back to try the pizza, though.

The Nach is a food truck parked inside the patio at the bar Sazerac downtown, around the corner from Futuro Coffee and the original (ish) Matt’s Big Breakfast location, serving al pastor, chicken, and shrimp street tacos, burritos, and quesadillas with a few additional items and sides. The chicken was better than the shrimp, with much more flavor to the meat itself, and I would definitely get the $2 guacamole as an add-on, which is more than enough to add to all three tacos and maybe have a little left over. The chicken was salty and slightly tart from its sauce, while the shrimp was perfectly cooked but under seasoned.

Beginner’s Luck is a new all-day outpost from the folks behind Citizen Public House and the Gladly, and eater.com recommended their breakfast in particular. I had their breakfast sandwich, as the server wavered when I asked whether she recommended that or the shakshuka, and it was fine, a good breakfast sandwich, a better iteration of the kind you get at First Watch or the like. I want to try a different meal there before coming to any real judgment but this wasn’t worth returning for breakfast beyond the cool space tucked in an alley just around the corner from Old Town.

I did play more of the hits, so to speak, returning to some old favorites. I went to Citizen Public House for the first time at least since before the pandemic; the menu has changed – the crispy salmon was outstanding, especially the sherry beurre blanc, and they still make the best Negroni for whatever reason – but the vibe is the same. Tacos Chiwas still has the best tacos I’ve had out in the Valley, but I went to Cocina Chiwas again and was disappointed in the food this time around. The menu is more beef-centered than I remembered, and the more vegetable-forward dishes I ordered were underpowered. Pane Bianco is now serving New York-style pizza by the slice, although the day I got there they had already sold out, so I had to suffer through their focaccia-style pizza, which was outstanding as always. Pizzeria Virtu was solid, although everything was maybe a half-grade down from the first time I went there. was I stopped in to Los Altos Public Market for one of their giant shortbread cookies and an agua Fresca, something I haven’t done in years but that I used to do every visit when I first went to ESPN and started coming to Arizona once and then twice a year. I did breakfasts at the Hillside Spot, Crèpe Bar, and Matt’s, as usual. I had coffee at Cartel (twice), Futuro (once, great space but you get some characters in there), and Giant (once), which is my favorite space to sit and write anywhere in the Valley, and Giant’s now using their own beans after they’d switched to ROC, a local roaster that goes darker than I like. I didn’t get to Valentine, which was recommended to me by two different baseball people, but that’s on the hit list for the next trip.

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→ March 9, 2025
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Stick to baseball, 3/8/25.

I had two columns this week for subscribers to The Athletic – a ranking of the top 30 prospects for this year’s draft, and a scouting notebook on Oregon State, Auburn, and high school shortstop Kayson Cunningham.

I’m on the run, so let’s get to the links…

  • Musk’s goons disbanded the technology office known as 18F, which existed to develop projects designed to improve government efficiency. Some of the former employees have set up a site to explain and defend their work.
  • The Texas A&M Board of Regents voted to ban all drag shows at the entire campus network, a pretty clear First Amendment violation. FIRE has sued to block the ban.
  • Our genius President referred to Lesotho as a country “nobody has ever heard of,” so the BBC published a story with nine facts about the tiny African country, which is entirely surrounded by South Africa.
  • Phoenix Children’s Hospital – where my daughter received care multiple times in the two-plus years we lived out there – has put a halt to gender-affirming care in obeisance to Trump’s (probably unconstitutional) executive orders. Absolute cowardice.
  • Louisiana’s Department of Health is ending its mass vaccination programs and banning promotion of seasonal vaccines like the one against the flu. That measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico has already killed at least three people with over 200 confirmed cases, by the way.
  • People who voted for Trump are now losing their government jobs. I really find it hard to muster any sympathy for these folks; if they claim they didn’t know what they were voting for, they weren’t paying enough attention before they went to the booth.

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→ June 17, 2024
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Stick to baseball, 6/17/24.

For subscribers to the Athletic, I posted my annual ten-year redraft, looking back at the 2014 draft class, plus the annual column on first-rounders from that class who didn’t pan out.

Over at Paste, I reviewed the new deduction game Archeologic, which I thought was too easy to solve and didn’t offer any new mechanics to make me want to play it more.

I sent out another edition of my free email newsletter last week, detailing my misadventures with travel and phone alarms.

And now, the links…

  • The four members of R.E.M. were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and sat down with CBS’s Anthony Mason to discuss the honor, their careers, their opposition to a reunion, and more.
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→ March 23, 2024
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Stick to baseball, 3/23/24.

At the Athletic, I wrote about a bunch of prospects I saw in the Cactus League, including two Breakout games; plus a list of six breakout candidates for 2024; as well as a Q&A with our fantasy expert Nando di Fino.

At Vulture, I wrote about the surge in cooperative tabletop games that started with Pandemic and then picked up during the … pandemic, really, along with a list of 14 of the best.

Now that this post is up I’ll begin the next edition of my free email newsletter.

And now, the links…

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→ March 22, 2024
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Arizona eats, March 2024.

So the most interesting meal I had on the trip wasn’t because of the food, but because two days after I ate at Cocina Madrigal, a kitchen fire broke out and closed the restaurant indefinitely. There were no injuries, and the structure was intact, so I’m hoping they won’t be closed for long. It’s a taqueria and tequileria that just does what it does exceptionally well – scratch tacos, enchiladas, and a few other items with very high-quality inputs. The tropical fish tacos came with a roasted salsa, a slaw of coconut, cabbage, and mango; and a mild chipotle aioli, and the fish was grilled, not fried, so I stumbled into the most healthful meal I had all week. I think the fish was mahi-mahi, but they didn’t identify it on the menu; it was very fresh, whatever it was, as were all of the vegetables, and the corn tortillas were some of the best I’ve had. Nana in Durham has long held that particular crown for fresh corn tortillas, but they have some competition here – these were still soft and tender even with some browning from the grill. I’m not even sure I’d even try anything else on the menu. Good luck to Chef Leo Madrigal in reopening soon.

Cocina Chiwas is the new full-service restaurant from Nadia Holguin and Armando Hernandez, the owners of the wildly successful Tacos Chiwas mini-chain in the Valley, and this rivals Bacanora and Barrio Café as the best high-end Mexican restaurant in the Valley. I went there with a pair of friends, so I tried quite a few dishes, with zero misses in the group. The elote is straightforward, but also a perfect exemplar of the popular grilled-corn dish. The asado de puerco (pork spare ribs) come with a rich, earthy chile colorado sauce along with beans, rice, and tortillas, but honestly I would put that sauce on anything. The oysters come with a jamaica and habanero mignonette, less spicy than you’d expect, more like a strong red wine vinaigrette because the astringency of the hibiscus. The “chile con queso” was not what I expected – it was roasted peppers, tomatoes, and onions with a topping of two mild white Mexican cheeses, and even as someone who’s not a huge fan of cow’s-milk cheese, I was all over this because the vegetables were so good and the cheese was an accent rather than the dominant flavor. And the carrot-cake tres leches with candied pecans and a berry compote was superb – by that point, I’d had enough to eat and drink that I needed a dessert with some punch to get through, and this offered it with plenty of sweetness plus some tang from the berries and bitterness from the cajeta (caramel) sauce. If I have a nit to pick, I didn’t love either cocktail I tried – their takes on a Manhattan and an Old-fashioned, both of which were fine but didn’t improve on the originals. Both drinks had a smoky flavor that overtook the rest of the ingredients.

Espiritu Mesa is the new East Valley outpost from the folks behind Bacanora, which might be the best restaurant in the Valley based on locals’ opinions plus my one time eating there. The drinks here were well ahead of the food, for better or worse. Their ceviche changes often, so what I got may not be what you get if you go this week, but I will vouch for the freshness of the fish and a tangy soy-lime base; it came with sliced radish and a lot of cilantro. The aguacate was just a big ol’ thing of guacamole, served with enormous chicharrones that were really hard to break or chew. I’d either skip that or ask for tortilla chips. You could have made a coat out of all of the pig’s skin on that plate. You’re really here for the drinks – you get a little book of their various signature cocktails, with lists of ingredients, descriptions of the flavors, and ratings by bitterness, booziness, sourness, and sweetness. I had two cocktails, the Maduro and the Desu Notu. The Maduro has charanda (a white rum from Mexico), reposado tequila, crème de banana, cocchi Americano (a bitter aperitif), and blackstrap and chocolate bitters. The Desu Noto (Death note) also has charanda and crème de banana, along with bacanora, an agave-based spirit similar to mezcal, along with palm sugar and chocolate bitters. I preferred the Desu Noto, which wasn’t as sweet and let the flavors of the two liquors come through more, although I’d gladly have either again.

Vecina calls its cuisine “Modern American, Latin-inspired,” and I have no idea what that even means, but the food was good so they can call themselves Tralfamadorian for all I care. This was my last meal before departing, so I was trying to keep it light after eating and drinking too much all week. The ceviche was classic Peruvian-style, marinated in leche de tigre (lime, garlic, onion, chile, fish stock) and tossed with some grilled pineapple and other veg, served with tortilla chips. I’m an easy mark for ceviche as long as the fish is fresh, and this was. The charred broccoli with cashew crema, fermented honey, and Thai sauce (again, not sure what that means other than that there was definitely fish sauce involved) was a new way of serving what is probably my favorite vegetable to cook at home, something I’ll try to adapt for the family. The broccolini were indeed lightly charred, but the combination of the other elements made for a sauce that was sweet, tangy, heavy on umami, and slightly fatty to cut any bitterness in the brassica itself. I had debated that versus the shaved Brussels sprouts, but that dish had dates and I have had two very odd allergic reactions to date syrup so I’m a little wary of them. I made a good call here. One note – parking is scarce and you may end up in a nearby lot.

Hodori is in a Mesa strip mall that’s a sort of ASEAN of food – there’s a Thai place, a Chinese place, two Japanese places, as well as this bare-bones Korean restaurant that serves various bulgogi and soft-tofu dishes. I went with some friends and we shared four dishes – a kimchi pancake, a seafood-scallion pancake, pork bulgogi, and seafood bibimbap. The seafood-scallion pancake won out for me, primarily because the kimchi pancake was so tangy and didn’t have enough to balance out the spice and the sourness. The pork bulgogi was also pretty spicy but the sauce had enough sweetness and umami (there’s usually soy sauce and some fermented product like gochujang in bulgogi) that the heat didn’t overtake the dish, and the pork was extremely tender. The total tab for all three of us, including some shoju and beer, was about $70 before tip.

I’m loyal to my breakfast spots – the Hillside Spot, Crepe Bar, and Matt’s Big Breakfast, all of which I hit while in Phoenix – but did try one new one in Ollie Vaughn’s, meeting my longtime friend (literally – I think we’ve been friends for 15+ years now) Nick Piecoro there. Their sausage and biscuit sandwich, with egg, cheese, and jalapeño marmalade on a buttermilk biscuit is a tremendous amount of food, and the biscuit just fell apart by the time I was halfway through it, but I have zero regrets. They use Schreiner’s sausage, the best sausage vendor in the Valley that I know.

Lom Wong was the one mildly disappointing meal of the trip, although it’s more about my palate than the food at this acclaimed northern Thai restaurant, where many of the recipes come from the chef’s extended family across Thailand. The green mango salad was pretty incredible, better than any similar dish (usually green papaya) I’ve ever had, with fried shallots, toasted coconuts and peanuts, a dressing of coconut milk, lime, and fish sauce, and “hand-torn” shrimp, which, well, I hope they were dead first? I ordered the arai kodai, in which the server picks dishes for you based on what you indicate you do/don’t like and your spice tolerance, but even after saying mine was pretty low, I ended up with a chicken dish that had just been added to the menu, very similar to larb gai, that tasted only of chile pepper and a little of cumin, which gave it the overall vibe of spicy dirt. I did enjoy the Three Kings cocktail, with dark rum, dry curaçao, fernet (an Italian amaro that’s very herbal), guava, palm sugar, and what I assume is a bitters from Som, founded by the chef-owner of Portland’s legendary Thai restaurant Pok Pok. It’s reminiscent of Caribbean rum cocktails, but far less sweet and cloying.

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→ October 17, 2023
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Arizona eats, 2023 edition.

Bacanora is one of the most acclaimed new restaurants in the country, landing on Bon Appetit’s list of the 50 best new restaurants of 2022, Esquire’s list of the same, and the New York Times’s list of the 50 best restaurants in the country, while it was a semifinalist for the James Beard award for best new restaurant. It’s very difficult to get a reservation, with seats opening a month in advance, but they do take walk-ins for bar seating and the patio, which is how I ended up with a spot right. I arrived just before they opened at 5 pm, which left me enough time to get to the 6:30 game in Glendale, and sat right at the bar, where I was eventually joined by another visitor from out of town who’d found the restaurant on Eater Phoenix (which does a great job covering the city’s food scene, along with the Phoenix New Times). I ordered two dishes on the bartender’s recommendations, the charred cabbage salad and the scallops elote, the latter of which is a ceviche in disguise. The cabbage salad was the best thing I ate on the entire trip and one of the best dishes I’ve had anywhere this year. There’s a wood-fired grill/hearth right there just past the end of the bar, and the cabbage (white and/or green) is indeed charred and smoky, chopped and tossed with a chiltepin vinaigrette, crema, pumpkin seeds, and crumbled tostada shells. It was tangy and spicy and very crunchy, unlike any cabbage dish I’ve ever had, so much so that I’m going to buy cabbage this week, grill it, and try to at least re-create this ‘salad’ in concept. The scallops elote did sort of pale in comparison, although the freshness of the scallops was remarkable in the seafood desert (pun intended) of Phoenix. Raw shellfish preparations are one of the few foods that make me hesitate, probably because I grew up on Long Island during a period when there were frequent health warnings about the risks of eating raw local oysters (which happened again this summer, this time after several deaths from Vibrio parahaemolyticus). These bay scallops were tender and had a faint flavor of seawater, although they were a little drowned by the flavors from the elote, grilled corn with two different types of crema, one spicy and one lime-infused, and comes with tostada sheets for scooping to add a little more salt and some more crunch. The menu, which reflects the flavors of the Sonora state in northwestern Mexico, changes very frequently, and neither of the items I had is on the permanent menu on their site, so you’re rolling the dice a little if you book ahead of time. I’m comfortable saying it’ll be worth it regardless.

Hai Noon is the latest restaurant from chef Nobuo Fukuda, a legend in Phoenix dining circles and a Beard winner for Best Chef – Southwest back in 2007, but whose namesake restaurant Nobuo at Teeter House closed in 2021 during the nadir of the pandemic. Hai Noon takes over a former dive bar’s space at the Sonder Mariposa hotel in Scottsdale, and the contrast between the setting and the delicate cuisine, which is mostly Japanese but with some French flourishes, enhances the whole experience. Chef Nobuo is known for his “sashimi spoons,” two per order, each of which is a single bite of raw fish with a few small accoutrements and a sauce, usually salmon, amberjack, or hamachi. I over-ordered, in hindsight, but I wanted to try both of the spoons with amberjack (kampachi), one with grapefruit and avocado, the other with shiso, Japanese ginger, and taro chip. I’d eat both all day long because the fish was as high a quality as any I’ve had anywhere, although I think the latter one (shiso/ginger) would get the nod as the superior one because the flavors were relatively new to me. In both spoons, however, the fish remained front and center, as it should when it’s this fresh. The cauliflower with sesame sauce also comes with okra, and the sauce was salty and very rich, with that faint peanut buttery taste I often detect with toasted sesame seeds (in a good way). The mushrooms en papillote were my least favorite of the four things I ordered, mostly because the flavors were so muted compared to the other three items that they felt a little flat, although the mushrooms themselves were excellent. It’s possible that I just couldn’t adjust my palate from the salty, umami-filled flavors of the sashimi and cauliflower to the garlic butter of the mushrooms. I also had a “Japanese old-fashioned,” which was just an old-fashioned with a little ginger syrup and black sugar (kuro sato). Nobuo is also planning to open a second restaurant in an adjacent space called Hidden Gem.

Dilla Libre Dos is, as you might infer, the second outpost from the folks behind the Dilla Libre food truck, this one located in Scottsdale not too far from the Giants’ stadium. They’re best known for their quesadillas, but as lactose is not really my friend, I went with the shrimp tacos with Tapatio crema, slaw, and pico de gallo, which were good-spicy and extremely flavorful, with lime, salt, cilantro, and other herbs between the seasoning on the shrimp and the toppings. I’d skip the rice and beans, though, which were just ordinary.

The Neighborly Public House is a high-end gastropub that might be a little overpriced for its target demographic but does serve quite credible food for the genre. I had the grilled “bbq” salmon because it was the end of the week and my stomach was starting to complain about all the heavier things I’d eaten, but other than the sauce being kind of generic, this salmon – from Iceland, which is trying to make its mark in sustainable aquaculture – was perfectly cooked, just barely to medium and still extremely tender and buttery. It’s served with a jicama slaw and a little salad of grape tomatoes with cornbread croutons, so I achieved the goal of eating something that was lighter and in theory more healthful than most of my meals this week. The menu also has several varieties of burgers, a fried shrimp platter, Maryland crab cakes (I just couldn’t), and salads, more or less what you’d expect from a gastropub, with a modest list of beer and wines. I did enjoy their take on a Manhattan, which used rye, orange bitters, and sweet vermouth infused with cacao nibs, adding a little more bitterness to what can be a too-sweet drink.

I went to Pa’La for lunch one day, and it’s changed quite a bit since I first went there back in 2018, when the place itself was smaller and so was the menu. It’s still built around wood-fired cooking, including outstanding breads, including the Tuscan flatbread known as schiacciata, which is sort of an Italian pita or naan that’s thick enough to slice in half and use as a sandwich bread. Their menu changes frequently but the boquerones (pickled white anchovies) are nearly always on it, which are bright and briny but would probably be better with a little bread rather than the crackers that come with them. I also had the albacore tuna sandwich, which comes and goes based on availability, on that schiacciata bread. It’s lightly dressed with aioli, arugula, and pickled red onions, and was big enough that I didn’t actually need the boquerones after all. The bread is the real star here, though – whatever you get, get something that brings you bread, or even a pizza if they have it. (They’re also known for grain bowls, which is what I had when I first went five years ago.) Co-owner Claudio Urcioli has a new spot out in Gilbert called Source that also uses some of his incredible breads, but I wasn’t anywhere close to it.

Provisions Coffee was the one disappointment of the trip – it’s a very trendy space, but the coffee is just fair and my drink was just lukewarm, I think because the barista just used milk they’d already steamed for someone else’s drink and allowed to cool for too long. I also got a donut from Outcast Donuts in Mesa, which uses a croissant dough (so it’s a cronut, just not by that name); the donut was good and shockingly not too heavy, but my goodness is that place trying too hard, with the decor, the names of items, all of it except the actual food.

I also hit some old favorites, including the Hillside Spot, Crêpe Bar, Matt’s Big Breakfast, the Cornish Pasty Company, Pane Bianco, and Frost Gelato, but the different schedule for the AFL this year meant I missed Cocina Chiwas, the new full-service spot from the folks behind Tacos Chiwas; and didn’t get to Pizzeria Bianco or FnB or Virtù or Noble Eatery, some of my favorites from the Valley.  

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→ April 5, 2023
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Arizona eats, March 2023.

Belly Kitchen & Bar’s downtown Phoenix location (they also have one in Gilbert) is easy to miss – it looks like a house and is located on a tiny lot on the southeast corner of 7th Ave & Camelback. The menu is influenced by Thai, Vietnamese, and Japanese cuisines, and the dishes are all supposed to work with the wine & cocktail menu, although I admit that usually after one cocktail I’m not ober enough to make that connection. Anyway, I ordered the bartender’s two main suggestions, the crispy spring rolls and the pan-seared king trumpet mushrooms, as well as their rum and rye old fashioned. (Two of them, as it turned out.) The mushrooms were the more interesting of the two, tossed with some small cubes of tofu and served in a black bean and Sichuan peppercorn sauce that was faintly sweet, a little spicy, and very earthy with a ton of umami from the fermented beans. The spring rolls were a very good exemplar of their type, served with large lettuce leaves, mint sprigs, and nuoc cham sauce for dipping, although it was nothing I hadn’t had before, just generally not this good. And, somewhat unfortunately for the purposes of this blog, that was all I could eat – I was full, and just left wistfully eyeing the plates my neighbors got. I really wish I’d had room for the jackfruit and mustard green fried rice in particular.

Pizzeria Virtù is the second outpost from Chef Gio Osso of Virtù Honest Craft, although he’s also now opened a third place, Piccolo Virtù, so I’m behind. The pizzeria is more than just a pizza outlet, with an assortment of fresh house-made pastas and traditional Italian plates as starters. I went with my longtime friend Bill Mitchell, whose words and photos you may have seen over at Baseball America, and we did one item from each section – their insalata with arugula, grape tomatoes, red onion, shaved Parmiggiano-Reggiano, and a lemon-olive oil dressing; the pizza with ‘nduja, a spicy sausage from the Calabria region of southern Italy; and their rigatoni with tomatoes, basil, prosciutto, and more Parmiggiano-Reggiano. The pasta was by far the best dish we got, cooked truly al dente with bright sweetness from the tomatoes and basil and exactly the right amount of salinity even with two very salty ingredients in the prosciutto and the cheese. The pizza was solid, more Neapolitan-adjacent than Neapolitan, without a ton of air in the outer ridge of the crust but saved by the high quality of the toppings. (They also misspelled ‘nduja on the menu, writing “n’duja” instead, which is only funny because it’s an Italian term.) The salad was a good salad, nothing more or less, but I’m also glad we didn’t get something heavier. I can also vouch for the amaro viale cocktail, a combination of bourbon, three different amari (potable bitters), and sweet vermouth that hits like a negroni but with the smoothness of the bourbon rather than the herbal notes of gin.

Sweet Dee’s Bakeshop is on East Stetson not too far from Old Town, focusing mostly on pastries and sweets. Their breakfast sandwich comes with a scrambled egg, bacon, avocado, and goat cheese on a croissant, and was solid to very good other than the common problem of the egg being cooked more than I like it. I usually stick to the classics when I have breakfast out there – Hillside Spot, Matt’s, Crêpe Bar, sometimes Snooze – but this was excellent for something faster when I had a morning game to hit.

Futuro Coffee has been on my to-do list for Phoenix for years now, at least going back before the pandemic, as its adherents have argued it’s the best espresso place in the Valley. They certainly do take their espresso seriously, with a single-origin option each day, and the standard options to take it with varying degrees of milk. The day I went, the single-origin was an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, which in my experience does not play well with dairy; I asked the barista his advice and he said he thought it was best black. It’s served in a wide terra cotta cup, unlike any coffee vessel I’ve ever tried, which did keep it warm for longer than ceramic would, along with some sparkling water. Futuro is located inside the Palabra art gallery and the space is very cool, weirdly sparse and yet comfortable enough to sit and write for a while. They’ve used a number of top roasters from around the U.S. and Canada, including heart and 49th Parallel.

Fire at Will is in a relative wasteland for good food, up at Shea and Tatum, an area that’s mostly populated by chain restaurants. Their menu is eclectic, to put it mildly – I have a hard time seeing what the core idea is here, or finding any unifying theme among the dishes. I heard the folks sitting next to me ask the bartender if there were any must-try dishes on the menu, and the bartender recommended … the burger. That’s not a great sign, at least in my experience. I tried just two things given how large the portions are – the fried Brussels sprouts and the Iberico ham croquettes. The Brussels were truly outstanding, served with nuoc cham (fish sauce, lime juice, and sugar), chopped peanuts, and a little diced Asian pear; I’ve had a lot of fried Brussels sprouts but this was among the very best, as there wasn’t a single leaf that was overcooked and nothing was too undercooked to eat, while the sweet-sour sauce had the right balance to offset any lingering bitterness in the brassicas. The croquettes were also extremely well-cooked, very crispy on the outside but smooth and still soft on the interior, although I didn’t taste the ham at all, which is a colossal waste if they used real jamón iberico.

I ate one meal down in Tucson after my game at Hi Corbett Field, stopping at El Taco Rustico on N. Oracle on my back to I-10. It looks bare bones but the food is anything but – their carnitas is outstanding and the pollo asado has a ton of flavor, although it paled next to the pork since it’s just inherently less fatty. They also offer four vegetarian options (nopales, rajas con queso, eggs, or summer squash) as well as the fifteen meat or meat-containing choices for fillings. The guacamole starter is pretty generous for $8, with house-made chips, probably not something I needed but I ordered it anyway for the sake of my readers. Chef-owner Juan Almanza opened the restaurant right as the pandemic hit and kept it open with the support of the community during that first year, although now it appears that he’s built a strong following on his own.

I had two bad meals on the trip, one unsurprising and one less so. I ate at Revolu Modern Taqueria near the Peoria Sports Complex, mostly due to time constraints, and it was exactly what I expected, a chain restaurant’s facsimile of tacos, including “diablo” spiced shrimp that a toddler could eat. I also went to my longtime favorite FnB and had by far the most disappointing meal I’d ever had there, for reasons I can’t even completely explain. I’ll just note that the “smoked” salmon salad, which the server highlighted as a favorite, came with salmon so overcooked I couldn’t eat it. I’m not sure if it was smoked or poached, but it was beyond chewing. Maybe I just caught them on an off night.

The rest of my meals were at places I’d tried before, like the breakfast spots mentioned above, plus Republica Empanada, Pane Bianco (which now serves New York-style pizza on some days), Cartel Coffee, Press Coffee, Lux, Frost Gelato, and Defalco’s Italian Market. All lived up to previous standards.

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→ October 21, 2022
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Arizona eats, Fall 2022.

The best new place I ate on the trip was the first: CRUjiente Tacos, an upscale taqueria just east of the Biltmore and north of Arcadia, featuring tacos with non-traditional fillings. I went with three – their Korean fried chicken taco, a fish taco, and a garlic mushroom taco. To my surprise, the last one was the best, by a lot: garlic-roasted mushrooms with chèvre and a jalapeño lime aioli, served on a fresh blue corn tortilla. I could have had three of those and considered it a good meal, although I would have regretted not trying others. The fish taco was solid, although the fish itself (halibut?) was a little underseasoned. The ancho tartar sauce and citrus slaw provided just about all of the flavor. The fried chicken taco was disappointing, as the dominant flavor was fish sauce, and it didn’t have the powerful spice/umami balance of real Korean fried chicken. I was ravenous that day, so I started with the chips and three salsas. The habanero salsa was barely spicy at all, but the avocado-tomatillo salsa was excellent.

Phoenix Coqui is a food truck turned brick-and-mortar site, serving homestyle Puerto Rican food from a central Phoenix location. They offer the usual array of stewed meats in mofongo, mashed plantains that can form an edible bowl in which the meat is served … but I’ve had mofongo multiple times in Puerto Rico, and I have realized it’s just too heavy for me. So I went for two of Coqui’s empanadas instead, one chicken and one mushrooms. The crust is the real standout, crispy but not greasy and shockingly thin. The chicken was a little dry, probably because it was shredded white meat that ended up cooking twice; the mushrooms were better but probably could have used some acidity. I also ordered the bori fries, served with a garlic-mayo sauce (which I think also includes ketchup, a popular dipping sauce in Puerto Rico) that I ended up using with the empanadas. The fries were fresh from the freezer, unfortunately.

Sushi Sen popped up on an Eater list of the best sushi places in Phoenix, which, yes, I understand that’s like being the tallest man in Lilliput, but there are a few very highly-regarded sushi places in the Valley, like ShinBay, which is omakase­ only.Sushi Sen is a la carte and offers a ton of over-the-top rolls, which I admit should have been a sign for me. The sushi here is just fine, but not something I’d go out of my way to eat, and it’s definitely better value than quality. I think it’s better than “average” sushi, but I also think average sushi isn’t worth eating (or depleting the oceans), so take that for what it’s worth. The non-sushi items were a mixed bag – the cucumber salad with octopus was solid, the calamari tempura was rubbery – while the various nigiri I had were all about the same except for the maguro (tuna), which had a flavor I couldn’t identify but that I definitely did not like. The portions on the nigiri are enormous, which is a mixed bag, I suppose. If you try it, I would suggest the striped bass, which comes in a ponzu sauce; the chunky spicy tuna, which isn’t just the scrapings off the skin of a tuna loin but much larger pieces (and I didn’t detect that same off flavor, so maybe the sauce muted it); and the yellowtail.

I took one for the team and tried Café Lalibela, a modest Ethiopian café and shop in Tempe that has shown up on multiple best-of-the-Valley lists. Ethiopian food isn’t always my friend, and after eating it I feel like I am sweating berbere out of my pores, but I love the food – it just doesn’t love me back. It’s also a tough cuisine if you don’t eat (most) red meat, so I went with the one chicken option, doro wat, along with their spicy collard greens (gomen), along with injera, the teff-flour pancake that you use to eat the food, tearing off pieces and wrapping bits of the food in it. I’ve got limited experience with Ethiopian food, as you might imagine; the last time I had it I was scouting Josh Bell as a high schooler, and he just homered in the World Series, so it’s been a while. I thought the doro wat was fantastic, a little spicy but nothing I couldn’t handle, with a deep, earthy flavor from the berbere’s coriander and caraway. I found the collards to be too bitter, though, in part because they had so little salt.

Tampopo Ramen is a tiny ramen bar in Tempe, not far at all from the Cubs’ ballpark, and after CRUjiente it was the best new place I tried. Their tonkotsu ramen is mellower than most I’ve tried, in a positive way – same flavor profile, but less overwhelming. I might have done with more salt, but if you haven’t noticed, that’s a thing of mine. Anyway, the noodles are the real standout, as they’re made fresh in-house every day. I added wakame and kikurage (mushrooms) to the main tonkotsu ramen, but when I go again, I’d like to try the miso ramen to see if it gives me more of that salty kick.

I tried to sneak into Pizzeria Bianco for lunch on my last day there, but Chris Bianco’s appearance on Chef’s Table: Pizza has generated new interest in his flagship restaurant, so I ended up at Blanco, a mostly-in-Arizona chain of Mexican restaurants. I wouldn’t go out of my way to eat here, but the grilled mahi-mahi tacos were completely adequate, and I was surprised by the quality of the fish. As chain food goes, you can and will do worse.

As for places I went that I’d been before: Hillside Spot, Crêpe Bar, Matt’s Big Breakfast, Noble Eatery, Soi4, Cartel Coffee, Press Coffee, Frost Gelato. Sometimes, it’s good to just play the hits, and they didn’t disappoint. I was disappointed I couldn’t slip over to FnB, my favorite restaurant in the Valley, but I would have been pushing it on time.

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→ April 3, 2022
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Phoenix eats, March 2022.

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.

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→ October 21, 2021
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Arizona eats, 2021 edition.

Last week marked my first trip to Arizona in two years, since my last run through the Fall League, which also marks the longest I’d gone between visits to that state since my first trip there as an ESPN employee back in 2006. As such, I had some old favorites I had to visit – the Hillside Spot, Matt’s Big Breakfast, Crêpe Bar, Cartel Coffee (three times, including the airport location), Grimaldi’s (to taunt my daughter, who loves that place), and, for books, Changing Hands. That didn’t leave a ton of opportunity to try new places, but I did manage to work in four new spots.

Tacos Calafia has five locations in the Valley, two of which are close to ballparks – Peoria (on Thunderbird, one long block south of the stadium) and, most importantly, Surprise, a relative wasteland when it comes to non-chain food, with only Saigon Kitchen to really speak for the area. Tacos Calafia offers a very short menu of “Tijuana-style” tacos, with four or five meats, a small salsa bar, and a few other dishes like quesadillas, nachos, and vampiros that are based around the same meats. I tried the al pastor (pork) and pollo (chicken), and would agree with the assessment of my friend Bill Mitchell, who recommended the place, that the meats are plus, and the reason to go there. The toppings are nothing special – I’m really not into guacamole that is blended until completely smooth, but that’s personal preference – so you’ve got to go for the meats. Three tacos will run you $9-10, and I didn’t need anything more than that.

Speaking of Peoria, which isn’t all that much better for non-chain food than Surprise, on a whim I decided to see if there was a good Thai place nearby. Sala Thai had unusually positive reviews and comments online, and I think they’re well justified (based on one meal of one dish, so SSS applies). Pad see ew is my go-to dish at new Thai places because it’s usually not too sweet, like pad Thai can be, and there’s plenty of variety around the dish so a restaurant can make it their own, so to speak. Sala Thai’s was damn good, savory and barely sweet, with a lot of broccoli and some caramelization on the noodles themselves, which reminded me of the wok hei you get at Chinese restaurants. I actually wasn’t that hungry for this meal, but ate because I knew waiting till after the game was a bad idea, and yet I devoured this.

Over in downtown Mesa, Que Chevere is a food truck gone brick-and-mortar, serving Venezuelan staples – empanadas, arepas, cachapas, and more. Mindful of my inability to eat anything in the car without making a mess, I chose the empanadas con pollo, and my god am I glad I did. I love just about all empanadas; it’s a giant dumpling that’s baked or fried, so what’s not to love? Que Chevere’s empanada dough differs from those I’ve had before. It must have had cornmeal in it, because it tasted like a hush puppy (a fried ball of cornmeal-based dough) with shredded chicken in it. The chicken itself was a little dry, since it’s white meat, but the cilantro-lime dipping sauce took care of that (and I didn’t drip any on my shirt).

I went to Pa’ La’s original location maybe two years ago to try their vaunted grain bowls, a type of dish I don’t generally enjoy, and was kind of blown away by it. Claudio Urciuoli has now expanded to a new, larger location, helmed by one of his protégés, on Washington Street in downtown Phoenix. The new spot has a more complete menu that is mostly centered around small plates, heavy on the fish. The plates are small, but the seafood is superb, with incredibly delicate yellowtail in the special crudo dish I tried. A local review had raved about the shrimp, but I found them underseasoned and kind of tasteless, although they were certainly of high quality. The pickled white anchovies (boquerones) were briny, oily, garlicky, and bright, although they needed bread, not the fennel crackers that came with them and proved unable to soak up any of the deliciousness left on the plate. For dessert, I went with the frozen chocolate mousse with miso bananas, which hit the palate like ice cream with an umami boost from the miso. Their menu changes constantly, and I’d like to see what it looks like on another day – or to go with a crowd so I could try more things. But what they really need is more bread, as that’s Urciuoli’s specialty, and it was mostly absent from the menu.

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