→ October 8, 2011
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Phoenix eats, part 10.

First Arizona Fall League update of 2011 is up for Insiders, leading off with Anthony Gose.

When we first moved to Arizona last year, I grabbed a copy of Phoenix Magazine‘s September issue, which included their annual list of the best new restaurants in the Valley – an impulse purchase that led us to three of our favorite restaurants in the area, The Hillside Spot, Culinary Dropout, and ‘Pomo Pizzeria. This year’s list is now online (although I picked up the paper copy a month ago) and I’ve hit three of the 23 restaurants on their list, including one knockout, the upscale Thai restaurant Soi4.

Located in the Gainey shopping plaza in central Scottsdale, at the intersection of Scottsdale Road and Doubletree Ranch (which becomes Via de Ventura, so it’s close to the Salt River stadium), Soi4 is Thai cuisine, updating classic Thai dishes with modern twists in a trendy Scottsdale atmosphere (if you live around here, you know the positives and negatives in that phrase). Soi4’s take on panang neur uses perfectly-braised short ribs in place of more typical, inexpensive cuts like rump steak. The ribs come with a mixture of chopped red and green bell peppers and cucumbers with a slightly spicy red curry/coconut milk sauce with thai basil. The only better-cooked short ribs I have ever had were at Tom Colicchio’s craftsteak in Las Vegas (twice), and that’s a restaurant that specializes in beef – and costs about three times as much. For an appetizer, I tried their kao pode tod, spiced corn fritters served with a cucumber relish and a spicy clear sauce for drizzling, another traditional Thai dish taken up several notches with stunning presentation, almost a work of art on the plate, with crisp exteriors, bright centers of mostly corn with some minced lemongrass, and no sign of grease or oil on the plate. It’s a little more expensive than your typical Thai place – those two items and a pot of hot tea (bonus points for loose leaf) came to $24 before tip – but absolutely justifies the cost through freshness of ingredients and the masterful preparations.

The Arrogant Butcher, a short walk west of Chase Field, was more middle of the road on my visit, solid food marred by a single kitchen error. It’s yet another outpost from Fox Restaurant Concepts, the people behind Culinary Dropout and Zinburger, this time focused primarily on meats, including charcuterie and slow-cooked meat dishes like the short rib stew I tried on my one visit. The stew was hearty and filling, with small (maybe one-inch) chunks of short rib and red beans, served with a fried egg on top and a rich corn muffin on the side. But the stew contained a large piece of connective tissue – I can’t think of the last time I was in a decent restaurant and had to spit out a piece of food, but this was unchewable and certainly not something I wanted in my stomach. It was just one piece, an oversight by a prep cook, but that undermined the whole meal for me. They offer a strong selection of small sides, including grilled mushrooms, marcona almonds, or the one I tried, roasted red peppers, sliced thinly and tossed in balsamic vinegar.

The third place I’ve tried from that list was Spasso Pizzeria and Mozzarella Bar in Phoenix just off 51, a huge disappointment across the board. The mozzarella is apparently made fresh in house, but for $12, the plate of two cheeses (we also chose scamorza, another cow’s milk cheese that’s dried to produce a harder texture) included just two slices of each plus some very unappetizing-looking, drab/grey roasted vegetables, all unseasoned and undressed. Even the mozzarella itself was unsalted, which is a small crime, and was totally unremarkable in flavor or texture – you can buy equivalent or better fresh mozzarella in any Trader Joes (and there’s one next door!) or Whole Foods. The pizza was entirely ordinary aside from the use of the same fresh mozzarella on top, and everything was inordinately pricey given how inexpensive the ingredients are. Even the crème brulee, which I bought only because my daughter wanted something for dessert, was all wrong, served in a deep ramekin so the ratio of sugar crust to custard was way off. With so many better pizza options in the Valley, I can’t see why anyone would go here and pay more for an inferior product. UPDATE: It appears that Spasso has closed. Can’t say I’m surprised.

That same issue of Phoenix Magazine included a great article on the second act for Chris Bianco, the owner/chef/genius behind Pizzeria Bianco and Pane Bianco. He’s become one of the Southwest’s greatest advocates for local agriculture and biodiversity, an amazing adaptation for a man whose first career, making every pizza by hand, ended abruptly as airborne flour particles worsened his asthma, causing his doctor to give him a “quit or die” warning he had to heed.

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→ August 26, 2011
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Arizona eats, August 2011.

I made a side trip to Cave Creek en route back from Anthem on Friday specifically to try Bryan’s Black Mountain BBQ, allegedly the best Q in the Valley … and I have to say I haven’t found anything close to this good in the state. Both the pulled pork and the brisket bore modest smoke rings but were very moist with good smoke flavor, and the crispy edges of the brisket had a strong kick from the dry rub. The pork needed no sauce beyond the thin, slightly spicy, slightly acid sauce it’s served in, which didn’t mask the taste of the meat at all. The brisket did need sauce if only for some salt on the interior portions of the meat; their house sauce is sweet and smoky without any heat, although there’s a hot version available as well. A generous quarter pound of each meat – really, there had to be close to a pound of meat on the plate – plus two sides is $13.25 before tax; the sides were the lone disappointment, as the potato salad was absolutely covered in mayo and the cole slaw had green olives in it that overwhelmed everything else. But I would drive an hour just to get that smoked meat, especially with nothing close to it down our way.

bld in Chandler (Germann & Dobson, just south of the Santan Freeway) stands for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, as they’re open for all three meals. (It’s unrelated to the bld in Los Angeles which I tried in 2008.) My wife and I went at lunchtime but both ordered breakfast, as that menu was much more appealing. Both portions were enormous, more than either of us could finish. I went with the short rib benedict, two halves of an English muffin each topped with a large chunk of braised short rib, a poached egg, and a red wine Hollandaise the color of black raspberry ice cream. The short rib was tender and still bore hints of the braising liquid (red wine-based) but was a little light on seasoning; the poached eggs were perfect, while the hollandaise brought some acidity and brightness to the whole dish, although I couldn’t quite convince myself that something lavender should be savory rather than sweet. The breakfast potatoes on the side were peppery but barely above room temperature. My wife ordered the “green chili pork tostada,” which is really chilaquiles with an enormous portion of braised, shredded pork shoulder, with refried beans, cotija cheese, and fried eggs on top. The pork was tangy, maybe a little too much, and I thought the ratio of meat to everything else was too high, but my wife (who ordered it without the beans) thought it was excellent. bld reminded me of the Hillside Spot, still my favorite place to eat around here, with the advantage of being much closer to the house than the Spot is even if the food isn’t quite as good.

I’ve tried two Vietnamese places in Chandler, Pho Chandler at Arizona Ave and Ocotillo (south of the Santan) and Cyclo on Chandler Blvd east of Dobson (right across from the Valley’s best gelato, Angel Sweet). I ordered roughly the same entree at both places, bún (rice vermicelli) with grilled pork and a fried egg roll, and Pho Chandler was the winner, with more flavorful meats and less fatty pieces as well as more greens underneath the noodles. Pho Chandler also has a pork short ribs appetizer that is a must-order – small pieces of pork still on the bone served in a sweet-spicy sauce with tamarind and Thai basil. The bún at Cyclo included pork and beef, and the beef could not have had less flavor if they’d boiled it without seasoning. One thing I found peculiar at both restaurants was the use of thicker noodles than I’ve had at Vietnamese restaurants elsewhere, mostly in Boston, which changes the texture of the final dish substantially. I’d also give Pho Chandler a nod over Cyclo for friendlier service.

In Scottsdale, I’ve now had lunch at Culinary Dropout, located just across Camelback from Fashion Square Mall, three times when meeting friends in from out of town or who work in the area, and it’s been a home run each time. The orecchiette with short rib meat and butter beans in a tomato sauce is bright and fresh but very filling with a late kick; I’m mildly obsessed with short ribs, by far my favorite cut of cow, and even with all of the other heavier elements in the dish the rib meat remains the clear star, accentuated by the acidity of the tomato sauce. The chicken hash with fried egg and black truffles is a rich and hearty if you’re into mushrooms, but was a little on the light side for lunch. The turkey pastrami on a pretzel roll was good but my least favorite of the three dishes, primarily because the meat is so salty and then comes on a salty roll with good yet also salty hand-cut fries on the side … I love salt and season aggressively when I cook, but this felt like a dish aimed at getting you to order another beer. (I could think of worse outcomes, though.) The place has kind of a funky gastropub look and feel, but the food is strong enough for a business lunch.

Zinburger is owned by the same restaurant group as Culinary Dropout and the eponymous dish there is so good I have now made my own version several times at home. Located across from the Ritz-Carlton in a small mall featuring a Cheesecake Factory – and really, how stupid do you have to be to go eat that garbage with Zinburger about 30-40 meters away? – Zinburger offers DIY burger options, but the version that bears the restaurant’s name is the winner: Zinfandel-braised onions, Manchego cheese, and a thin layer of mayonnaise. I’m not sure how Zinburger does their onions, but my version comes pretty close – I caramelize them in the traditional way, then deglaze the pan with wine and let the onions plump back up a little with the new liquid before serving. They also offer several types of hand-cut fries, including “double truffle fries” and sweet potato, both of which were excellent although I find sweet potato fries a little too sweet. (Sweet potato chips, on the other hand, are awesome.) I regret to inform you that I did not try any of Zinburger’s shakes.

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→ February 25, 2011
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Catching up on recent eats…

‘Pomo Pizzeria*, located just north of Old Town Scottsdale in the pretentious Borgata shopping center, has been certified by the Neapolitan authority that travels the world and gives its imprimatur to pizzerias serving authentic Naples-style pizza. It lacks the cachet of Pizzeria Bianco, but has the benefit of being easier to patronize, since they’re open for lunch and take reservations, with a product that’s nearly as good as their more famous rival.

*Yes, there’s an apostrophe before the word ‘Pomo, something I have yet to decipher. The Italian word for tomatoes is pomodoro, but if the restaurant’s name derives from that word the apostrophe is on the wrong end. Perhaps the Borgata’s owners insisted on the apostrophe to ratchet up the restaurant’s elitist factor.

‘Pomo’s menu is straightforward – a few antipasti, salads, and many pizza options with an extensive list of ingredients, several of which are imported from Italy, including mozzarella di bufala and proscuitto di Parma. The oven runs up to 950 degrees, on the low end of acceptable for this kind of product, and the crust had the requisite slight char with plenty of lift to it. Neapolitan pizza doughs are very thin in the center and should still be wet when they reach the table, although they’ll tend to firm up as the pizza cools; don’t be alarmed by reviews that call it “soggy,” as that’s an application of an American standard for pizza to a completely different product. The texture is fine, while the dough’s taste is a little quiet compared to the toppings.

I went with two other writers, Nick Piecoro and Molly Knight, and somehow we all ended up with pizzas that boasted at least one pork product. I went with a bianca pizza, one of maybe a half-dozen tomato-less options on the menu, featuring mozzarella, prosciutto, and Parmiggiano-Reggiano, a combination that would be too salty and acidic if you layered any sort of cooked tomatoes underneath them. Nick and Molly both went for tomato-based pizzas featuring more charcuterie, including the diavolo, featuring a spicy salame that ‘Pomo uses in lieu of pepperoni (which is fine by me, as I find most pepperoni to be harsh).

There’s a definite focus here on fresh and authentic ingredients; the mixed greens in the salad were immaculate, the Parmiggiano-Reggiano was the real deal (not some American or Argentine knockoff), and the tomatoes come from San Marzano (although I admit I probably wouldn’t know the difference on that score). They also offer a handful of Moretti beers for about $5 apiece, including La Rossa, a red beer that’s about 8% alcohol that is outstanding but requires that I surrender my keys before ordering. Total damage for three pizzas (which run $11-16 each), a salad, a beer, and four glasses of wine was about $105 with tax but before tip, and we had probably 2/3 of a pizza left over. It wasn’t quite the transformative experience that my one meal at Pizzeria Bianco was, but it is among the best pizza experiences I’ve ever had in the United States, one I strongly recommend.

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Speaking of authentic pizza in America, in December my family and I went to Via Napoli, the new restaurant in Walt Disney World at Epcot’s Italy pavilion; we were lucky to get two reservations in our week in Orlando but I understand it’s become a tough ticket as word has spread. Via Napoli’s menu is somewhat limited, with fewer toppings available and not much in the way of salads, but more antipasto options including some expertly fried verdure fritte (fried vegetables) and prosciutto e mela (prosciutto and fresh cantaloupe). The restaurant boasts three giant wood-fired ovens and the dough is superb, with thicker crusts (perhaps to suit American palates?) but less of the trademarked char on the exterior. As with ‘Pomo, Via Napoli imports many of its key ingredients and I felt the mozzarella they used was more flavorful, perhaps because it contained a little more salt. (Cheese without salt is like water without oxygen.) The dessert menu includes real gelato and a new take on zeppole, the Italian version of fried dough; Via Napoli’s includes ricotta cheese in the mix, which you’d expect would make the end product heavier but instead creates these soft, slightly sweet pillows of dough that don’t actually need any accompaniments but oh hey you brought some dark chocolate sauce so I feel obliged to use it. Via Napoli is where I discovered La Rossa and where I discovered that a large serving of it will keep me inebriated for at least six solid hours.

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On to Los Angeles from mid-February, where I’ll start with the last meal I had, Bludso’s BBQ in Compton on Long Beach Boulevard, a real hole in the wall that focuses on takeout with an emphasis on brisket and beef ribs. The service was definitely more Texas than downtown LA, and when I asked what the specialty was the woman behind the counter insisted that I sample the brisket before ordering; it was smoky and tender and didn’t need sauce to provide flavor or moisture, although the salty-sweet-earthy sauce they use is a good complement. For takeout they package their meats in foil with a healthy dose of sauce, enough that it started to drown out the meat’s flavors, but that’s easily fixed by asking for less sauce or for the sauce on the side. The ribs were smaller than I expected but had good tooth and pulled away from the bone pretty easily. The collard greens were deep-South style, cooked low and slow with plenty of liquor included; the baked beans had become soft and mushy but had strong flavors from the meat included in them. For about $11 you can get two meats, two sides, a piece of northern-style (that is, very sweet) cornbread, and some of that white bread that people in Texas always serve with Q but that just confuses everyone else. Yes, it’s a bad area, but it’s worth seeking out.

I met my friend Jay Berger at his local favorite sushi place, Yoshi’s Sushi on Santa Monica in West Hollywood. We had nothing but nigiri, which has become my style anyway after reading The Story of Sushi last summer. About half came with a ponzu sauce, including the yellowtail and the halibut; everything was fresh and only the salmon was disappointing, although I should know by now that salmon nigiri is not very authentic – I just love salmon in any preparation. The albacore, which I usually find kind of boring, and red snapper were both among the best I’ve had of each kind of fish. However, I tried octopus for the first time and am still chewing it three weeks later. Next time I’ll stick with the raw stuff.

And I should throw another mention at Square One Dining in Hollywood, which is becoming my breakfast ritual when I’m in town for the Compton workout. Square One focuses on natural, local ingredients, and their breakfasts include some real throwback elements, like bacon rashers cut about three times as thick as you’d get at a typical diner or fresh eggs cooked to order. My only criticism is that despite using good tea, somehow it’s already overbrewed and bitter when it reaches the table, which makes me think they have pots of tea ready to go for breakfast service – thoughtful, but counterproductive.

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→ November 18, 2010
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Hillside Spot & Barrio Cantina.

Busy day today. I’ll be chatting at 1 pm EST, on the Scott Van Pelt Show on ESPN Radio at 2:05 pm EST, and on Outside the Lines on ESPN shortly after 3 pm.

My latest post at mental_floss covers the histories of eight classic board games, with another post on the history of Settlers of Catan coming later today. And my last two posts over on ESPN.com broke down the Joaquin Benoit signing and the Uggla trade and John Buck signing.

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I’ve mentioned Hillside Spot before, but let me recommend it again: If you live anywhere near the Ahwatukee region of Phoenix, or pass through it on I-10, you need to try this place, because the food is outstanding.

I’ve been for breakfast and lunch and can vouch for both meals. The “El Gallo” torta with eggs, chorizo, and avocado was tremendous, with the eggs cooked to order (they’re not that quick – that would be my only warning, but I will wait for food like this); bright, fresh avocado; just the right amount of mayo; and a fresh, soft, square roll from La Sonorense Tortilla Factory in downtown Phoenix. It’s a steal at $6. Their pancakes have earned some acclaim around here, for good reason – they’re eggy and buttery, like a thick, soft crepe, with one order more than my wife could finish even with some serious help from me. It looks like they rotate their coffees but try to offer something from a local roaster, such as one from Tempe’s Cartel Coffee Labs the day I was there.

I went back for lunch because I’d seen a pulled pork sandwich on their menu, with the pork first braised then finished over mesquite on their rotisserie grill. The pork was perfect, falling apart but with good browning on the outside, with a good background smoke flavor. It comes with a spicy cole slaw and, oddly enough, sliced fresh pear, which was a new combination for me but worked well, giving the sandwich a little bite and providing a small amount of natural sweetness to balance the acidity in the slaw. It comes on the same bread as the torta (telera bread), and the French fries, one of four side options, were hand-cut and just-fried.

Hillside Spot uses a lot of local vendors (including all of their eggs) and has that great funky cafe vibe I love to find in a local restaurant – like the Mission in San Diego or Blue Moon Cafe in Baltimore. Other than the Angel Sweet gelateria, I haven’t found anything as exciting as this place since we moved. It’s located on Warner and 48th, behind the McDonald’s, in the same strip mall where the Sunday farmer’s market is held.

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We found Hillside Spot because it was mentioned in Phoenix magazine as one of the best new restaurants of 2010. We also tried another one, Barrio Cantina, in Scottsdale on Cactus right by the Tatum mall. The food was good, but on the heavy side, not just in fat content (that doesn’t usually bother me) but in the chef’s hand, adding sauces and flavors that end up detracting from the dish. But the core ingredients were all very strong, particularly their meats.

They offer a strong selection of taco plates, all available with corn or flour tortillas or as a torta. I went with the torta – that’s a new dish for me since we moved out here, so I’m indulging – made with machaca short ribs, braised to the point of collapse, with a full, satisfying, beefy flavor. It comes with shredded, slightly wilted cabbage and a crema that was probably unnecessary with the fattiness of the short rib. The dish came with a scoop of a strange, earthy rice and corn mixture that was slightly overcooked but tasted good, a solid neutral note to give me a break from the strong flavors of the machaca.

My wife went with a carnitas enchilada that came in a small cast-iron skillet and was served with the tortillas open, so the sauce and cheese (browned slightly under a salamander) were directly on the meat. She enjoyed it, although the presentation within the skillet was a mess.

We tried one appetizer, the “mini chimis” – small chimichangas where the ratio from dough to meat is way too high. I peeled a few of them open and ate the carnitas and machaca inside, to reduce the doughiness and get away from the tangy crema sticking to the outside like wallpaper paste. Someone there really knows how to slow-cook meat; they just need to work on how they serve it.

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→ April 3, 2009
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Phoenix eats, 2009.

Before I get to the food, the BBC’s site had a somewhat scary article about a link between hot beverages and esophogeal cancer. Consuming beverages over 160 F – which would include black tea and drip coffee – was associated with higher incidence of that very nasty type of cancer. On the bright side, green tea should be brewed at 160, so it’ll be served around 150-155, and the milk in espresso-based drinks should only be heated to 160, meaning that it’s also consumed below that mark. Of course, almost any coffee place that serves green tea will serve it around 200 degrees, including Charbucks, so do what I do and ask the barista to throw an ice cube or two in there.

On to Phoenix eats.Havana Café is a local mini-chain of three restaurants, one on Bell near 64th in northern Phoenix. The food is Caribbean rather than just Cuban, with a lot of Puerto Rican dishes and, most importantly, maduros up the wazoo. The ingredients are clearly very high quality and the food aims for a somewhat “cleaner” look than typical Cuban joints. The pollo Cubano, a half chicken breast marinated in a lime-orange mojo and pan-seared, was bright and tangy, while the pollo ajillo had hints of garlic but probably wouldn’t give your neighborhood vampire more than a brief scare. Just about all entrees come with white rice, most come with black beans, and I think all come with maduros, which were spectacular. They also have a huge selection of tapas featuring foods from the same Caribbean islands as well as a few from Spain; their mofongo is good, as are the masas de puerco, but their tostones were coasters and their alcapurrías were very greasy. I recommend it for lunch, but not for dinner, when they charge fine-dining prices for what is more or less peasant food. It’s a solid 50.

A reader (sorry, I’m too lazy to see which of you it was) suggested the Cornish Pasty Company over by Arizona State, and it’s now a major Klaw recommendation. The concept is great – it’s a tiny place in a strip mall, dark and narrow … like the mines in which the Cornish men who ate the pasties their wives made would work. A Cornish pasty is a type of pocket pie, a flaky pie crust wrapped around a filling that usually contains meat and root vegetables. The Cornish pasty company offers a few dozen pasty varieties, but I went with the “Oggie,” with the classic Cornish pasty filling of beef, onions, and potatoes. The filling was rich and thick and peppery, and the meat was soft enough and cubed well enough that it didn’t require a knife, and the crust was flaky and buttery and perfectly browned. The pasty itself cost $6.50 (I think it’s the cheapest one on the menu) and I barely got past half of it. On a sample of two meals – plus a bit of a caramel apple dessert pasty – I’m giving it a 60.

Another reader suggestion, Los Olivos, was less successful. It’s somewhere between really authentic Mexican food and chain Tex-Mex food; the portions were generous but everything was overdone – oversalted, overflavored, and oversauced. My wife, usually less critical than I am, said that her food wasn’t bad so much as “a mess.”

One of our favorites from last year, Blu Burger, is still going and still serving amazing Wagyu (American Kobe) burgers, but their location in Scottsdale near Kierland closed on March 7th. They still have three other locations and are opening two more soon (according to our server) in Peoria and Chandler. We did hit the one in north Scottsdale twice, and everything was the same except for the fact that while they still offer sautéed mushrooms as a topping for $1 extra, they no longer offer raw mushrooms as a topping. When I pointed out the absurdity of this, the server told me that they cook all the mushrooms they get.

The Phoenix Ranch Market near Phoenix airport has a full-service restaurant, Tradiciones, that offers mostly different fare from the quick-service options available inside the market. (Speaking of which, the quick-service food is still excellent, but they seem to be slacking on trimming the carnitas before cooking; the last two times I went there I ended up having to remove large chunks of pork fat from my mouth. Pork fat is good for cooking, not so much for eating.) The best thing going at Tradiciones is the tortilla chips served before the meal – just made, not in the least greasy, and salted. The food itself was just average; I tried the pollo asado, which seems to be a signature dish of the restaurant and the market, and it was … roast chicken. Good roast chicken, but really, it was just roast chicken. The absence of carnitas or chili verde (the latter only in a burrito, I believe) on the menu was a disappointment. The food is better inside the market and much cheaper. Grade 50.

Brian from Laveen has been pushing Joe’s BBQ for years, and I finally had a reason to go out that far to try it. It was solid-average. The Q had good flavor – I went with pulled pork and brisket – but was kind of dry, which is odd since the place was busy. I often find dry Q is the result of low turnover, since Q is something you have to make in advance and try to keep warm until it’s ordered. BBQ beans were good, a little sweet but not too much so, and the corn was, well, corn. The homemade root beer is good but strong, almost spicy. It’s a fringe 50 for me.

Raul and Theresa’s in Goodyear is a little tough to find – you have to go past the stadium, behind the airport, and you might drive right past it as I did – but worth the trip. It’s straight-up Mexican food with the usual suspects on the menu, but the food is incredibly fresh. The guacamole was an easy 65 on the scale, maybe a 70, bright green, chunky, and tasting primarily of avocadoes, not of all the junk that usually gets layered into it. The rice that’s served with every dish was fresh, not too salty, with a good tooth. My entrée was chicken enchiladas with red sauce, obviously made to order, and probably about 10% more food than I really needed to eat. Again, the actual flavor of the chicken came through, enhanced by the red sauce, not drowned by it. Overall grade 60.

Butterfield’s was our one breakfast out, and it’s a zoo on Sundays, not helped by a server with two personalities (alternating between friendly and why-the-hell-are-you-bothering-me) and no ability to estimate wait times (he was off by 100%, and not in the good way). The food was mostly good – I had a waffle that was light with good crust and an almost cakelike flavor, and I tasted the pancakes, which were not heavy and had that same flavor, which I’m thinking was vanilla combined with butter. The chicken apple maple sausage wasn’t dry but also didn’t have much flavor beyond apple. My wife loved her whole wheat brioche French toast. The restaurant is a solid 50, but plays up because of the big menu.

Goldbar Espresso in Tempe seems to get rave reviews, and they talk a good game about the freshness of their coffee, but the espresso there is atrocious – they pull the most diluted shots I think I’ve ever had, with maybe twice the water that they should be using, so the result is something like what you’d get if you tried to make espresso using Maxwell House grounds. I sort of knew I was in trouble when I walked in and looked at the menu board and saw a caffe mocha as the first item; if a coffee place really prides itself on its coffee, shouldn’t espresso be the top listing? And they use Hershey’s syrup in their mochas, too. Hershey’s is to chocolate what McDonald’s is to beef and what Bud Light is to beer. Anyway, my wife went to Starbucks and I went a month without coffee.

I’ve mentioned Gelato Spot before, but having stopped there at least a half-dozen times last month I’m upping my grade to a 55. I had found in the past that they kept the gelato too cold, but they’ve fixed the problem, and their chocolate seems darker than it was in the past. The coconut gelato is still a favorite. I did try the chocolate caramel brownie flavor, but it was too sweet, and there’s something about their caramel that I don’t like, a sourness that shows up in the caramel gelato too.

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→ October 13, 2007
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Phoenix revisited.

Not much new to report on for this trip to Phoenix. I made another visit to the Phoenix Ranch Market – still the best burrito with carnitas I’ve ever had, for just under $5, as well as phenomenal Mexican cookies (40¢ each) and aguas frescas, to Honey Bear’s BBQ, and to the Gelato Spot (try the coconut gelato), as well as the obligatory stop at In-n-Out. The new spots I hit weren’t much to rave about:

• Cien Agaves is a sort of upscale tacos-and-tequila place in Old Town Scottsdale that opened just over a week ago. I was there during Happy Hour, when all of their tacos are $3. The lobster taco is supposedly their best (ordinarily $7), but the lobster meat is chopped rather finely and is heavily spiced, so the delicate flavor of the lobster is obliterated. The fish taco was excellent, with the fish perfectly fried with a cornmeal breading and just a small amount of the lime-cilantro sauce. The shrimp taco carried some of the same spices as the lobster, but shrimp can better withstand that level of flavor and heat. But the main problem with Cien Agaves is their lack of quality control. I ordered a grilled corn side dish – one ear at $3 – and what came was a bland ear of corn, grilled inside the husk, then opened and doused in butter with a heavy dose of cayenne pepper. And the first corn that came out had a rotten spot on it. The server took it back, brought another one out five minutes later, and explained that he had to throw three others out that had similar rotting issues. Not exactly a confidence-booster – and the corn wasn’t taken off the check. They’ve been open for a week; they won’t be open for a year.
• Tacos al Caporal is a tiny Mexican place in a strip mall on Country Club Rd in Mesa. It looks like a family-run operation, and no one there speaks English, although all of the items on the menu will be familiar to anyone who’s eaten at an Americanized Mexican place. The tacos here are $1-$1.50 each and are very small; they’re served just as meat on corn tortillas, and you can fix the tacos yourself at a small “salsa bar” that has green and red salsas, chopped onions, and shredded lettuce, all sitting on a bed of ice. The taco al pastor was a particular hit, although the carne asada and carnitas tacos were also good. They offer two or three flavors of aguas frescas, including a not-too-sweet tamarind. The only worry here is that the place was empty on a Wednesday night around 6 pm.
• Bandarang, in Mesa on Country Club near Route 60, has received some positive writeups online, but the food was bland and their lunch special setup leaves a lot to be desired. The chicken in sweet basil sauce had a lot of red chili flakes in it, but no heat, and no real basil flavor other than the leaves served as garnish. The white jasmine rice that came with the dish had been cooked at least a half-hour previously and kept warm, and the side dishes that come with the lunch special (fried rice, fried wontons, and vegetarian pad thai) are all kept lukewarm on a side table to be served buffet-style. They seem to draw a good crowd, so there’s some turnover, but my rule of thumb is that if it’s not hot, it’s spoiled.

But seriously – go to Phoenix Ranch Market. It’s cheap, it’s authentic, and it is ridiculously good.

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→ November 5, 2006
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Four days in Phoenix.

The trip to Phoenix didn’t produce any story gems like the St. Louis trip did, but it definitely had its share of good eats, even if I did make a few heretical stops at chain restaurants.

I arrived too late to get to Scottsdale Stadium in time for batting practice, so I shot up Scottsdale Road to a sushi place called Sapporo that I’d been to three times before and considered one of the better sushi joints I’ve been to in the U.S. (It’s also the place where I was when I learned that Darryl Kile had been found dead in his hotel room, something that came back to me when I walked over to the spot in the restaurant where I stood when I took that phone call.) I sat at the sushi bar, figuring I wanted to eat as quickly as possible to get to the game on time, and ordered Too Much Sushiâ„¢, a problem I tend to have when eating alone at sushi restaurants. I also went for their house salad, which turned out to be a lot more ornate than the typical green salad you get in sushi places but with the same ginger dressing, which is really all that matters. The sushi was good but slightly disappointing; I thought the sake (salmon) was a little bland, and the unagi(freshwater eel) wasn’t slightly warm like it usually is. The spicy tuna rolls were very good, but could have been a bit spicier. Anyway, I was pretty sure I’d exceeded my per diem – I’m responsibly for anything I spend over that amount – on just one meal, but when I got the bill, it was $21. Turns out that everything is discounted for happy hour, making that meal the best sushi deal I’ve ever gotten. I know Tony Bourdain warns people to run away from “discount sushi,” but this particular discount is OK.

Café Carumba, a rare high-end restaurant that serves all three meals, was a major find for breakfast, and I wish I’d had a few more days there to work my way through the breakfast menu. I hate doing the eggs/sausage-or-bacon thing every day while I travel – once per trip is usually enough – but it’s hard to find an alternative. (The hotel wanted $10 for its crappy buffet; I wasn’t warm to the idea of giving them $10 for a container of yogurt and a stale pastry.) At Carumba, I did do the eggs-sausage-toast bit, since it’s my usual test dish for a breakfast spot. The sausage patties were delicious, probably house-made, lightly spiced and not too porky. The eggs were overcooked, although I have to admit that they were generous with the portions; apparently the menu’s reference to “two eggs” meant ostrich eggs. The rosemary potato wedges were a little dry, but the flavor was excellent. But what caught my eye was the yogurt-and-granola dish for $5, enough to pull me back the next morning. I don’t know where the granola came from, but it was superb, not too sweet (since the yogurt is already sweetened – I don’t need a sugar rush at 9 a.m.) and with a little cinnamon, and the bowl was topped with a sliced fresh strawberry. That, an English muffin that turned out to be free because the server forgot to bring it out with the yogurt dish, and a cup of hot tea (they serve Tazo) ran $9 with tip. Whenever I get back to Phoenix, my first breakfast stop will be at Carumba for their migas, which they make with chorizo sausage; my failure to try them stands as my major food regret of the trip. Heavy, spicy food isn’t really the ideal breakfast in my book, but this is the sort of sacrifice one has to make from time to time.

Wednesday’s lunch was a trip to Phoenix Ranch Market, something of a religious experience for people who like to cook; it’s a huge Mexican grocery store that also features a large food court. Any time I walk into an ethnic restaurant or store and find it packed with members of that ethnicity (and, therefore, not with people who look like I do), I figure I’m in the right spot. Indeed, despite the fact that the woman who took my order was so flustered by the prior customer’s inability to make up her mind that my burrito ended up an all-carnitas version instead of carnitas with rice and beans, I’m still a huge fan. That plus an enormous tamarind juice that I couldn’t finish ran $7, and I left with three Mexican cookies that cost $1 – two were just like oversized Italian butter cookies, and the third was a cocol, a sort of Mexican sweet bread (not sweetbread) flavored with anise seeds that didn’t thrill me. The food court also offered ice cream, cakes and other pastries, and plenty of other lunch options like enchiladas, tacos, etc. The carnitas, by the way, were served without any sauce (which may be traditional, but it was new to me), but had all the flavor of an excellent barbequed pulled pork.

Wednesday’s dinner and Thursday’s lunch were at chain restaurants. I was in Peoria and options were limited. We’re just going to pretend that those meals never happened.

Friday was the best eating day of the trip, which is typical, since it was also the last eating day of the trip. Breakfast was the aforementioned yogurt meal at Carumba. Lunch was an unusual plate at the Blue Adobe Grill in Mesa, less than a mile from their ballpark. The food is New Mexican cuisine (as in, from New Mexico), and the quality was extremely high. But apparently I’m not a huge fan of the red chile, at least not the varieties used in the cuisine of New Mexico. The carne adovada enchilada had a perfectly good piece of slow-roasted pork that came in an extremely bitter and somewhat spicy red adobo sauce. I’m told that this is normal. Why people would willingly eat something so bitter is beyond me; the only things that should taste that bad are medicine. The bitterness overwhelmed the spiciness and the sweetness that I think lay hidden underneath. I don’t think this is a fault of the cook; I think this is how it’s supposed to taste, and suddenly I’m not so sure that a week in Santa Fe is on my list of vacations to take. The red chile rice was better, with less bitterness but less heat, and the “shredded” beef taco (served on two soft corn tortillas with shredded cabbage) was excellent; the beef was more pulled than anything else, and it was a pleasant surprise to have a taco that wasn’t made with ground beef cooked within an inch of its life. The meal’s highlight was actually the smoky green salsa that came with warm tortilla chips to start the meal. I was tempted to take the salsa with me, but my only potential vessel was a pant pocket, and I thought the salsa might ruin my cell phone.

Friday’s dinner was my one meal with companions, Jeff Erickson of Rotowire and my occasional comrade-in-forks Joe Sheehan of Baseball Prospectus. Looking for a quick meal between BP and the game at Phoenix Municipal Stadium, we hit Honey Bear’s BBQ, a rather, um, unassuming little building on Van Buren just west of the 202. Smoke was pouring out of the back of the building, and once I determined that the place was not on fire, I took it as a good omen. I got greedy and went for the pulled pork, baked beans, and peach cobbler, which ran about $9 including a drink. The pork was excellent, very tender with good smoky flavor, and Joe and I had an extended discussion on the sauce, eventually concluding that the cook was going for a pan-American sauce, with some vinegar (North Carolina), mustard (South Carolina), and sweet (Memphis) flavors coming through. The beans were also plus, with bits of their hot links inside; Joe had a hot link sandwich, and gave it a thumbs up. Their links are hot but not killer-hot and were extremely juicy. The cobbler was good, although the layers of dough ended up a little gummy from sitting there while I ate everything else. Jeff got the ribs and thought they were good, but not as tender as promised (they claim “You don’t need no teeth to eat our meat!”). It was an incredible find by way of Google Maps and Chowhound, and I was still full three hours later.

Next year’s goal will be a chain-free trip to Phoenix. I’m optimistic; there are a lot of good eats to be had in that town, and I think I only scratched the surface of the Mexican scene.

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