The Ratings Explained

This post has been a long time coming, and finally here it is. I do my reviews mostly on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the best. Well, actually, it's more of a 0 to 6 scale, but zeros and sixes are quite rare. I start off each overview with the basic information, like this:

The Peppermill Restaurant and Fireside Lounge
2985 Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas NV 89109
(702) 735-4177

Open for: 24 Hours a Day- Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner, Late Night

Then comes the numerical bits of Atmosphere, Service, and Food:

Atmosphere: 5 (A testament to how tacky everything was in the 80s. I wouldn't want it any other way.)
Service: 4 (this time you could tell the waitresses got slammed at 3 AM, but everyone was friendly. And thank goodness, they still said good night when I left at 4!)
Food: 4 (Competent, generous, and for heavens' sakes get the coffee!)

Each of these goes off of the same scale:
6: Wow, this is the best I've ever had!
5: I loved it
4: I liked it
3: It's OK
2: I didn't like it
1: I hated it
0: Not Acceptable

The 0 rating happens when something happens that just plain should not exist in the course of dining. Two notable occurences were an atmosphere 0 for a bathroom that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in a week, and a service 0 when the counter person took something I had returned and put it back under the heat lamps. In both cases, there was just one thing to say: Eew. I always include a brief description to explain just why I gave that particular number.

Next up is:

Value 3 (Looks kind of pricey, but quality is good and portions can be gigantic)

This measures the kind of bang you get for your buck.
5: An absolute steal
4: Prices are a little low
3: Prices are reasonable
2: Prices are a little high
1: Rip-off!

I also mention a couple of special dining cases:

Kid Friendly: 4 (Kids will be very happy here)
Veg Friendly: 3 (With a menu this expansive, there are quite a few veg choices, but more on the breakfast menu than dinner. Vegan options are limited but do exist)

Both of these work pretty much the same way:
5: The restaurant specifically caters to this clientele (Chuck E Cheese and Green, respectively)
4: The restaurant put forth good effort to accomodate this clientele (Oregano's and Pita Jungle)
3: The restaurant has basic amenities for this clientele (Most restaurants)
2: The restaurant has limited options for this clientele (Delux and Texas Roadhouse)
1: The restaurant does not cater to this clientele (Mary Elaine's and Durant's)


Last is the Overall score, which works the same way as the Food/Service/Atmosphere rankings. Note that this is not an average! A place could have 4s across the board but still get a 3 or 5 just as easily due to those little unseen touches that bring everything together or pull everything apart.

From the mailbag

I just got a question from one of my readers through the nifty little Meebo box on the right hand side of the page. Since they left the page before I could respond, here's my reply.

meeboguest950458: I am looking for rock candy syrup for a mai tai recipe. Can I use grenadine?


The Jester Sez: Nope. Grenadine and rock candy syrup are completely separate ingredients; grenadine is (or at least is supposed to be) pomegranate flavor, rock candy syrup is a neutral flavor. Rock Candy syrup is more commonly known as simple syrup, which is available for sale at most liquor stores. Don't bother buying it, as it's incredibly easy to make at home. To make rock candy syrup, mix 1 pound of sugar (a little more than 2 cups) and a cup of water and heat either in the microwave or on the stove until the solution is completely clear. Store it in a bottle in the fridge. It keeps indefinitely. I don't know when grenadine found its way into the Mai Tai; I have a theory that a bartender somewhere used creme de noyaux (a pink almond liqueur) as a substitution for orgeat, and someone who watched him thought the red liquid was grenadine. However it happened, grenadine should not go in a Mai Tai.



If you ever have any questions, whether about cooking something you see here, local restaurants, or food in general, meebo me! If I'm not around, you can always leave a message. Hint: If you want to catch me live, I'm usually on late at night.

Dinner for that movie coming out

As you may well know by now, Pixar is releasing the movie Ratatouille at the end of this month. After watching a clip on the movie's site, I have a feeling this is going to be every bit as much of a joy to watch as other classic food films such as Like Water for Chocolate and Big Night. This could very well be a good occasion to go to see this at a drive-in, since that way we can bring our own food. And with a movie featuring French cooking enough that the name of the movie is a Provençale dish, I'm putting together a menu of deliciousness from southeastern France.

Appetizer
Pissaladière (onion tart with anchovy and olives)

Main course
Poulet Provençal (chicken braised in tomato, garlic, and herbs)
served with baguettes, roasted red potatoes, and ratatouille (of course!)

Dessert
Raspberry gratin

There's strong temptation to do some kind of salad after the main, but I think three courses for a drive-in movie dinner should be more than enough.

Burger Bar- Mandalay Bay

forgot to take pic. damn. Burger Bar serves up without a doubt THE best burger I have had. Wow. My favorite was Delux until I tried this burger. Delux is no slouch and this is head and shoulders above Delux. The menu is much more expansive than that of Delux, with three different kinds of beef to select (including American Kobe, but what's the point of American Kobe when it's ground anyway?), turkey and veggie options, five bread choices, and a list of toppings that ranges from classic (Cheddar cheese, sauteed mushrooms) to eccentric (grilled asparagus, beetroot pickle), to extravagant (black truffles, lobster, foie gras). I had a burger of Ridgefield Farms beef ($8) on ciabatta with blue cheese ($0.50), grilled onion ($0.95), peppered bacon ($0.95) (Did I mention they offer four different kinds of bacon?), and truffle sauce ($5), cooked medium-rare. For sides, my friend and I got some of their sweet potato fries ($2.50) and onion rings ($3.25).

Yeah, I was pushing close to 20 bucks for a burger and fries. I blame the truffle sauce. It was easily worth every last dime. Everything came together brilliantly well, and you could still taste the beef under the rich ingredients. The ciabatta did its job marvelously, offering support without collapsing halfway through, adding its own note the the taste without dominating the bite like those ciabatta burgers at Jack In The Box. The sides were both exemplary; the sweet potato fries were the crispest that I've had, and the onion rings were a rare example of the thick-breaded rings that didn't get pulled from a freezer bag. Everything was just marvelous; the food was perfect, the servers amazingly attentive without being obtrusive, and the design of the place allowed for a raucous crowd and fairly loud music but still let you converse at normal volumes. I just got word down the pipe that there's a new burger place at Fashion Show Mall called Stripburger, but they're going to have an awfully hard time pulling me away from repeated visits to Burger Bar every time I'm in Vegas.

Burger Bar
3930 Las Vegas Blvd S
Las Vegas, NV 89119
702-632-7777

Atmosphere: 5 (Very nice looking, and perfect acoustic design)
Service: 5 (The whole package, outgoing, friendly, attentive without being obtrusive)
Food: 6! (Seriously the best burger I have had)
Value: 3 (Prices can sneak up on you with added toppings, but worth it)
Kid Friendly: 2 (It's a sports bar atmosphere, I didn't see many kids at all)
Veg friendly: 3 (They do have a vegan veggie burger on the menu)
Overall: 5 (If you enjoy a great burger, you simply have to go to Burger Bar)

chocolat at the wynn

the feuillante (hazelnut) is very good, the earl grey tea one is almost too good for words. such swirling flavors in one little bite! you have to stop and try one when you are at the wynn.

real breakfast: lenotre, paris lv

no picture, you know what a croissant looks like. I had a latte and pain au chocolat (chocolate croissant). The latte was decent, nothing outstanding but when it's before 9 am for me, warm and caffeinated is plenty. The pain au chocolat was definitely one of the better I've had, with its taste pushing that of brioche, with a hint of a sweet note and just a little bit of tanginess from something, maybe the yeast. I prefer my criossant based pastries to be ultra-flaky to the point that you are showered in crumbs, but this one resolutely held together thanks to an egg wash. I would imagine that the scores of conventioneers who stop by here because of its proximity to Paris's meeting halls are less appreciative of crumbs than I am.

Lenôtre at Paris Las Vegas
3655 S Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas NV 89109
(702) 946-7000

Open for: Breakfast, 6:30 AM-11PM
Atmosphere: 3 (Most of the atmospheric touches were provided by the gift shop in the back)
Service: 3 (I was handled by several people, ranging from very friendly to quite brusque)
Food: 4 (Good, solid pastries)
Value 2 (a bit on the steep side, but then, this is the Strip)
Kid Friendly: 3 (Nothing obviously made for kids, but they won't feel left out)
Veg Friendly: 4 (It's pastries! Due to what must be vast amounts of butter, vegans may feel left out)
Overall: 3 (Good for a quick stop if you're in the area, but I wouldn't go out of my way)

3 am breakfast- peppermill las vegas

When you're in Vegas and it's getting to be so late it's early, there's only one real option for where to go for food: the Peppermill. It's a 24 hour restaurant up on the north end of the Strip, near Circus Circus. The place is a bastion of old-school Las Vegas; it was built in the mid-1970s, and remodeled once in the 1980s. The result is a glorious mix of both times. U-shaped booths abound (and once I have bought a house I'm going to eschew the dining room table in favor of a booth styled after the ones at Peppermill), there are huge fake cherry trees illuminated by color changing floodlights, the waitresses' uniforms are this incredibly gaudy floral print, the cocktail waitresses sashay about the dining room in what has to be *the* perfect black dress, and the whole place is lit in shades of magenta and turquoise. It really has to be seen to be believed. The food there is pretty decent; it's a step above normal coffee shop fare, and the portions are ridiculously big. It's the perfect thing to cap off a night of craziness in Vegas. If I'm there with a group, I love to split the Fruit Salad. When it comes to the table, it looks like the waitress just dropped off Carmen Miranda's hat. But this time, I was alone, so instead I had:

the Peppermill omelet- turkey, two cheeses, hollandaise, and sliced tomato. The omelet itself was kind of boring (what did I expect from a turkey and cheese omelet, really?), but was certainly jazzed up by the tangy tomato and surprisingly good Hollandaise. The hashbrowns are perfect, a delicious mix of tender white bits and little crunchy nubs that were *this* close to overcooking. I love it when places are willing to actually cook the hash browns; so often you get this pale blond mat of shredded spuds, and those just don't do anything for me. The coffee is absolutely the best anywhere. It's the thick, rich kind you can practically stand up the spoon in. It's marvelous black (and indeed about the only coffee shop coffee I've found that I'll take black) and only gets better with just a touch of cream and sugar.


The Peppermill Restaurant and Fireside Lounge
2985 Las Vegas Blvd
Las Vegas NV 89109
(702) 735-4177

Open for: 24 Hours a Day- Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dinner, Late Night
Atmosphere: 5 (A testament to how tacky everything was in the 80s. I wouldn't want it any other way.)
Service: 4 (this time you could tell the waitresses got slammed at 3 AM, but everyone was friendly. And thank goodness, they still said good night when I left at 4!)
Food: 4 (Competent, generous, and for heavens' sakes get the coffee!)
Value 3 (Looks kind of pricey, but quality is good and portions can be gigantic)
Kid Friendly: 4 (Kids will be very happy here)
Veg Friendly: 3 (With a menu this expansive, there are quite a few veg choices, but more on the breakfast menu than dinner. Vegan options are limited but do exist)
Overall: 5 (One of those times when the whole is so much more than the sum of its parts)

A Short Treatise on a Favorite Beverage

It has now been a full year since Trader Vic's has opened its doors in Scottsdale once more. I feel extremely blessed to be a part of it from the beginning. The anniversary kind of snuck up on all of us; we've been having so much fun at the restaurant that it hasn't felt even close to a year. We've seen faces come and go, and still people come in at a pretty darn good rate. And I've come to appreciate even more the craft of the cocktail. Vic really knew what he was doing ages ago, and his spirit definitely lives on in all of the spirits we serve today. My favorite is our signature drink, the classic Mai Tai.

The Mai Tai at Trader Vic's is completely unlike anything else I've been served with the same name. So many places load theirs up with tropical juices and heavy syrups, and the result is a saccharine concoction that might as well just be fruit punch. At Vic's, the recipe is very simple; just our Royal Amber Rum, fresh lime, sweet orange, and a little hint of almond to round things out.

The Mai Tai got its start way back in 1944 at the original Trader Vic's on 65th and San Pablo in Oakland (the area is now Emeryville), California. One day, Vic decided to create a new drink, something he had done quite a few times in the past. He started out with great rum, a 17-year Jamaican from J. Wray & Nephew. He added a little Holland DeKuyper Orange Curaçao, some Garnier orgeat syrup from France, the juice of a lime, and a dollop of Rock Candy Syrup. He gave it a mighty shake with some crushed ice, poured it into a glass, and was about to taste his new creation when he found out that a couple of friends of his from Tahiti, Ham and Carrie Guild, had just come in to the restaurant. Vic had the bartenders make a couple more of this new drink, and he took them out to the Guilds. He offered it to them, mentioning that they were the first to taste it, and tell him what they thought. Carrie took a sip. Her eyes lit up and she exclaimed, "This is maitai! It's maitai roa a'e!" To which Vic naturally could only say one thing... "What the hell does that mean?" Carrie replied that it's Tahitian for "Out of this world, the best"*. So, Vic decided at that point to call it the Mai Tai. It's one of the rare exceptions to my Chowhound Rule Of Thumb #2- the Mai Tai's name means "good", and it is very good indeed.

Nowadays, it's impossible to truly make the original Mai Tai, as Trader Vic's exhausted the world supply of J. Wray & Nephew 17-year just one year after the drink's creation, and Garnier doesn't make orgeat anymore. Thankfully, J. Wray & Nephew is still making rum, now under the name of Appleton Estate, and Dekuyper is certainly still making orange curaçao. There are several brands of orgeat available; I favor Torani because it uses real sugar. So, I now present my house version of the Original Mai Tai:

2 ounces Appleton Estate Extra (the black label one)
1/2 ounce DeKuyper Orange Curaçao
1/2 ounce Torani Orgeat Syrup
1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice
1/4 ounce Rock Candy Syrup

Shake very well with 2 cups of crushed ice. Pour into a glass without straining, and garnish with a sprig of mint (and a speared maraschino cherry and pineapple tidbit if you have them handy).

There's a couple of things that I should take the time to explain about two of the ingredients. Buying crushed ice at the grocery store won't work, it's not crushed enough. You can crush ice at home with an ice crusher, a halfway decent blender, or by putting ice in a plastic bag, wrapping it with a towel, and beating the hell out of it with a heavy blunt object (I favor a marble rolling pin, you may get better mileage out of a mallet or cast iron skillet). There is also a good chance that you can get your hands on some finely crushed ice (the same kind we use at the restaurant, as far as I can tell) just by visiting your local Sonic Drive-In. Just ask the friendly carhop, and you should be able to get your hands on a bunch. The other thing to explain is the Rock Candy syrup, also known as simple syrup. There are a number of brands out there that you can buy, and I don't recommend any of them. It's incredibly easy to make at home. I use a double strength one in the Mai Tai; just combine 1 pound of sugar with 1 cup of water, and heat either in the microwave or on the stove until the liquid is completely clear and there are no signs of sugar granules anywhere. Pour it into a bottle, and store in the fridge. It keeps indefinitely. You can make a normal strength solution with equal amounts sugar and water (use twice as much if you do), but don't try making one stronger than listed here; if you do, it will spontaneously crystallize and you'll be left with a very difficult to clean bottle (but a massive chunk of rock candy to show for it).


*She's right, "maitai" means good, roa and a'e both act as affirmative enhancements. The closer literal translation would be "It's good! It's really, REALLY good!"

News from the Eastern Bandido Front

I recently stopped in at the Chandler location of the incredibly delicious Chino Bandido Takee-Outee for lunch, and had a chance to chat with the counter girl a bit. You see, the Chandler Chino's got robbed a couple of weeks ago, and they were thinking of closing up shop in a month or two. This, of course, would not be a good thing for my friends in the East Valley who are all now addicted to Chino Bandido. Apparently, they are now getting back on their feet (and are now able to accept plastic again), and much like the opening of the Chandler one, talks about closing it are being delayed. As many times as the opening of it got delayed by one thing or another, if the place ever closes, they'll probably start talking about it in earnest some time in late 2015 or so.

The biggest thing that will help keep the place alive is to EAT AT CHINO'S! Especially for dinner; the place is always hopping at lunch but then it's nobody but the staff and the crickets after that. Remember the Takee-Outee part... you can bring home Jade Red Chicken quesadillas for the whole family. Frank, Eve, and Pancho will all thank you.

Plotting International Nibblies

Some friends of mine are throwing a party in June. These parties are absolute juggernauts. It runs for an entire weekend, and this time we're going to have *two* bands. One of them knows the music for one of my favorite karaoke songs, "It's The End Of The World (As We Know It)" by REM. That should turn out interesting. Now if only the party wasn't out at 319th Avenue!

But anyway, this is a food blog, back to the food. At these parties, I throw a smaller party for the people who are helping make the party happen so that they have a chance to relax. This time, I'm going to offer a variety of snacks from around the globe. I'm trying out different possibilities, and I greatly enjoy both of the ones I've done so far. The first are fried peanuts in a Southeast Asian spice blend (Madras curry with a little sweetness added), and North African cheese mantecaos, little cheese pastry balls spiced with cumin and cayenne. The flavor of the mantecaos is wonderful, changing as you savor one. I'll likely do the mantecaos with either a really good sharp Cheddar or some Emmentaler. Also on the menu so far are hummus with pita triangles, cha siu pork, Brazilian brigadeiro (an intensely chocolaty dessert), and a tropical dried fruit medley. I'm tempted to do the Tuscan Hummus recipe I have from California Pizza Kitchen; I've tried it before and it's very tasty, but at the same time I think traditional hummus would be pretty nice too. I think I have a pretty decent selection of exotic locales, with North Africa, China, Southeast Asia, Brazil, the Middle East (or maybe Northern Italy), and Polynesia... should I include anything else?

On Location: Welcome Diner, Phoenix AZ

I'm sitting at the counter at the Welcome Diner on 10th Street and Roosevelt near downtown Phoenix. I am most impressed so far, everything is just perfect. everything is unpretentious and greatly enjoyable. I have a feeling I'll be a regular in no time.

I'm up in flagstaff, and just saw something coming soon here that I don't think we have in phoenix... Himalayan food! The restaurant will serve Nepali and Tibetan fare. It's on Milton, next to the home brew supply place.

Jester On The Go: Olive & Ivy, Scottsdale AZ.

Today, I did a common thing when I'm scheduled to go in to work later than usual... I went in at the normal time. I suddenly found I had 45 minutes to kill, and felt like grabbing a small nibble of some sort. I almost went to the Nordstrom Cafe, but the mall was absolutely jammed. It was a nice day, what were all of you people doing going to an air conditioned building? I went out and looked for another option, then remembered about the new Fox restaurant, Olive & Ivy, on the other side of the Nordstrom parking garage.

Olive and Ivy is a very pretty place, with soaring ceilings, dark woods, sleek surfaces, and nice partitioning so it doesn't feel like a warehouse. It is split into several sections; the standard bar and restaurant areas, plus a to-go counter that features coffeehouse offerings (espresso drinks and baked goods) plus several flavors of (Oh God, Not Again!) gelato. The split layout means they can be open all day long without feeling like half of the place is closed: The counter is open for breakfast and lunch; the restaurant is open for brunch, lunch, and dinner; and the bar is open at lunch, dinner, and for late-night nibbles. I spent a few minutes perusing the cold case in the counter area, stocked with overpriced beer, mini bottles of wine, and soft drinks. They had an excellent selection of exotic and familiar offerings. But two bucks for Vitamin Water that costs two thirds that at a run of the mill convenience store? Aie.

I stood eyeing the gelato case for a minute or so; the two people behind the expansive counter preferred chatting with each other and straightening the adjacent espresso machine area to other activities such as... oh, I don't know, how about greeting the puzzled looking guest in front of you?! They may have made eye contact once or twice. I don't remember. It was certainly not the first impression I wanted. I doubt I'm going to try them again.


Olive & Ivy
7135 E Camelback Rd Ste 195 (Scottsdale Waterfront complex)
Scottsdale AZ 85251
480-751-2200

Open for: Breakfast, Weekend Brunch, Lunch, Dinner, Late Night
Atmosphere: 5 (Absolutely gorgeous)
Service: 0 (there was none, not even a hello. Inexcusable.)
Food: Not Reviewed
Value 2 (items in cold case were overpriced)
Kid Friendly: 2 (upscale, no hint of kids menu; upscale kids will be pleased with the small plates)
Overall: No Rating due to no food tasting. Overall impression is that it's the archetype downtown Scottsdale restaurant- very pretty, costs more than it should, and the customers serve as an interruption to the employees' social hour. I see no reason to return.

What IS Mack Daddy's, anyway?

My commute takes me along Indian School Road from central Phoenix to Scottsdale on an almost daily basis. As such, I'm always on the lookout for new things to eat in between here and there. One that I've noticed (and noticed that they're taking their sweet time to get up and running) is Mack Daddy's 3-2 Gourmet To Go, over on 32nd Street and Indian School. I looked around for it online, and found their website to be almost impossible to find. Eventually, I found out that the eatery is run by the same guy who owns Newton Fitness next door, Mack Newton. Further poking on the website revealed that the 3-2 in the name is the name of Mack's diet plan. The 3 is for the three things you can eat (lean meats, vegetables, and fresh fruit), the 2 for the two things you can drink (water and fruit juice). That's right, it's a low-carb diet restaurant! If they opened this seven years ago they would have lines out the door. These days, I'm not so sure. And yes, Mack, it IS a diet, despite what your website claims.


The mentions of the food on the website leave me utterly cold. There's no mention of using truly high-quality ingredients, except that they call higher quality food "that which is served closer to the natural state in which it occurs." When one is working with a simpler ingredient set such as this, everything has to be absolutely the best it can, preferably something locally produced, or at least in season. Add to this a complete lack of salt in the kitchen. Yes, that's right, no salt at all. While this is good news to people with high blood pressure, for everyone else it means the food is going to be utterly bland. According to the website, salt is a "powerful flavorizer" with a "sharp, acidic taste". Flavorizer? Why must they make up words? And salt is not acidic, it is neutral. A little bit of salt can heighten the flavor of just about any food; if you have ever tasted baked goods that someone forgot to add the salt to, surely you noticed it just didn't taste right, that the flavor of the food just fell flat. More worrisome is their testimonial section, which has several mentions of weight lost, but not a word about what the food is like. I have a feeling that about the only people who will frequent Mack Daddy's are the ones already on Newton's program; the rest of us don't have much to hope for there.

Cooking: Red Curry

I have a friend who is, when left to her own devices, entirely un-Chowhoundish. I invited her and her beau over to my place for dinner one night, and they turned down the invitation in favor of a trip to Olive Garden. They could have at least been a little diplomatic and said they weren't sure where they were going yet! She lived in a house with three college age guys at one point. The default meal was Hamburger Helper. She figured it was one of the few things that everyone could devour without putting her in the poor house. Something about the idea of dinner from a box scares me. Maybe it's the list of ingredients that look like they belong in a science lab, or the tendency for different flavors to taste less like the real items they're trying to emulate, and more just like each other. I'm utterly tired of mass-produced, processed junk masquerading as a wholesome meal. I want my food to resemble FOOD, darn it!

Fear not, good citizens. Your friendly local Asian grocery store is to the rescue! There's all kinds of wonderful things inside, but this time I'm focusing on curry, specifically Thai style red curry. Three styles of Thai curry are known by colorful names- Green curry, with green chilis and shallots; yellow curry, with plenty of turmeric and usually potatoes and onions as ingredients for the curry; and red curry, with red chilis. This time, I'm making red curry. There's a lot of ingredients in the curry that are pretty hard to find outside of specialty grocery stores, including galangal, lemongrass, and kaffir lime. Thankfully, red (and green and yellow) curry pastes are available with all of the herbs and spices already mixed together for you. All you need to add is some coconut milk, meat, and vegetables, and tah-dah! It's dinner!

If you can make any of those dinners in a box, you can certainly make Thai red curry. Take 3.5 ounces of curry paste (for a less spicy curry, use less curry paste, down to half as much), and moosh it around in a 12 inch skillet over medium-high heat. Then, add two cans of coconut milk one at a time, mixing thoroughly before adding the next ingredient. Add 8 ounces of any meat you like (we've been doing chicken a lot here just because I always have some frozen chicken breasts from Trader Joe's at hand), and let the mixture simmer until the meat is as done as you like. Add 4 to 8 ounces of your choice of chopped vegetables (we like carrots, onion, and snow peas quite a bit, but let your imagination go wild), let that simmer until the vegetables are done (just a couple of minutes), and serve. Yes, it's that easy, and there's only one pot to clean up afterward. Well, two pots... steamed rice on the side is essential.

Speaking of rice, here's how I do rice for any Asian meals. Mix 3 cups of water with 2 cups of rice (I use jasmine rice) and about half a teaspoon of salt. Let that boil over medium high heat until the water level drops below the surface of the rice, about 10 minutes. Cover the pot, turn the heat down to low, and let it cook for another 15 minutes. Take it off the heat, give it a quick stir/fluff to stop the cooking, and serve.

What The Jester Had For Dessert: Melt Gelato, Phoenix AZ

I have been to a godawful lot of gelaterias in the Phoenix area. They certainly are prolific. I can think of seven different companies, and close to a dozen total locations of said companies. There is now yet another player in this hot market, namely a Southern California based franchise operation called Melt (no relation to the bath and body product company of the same name). Their first location is open in Paradise Valley Mall, with a second location set to open soon in Superstition Springs Mall in Mesa.

I went over there to try it today, and was vastly underwhelmed. I was impressed by their selection, with what looked like about 32 different flavors. They offer three sizes of gelato; a one-flavor small, a two-flavor large, and the Bambino, a selection of eight mini-scoops. They do also offer espresso drinks and a variety of sweet and savory crepes; these were not tasted on this trip. Since I wanted to get as big of a taste of their product line as possible, my friend Bellana and I naturally split the Bambino. We got the double dark chocolate, strawberry cheesecake, burgundy cherry, açai mixed berry sorbet, raspberry sorbet, butter pecan, cookies & cream, and Tropical (piña colada). I also tried samples of the tequila lime gelato and pomegranate sorbet. The best of them was the açai mixed berry, but it was plagued with an iciness that often comes from the product being taken in and out of a hard freeze. Many of the gelati had a very gummy, almost gluey texture that just didn't give the right mouthfeel. On top of this, the flavors just weren't deep enough. I could barely notice a difference between the cookies & cream and the burgundy cherry if it wasn't for the telltale bits of cherry in the latter. It is one of the slicker looking gelaterias in town, coming close to rivaling the cheerful colors of Arlecchino, and the service is personable and friendly, but those will only get you so far when the product itself is lacking so much. In retrospect, I shouldn't be all that surprised. I looked at their website, and most of it is about franchis opportunities. This is definitely a Chowhound's red flag; the company shows this way that they care more about opening new locations than about creating a great product.


Melt Gelato
4568 E Cactus Road
Phoenix, AZ
Paradise Valley Mall Food Court

Open For: Lunch, Dinner
Food: 2 (textures were off, flavors need to be stronger)
Service: 3 (Nice people, and they didn't mind us sampling several flavors while we made up our minds)
Atmosphere: 4 (Clean, modern, and metallic)
Value: 3 (Right around what everyone else is charging)
Kid Friendly? 4 (Come on, it's ice cream!)
Price: 1 (inexpensive)
Overall: 3 (It was OK, certainly nothing to go out of one's way for)

Two Great Pieces of Sushi News

I went to college down in Tucson. While there, friends introduced me to a terrific Japanese restaurant called Sushi Ten. The food was top-notch, and the prices were an outstanding value. Indeed, Sushi Ten was one of the things I really missed about Tucson; there's plenty of Japanese restaurants around town, but none that came quite close to the charm of Sushi Ten. Then, a few months ago I found out the owners of Sushi Ten were planning to sell the restaurant and move up here. A month or two ago, they landed here and opened their new restaurant, Sushi Ken, over on Chandler Boulevard a little east of 40th Street, in the same shopping centre as CK's Tavern. I am very pleased to report that the menu is every bit as expansive as the one at Sushi Ten, and the food is every bit as terrific as it was down in Tucson. My friend and I got a 12-piece sashimi sampler plate, pork katsu donburi (a rice bowl topped with fried pork cutlet, sauteed onion, and egg), and sukiyaki chicken. All of it was top-notch, and the bill came to less than 30 dollars.

Now, on to even better news. A few years ago, there was an unbelievable sushi restaurant in Chandler not far from where Sushi Ken is now, called Shinbay. Shinbay was by far the best sushi restaurant I had been to, and indeed one of the best restaurants I have dined at in my life. I can still vividly remember the flavors of the meal including oysters in black bean sauce, and mussels in a very complex broth. Then, just over a year ago, Shinbay closed up shop. There was a note on the webpage saying to email them to find out where chef Shinji Kurita was now. I tried that route, to no avail, and eventually forgot all but the Shin of his name. Then, some discussion on Chowhound revealed the rest of his name to me. I then realized that the marquee for one of my favorite Chinese restaurants, Autumn Court over on 38th Street and Indian School, has been advertising for weeks that none other than Shinji Kurita is doing sushi there! Fellow sushi lovers, you owe it to yourself to get over to Autumn Court and try Kurita-san's sushi. If it's even half as good as what he made at Shinbay it will still be some of the very best sushi in town. Go. Now. Trust me on this.

Review: Flaming Kabob Cuisine, Mesa AZ

One thing that a great many Phoenicians bemoan is the endless strip malls filled with nothing but dismal chain restaurant fare as far as the eye can see. It certainly does seem like shopping centers pop up in the blink of an eye, tempting Chowhounds valleywide with new spaces that might hold something exciting and new. Alas, such is rarely the case. Take the Mesa Grand shopping center over on Stapley in between Baseline and the Superstition freeway. Within two minutes' walking distance of each other are Panda Express, Cold Stone Creamery, Rubio's, Souper Salad, a cheesesteak chain, Chili's, Texas Roadhouse, Romano's Macaroni Grill, L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, Old Country Buffet, Pizzeria Uno, Charleston's, Fatburger, El Paso BBQ Company, and I'm sure there are more that I missed, all on a single corner. While I will admit that I get the occasional craving for some of these, for the most part they serve up boring, industrial fare that you can get at similar shopping centers just a few miles down the road. Maybe it's not exactly the same restaurants, but it's the same old song nonetheless.

Enter the ravages of time. Inevitably, a few of these national operations fall by the wayside. Maybe the franchisor had trouble. Or it could be that the people in the area just couldn't be convinced that this kind of restaurant is a good idea. For whatever the reason, the 5 & Diner location a mile down Baseline just a little east of Gilbert Road closed up shop. For a good long time, the building sat empty, waiting for a new tenant. Then one day, a Middle Eastern restaurant called Flaming Kabob Cuisine opened in the space of the old diner.

My friend Bellana and I walked into the old diner, wondering what changes they made to give it a better thematic flavor. They did... nothing. Well, almost nothing. Where condiments once stood above the expo line, there now was a wide variety of hookahs and flavored tobacco. The miniature jukeboxes disappeared from the tables, replaced by upbeat Middle Eastern dance music playing on the sound system. Any art on the walls had vanished, save two small framed automobile advertisements in the men's restroom (it looks like they were glued down very firmly indeed). It looked like you'd expect a 5 & Diner to look before the decorators came in, with red walls, glittery red and silver naugahyde booths, and glossy black ceiling fans.

We looked over the menu, trying to figure out what to try, when I spied the Combo for Two on the menu. It looked like a good way to sample most of the menu without taking home food for three days; on it were chicken and lamb kebab, chicken shawarma, shish kefta, kibbeh, falafel, dolmades, rice, green salad, and hummus, all for $22.99. We ordered that, along with a couple of cups of Chicken Lemon Rice soup ($1.99 each). The soup arrived from the kitchen quickly. We took a moment to enjoy the aroma wafting from the soup, and dove in. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't terrific either. Both Bellana and I felt that the seasonings could have used some adjustment, maybe a little paprika would give it the little nudge that it seemed to miss. However, that was the last of my worries about the food. The hummus at Flaming Kabob is serious stuff, silky smooth, loaded with a perfect balance of garlic and lemon. It's almost worth the drive out there just for the hummus. Almost. The staff was quick to bring more pita when we ran out; I felt like it would have been nice to get a bit more at the start, but at the same time bringing more as necessary keeps the warm pita from getting cold. As we almost finished the hummus, our salad arrived. It was plenty of romaine lettuce chopped into nice small pieces (Note to other restaurateurs out there: Salad is not meant to be eaten with a knife! For Pete's sake, would you mind cutting the lettuce into manageable bites?), accented with bits of tomato and cucumber. The house dressing tossed on the salad was incredible, a refreshing, lemony vinaigrette with plenty of herbs.

Before too long, the main course plate came. What a feast! One thing that I've noticed with a great number of ethnic restaurants is that they will tone down the vibrant flavors of home for a cautious American audience. Thankfully, that is not the case here. Everything spoke of plenty of seasoning. The kebab, sadly, was not flaming as one would surmise by the name of the restaurant, but it did show evidence of being cooked by some very deft flame work. Both the chicken and the lamb had a very nice crust develop on the outside, with the center of each bit of meat on the sticks succulent and flavorful. The stuffed grape leaves were the surprise smash hit for us. They were assertively seasoned, filled with rice and meat, and were definitely way more than the sum of their parts.

While I wouldn't take people there for the atmophere (c'mon guys, even a couple of travel posters would make a world of difference!), I'll certainly be back time and again to Flaming Kabob for the food. I certainly feel like I got my money's worth thanks to some of the best Middle Eastern food in the farther reaches of the East Valley. OK, so it's likely some of the only Middle Eastern food to be found out that way, but still, it's great stuff.


Flaming Kabob Cuisine
2252 E Baseline Rd
Mesa, AZ
NW Corner of Baseline and Gilbert, facing Baseline
480-813-6555

Open For: Lunch, Dinner
Food: 5 (absolutely delicious; ardent fans of Middle Eastern cuisine may find the menu a bit pedestrian for their taste though)
Service: 3 (Friendly, eager to please; I think our waitress was a little green, but it added to the mom-n-pop charm)
Atmosphere: 1 (It would be nice if the interior didn't still scream 5 & Diner)
Value: 4 (Very satisfied with the food)
Kid Friendly? 3 (limited American kids' menu; more adventuresome wee ones should be able to order small bites off the regular menu or share one of the platters with ease, though)
Price: 1-2 (mostly inexpensive)
Overall: 4 (I liked it quite a bit)

New & Noteworthy Blog

Michele Laudig, the new reviewer at the Phoenix New Times, has a new blog, titled Chow Bella. Both her blog and her weekly reviews in the New Times are very nice chow writing, check 'em out.

I (heart) PBLoco

The peanut butter from PBLoco is outrageously good stuff. I have a jar of the European Cafe Mocha flavor here, and it's nearly half gone from sneaky snacking. I imagine it would make a great ice cream sauce if it was thinned out with a little bit of cream. The only thing I'm not a big fan of is the consistency; the peanut butter is a little runnier than I'd like at room temperature, and very very hard when refrigerated. Still, it's utterly delicious stuff. There's a PBLoco store at Scottsdale Fashion Square, and people close to a Super Target can find the Jungle Banana, Dark Chocolate Raspberry, and European Cafe Mocha for a buck less than the PBLoco store sells it.

Consume Mass Quanitites, Rose Bowl Edition

Lawry's The Prime Rib in Beverly Hills does a special event for the Rose Bowl players called the Beef Bowl. On two separate nights, both teams get to dine to their hearts' content on prime rib, creamed, corn, mashed potatoes, and apple pie for dessert. This year, the Michigan team downed a whopping 612 pounds of prime rib. Dayum.

On a sad note, the vast majority of the cooked to order prime rib was served well done.

It's That Time of Year Again

I had a family get-together at Old People's Country Buffet this past weekend. Dear Lord, I forgot how incredibly horrid the food is over there. Especially frightening standouts included "Risotto-Style Rice", a gloppy blend of long-grain rice with chopped broccoli and cheese sauce; a hot fudge pudding cake noted for its almost complete lack of flavor; and... enchiladas. There are certain things I will do in the name of my dear readers, but touching one of those dried out things with a ten-foot pole is not one of them. When the $1.99 breakfast* at IKEA looks like a truly terrific alternative, there's something seriously wrong with the picture, n'est-ce pas? Oh, speaking of IKEA, my morbid curiosity got the better of me, and I tried their Thursday night dinner special of prime rib. It's a good sized cut, I'm going to guess about 12 or 14 ounces, and thankfully pink in the middle. It came with a baked potato and vegetables for 8 bucks. While it certainly wasn't close to what you'd get at a decent steakhouse, it was better than it had any right to be for the price. Maybe some time I'll go see if they do a decent job with lobster on Tuesday night.

Anyway, back to the holiday goings-on. After we left the buffet, it was off to Grandpa's place to exchange gifts. I put together the exact same thing for everyone, a deluxe treat plate. Included was half a pound cake, some colossal loaded oatmeal cookies (loaded with Montmorency cherries, cranberries, pecans, and bittersweet chocolate), crispy chocolate chip cookies, and not one but two kinds of fudge. Ah, fudge, the fruitcake of the 21st century. Every single square of homemade fudge I have ever eaten in my entire life has been the too-sweet, slightly grainy kind with not nearly enough chocoate flavor. I swear everyone out there has the exact same recipe, the one with evaporated milk and Marshmallow Fluff.

Everyone except yours truly, that is.

This year, I tried out the recipe Cook's Illustrated published in their recent issue. It is:

1 pound finely chopped semisweet chocolate
2 ounces finely chopped unsweetened chocolate
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt

tossed in a bowl until the baking soda and salt are nicely distributed. Then, you add a 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk, and stir to coat the chocolate. The bowl then gets set over a pan of simmering water, and the contents get stirred until the chocolate has almost melted. Then, pull the bowl off the pan (be careful of the escaping steam), stir it until all of the chocolate has melted, and mix in a cup of coarsely chopped toasted walnuts. The whole mess then goes into a foil lined and greased 8 inch square pan, and put in the fridge for a couple of hours until the fudge has set up enough to be taken out of the pan and cut into squares.

This stuff is truly amazing fudge. The unsweetened chocolate gives a good flavor boost, and the little bit of baking soda reacts with the acidity of the chocolate to keep things light. I may play around with this recipe... I'm tempted to pick up some of the Andes mint baking chips and see how those turn out.


*The breakfast at IKEA is bacon, scrambled eggs, cottage fries, Swedish (what did you expect?) pancakes with lingonberry sauce, and coffee. Yes, all that for less than a latte at Starbucks. If you want the price of breakfast at IKEA to remain reasonable, have plans for what to do after breakfast. Otherwise, you might feel like going for a wee bit of a stroll, and oh why look there's a whole store to wander through right here!

It's a new feature!

I found something that I thought was very cool, and think it will make a worthwhile addition to the site. It's called Meebo, and is visible in the sidebar to the right. If I'm online, you can chat with me directly from this site. Feel free to ask me anything about Phoenix area food, cooking, or whatever else is on your mind. Particularly noteworthy conversations just might end up here on the site.

Jester Relocation Project

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to announce that I have finally moved from out in the sticks to my own place in central Phoenix. While this does mean I likely won't been seen as much at some of my favorite old haunts, there's tons and tons of exploring to do in this part of town.

Red Devil has quickly earned a place in my heart for being a darn near perfect neighborhood pizza joint. The pizza there is very chow-worthy indeed. I am thankful that La Madeleine still exists in the Valley at 32nd Street and Camelback, in the same shopping center as Delux. I went there about a week or so ago after a very long day of moving things into the new apartment, and remembered that La Madeleine is one of the best places in town for soothing comfort food. The atmosphere is warm and inviting, with a French country house feel and classical music playing gently on the sound system. All of the food I have had there has been absolutely delicious, certainly the cream of the crop as far as chains go. It certainly isn't cheap as far as quick-service outlets go; we each had a glass of wine, cup of soup, and an entree, and our bill came close to 40 dollars. However, I would say that it is most certainly worth it. Grocery shopping is certainly more enjoyable now; there's Trader Joe's, Phoenix Ranch Market, and Sprouts all within two or three miles of here. Previously, it was 5 miles to Basha's, 20 miles to the nearest Trader Joe's. I will miss the easier access to Super Target, they have some really great things over there.


One thing I love about having my new place is that I can have friends over and cook for them much easier than before. I'm so thrilled that I have a gas stove now! It's made cooking so much more enjoyable already. I inaugurated the kitchen last night with a Chinese dinner of orange flavored chicken, and beef with broccoli. According to the recipes it should have served eight people. There were five of us, and the only thing left was a bunch of rice (I always make extra rice so fried rice is a quick dinner option in the near future), and several strips of bell pepper that were in the beef with broccoli. So much for the idea of taking leftovers to work! I do know now that making stir-fry in this place does have some advance prep work. Namely, open the patio door, close the bedroom doors, turn on the vent hood, and toss a wet washcloth over the living room smoke alarm until I'm done cooking.

Live report from superstition springs mall: Melt Gelato opening in the near future. Can they unseat the Lombardo clan for my favorite gelato in Phoenix? Stay tuned!

Bites: Waffle House, Chandler AZ

I had a Waffle House craving recently. I went to the one in Chandler, and I'll be damned if it wasn't one of the best breakfasts I've had in recent memory. It was 1 AM. I was absolutely famished after a long day at work, and for whatever reason, I was craving Waffle House. My friend and I slid into a booth. I got the All-American Combo, featuring two eggs, bacon (or sausage if you prefer), hash browns (or grits), toast (I went with raisin), and a waffle, all for $6.99. A few extra coins got the hash browns scattered, smothered, covered, and topped (set loosely on the grill, with grilled onions, cheese, and chili), and pecans added to the waffle. I realized it was a little too quiet in there, and put some Aretha Franklin on the jukebox. We chatted, we watched the cook make our chow, and then our waitress brought the food over. Everything was sheer bliss. The eggs were cooked exactly right, the bacon was just the perfect crispness, the hash browns nice and crisp, and the waffle... oh the waffle was terrific. I have not had satisfaction from an all-night diner like this in a very, very long time. I may end up going out of the way to the Chandler Waffle House just because it was so damn good.

A bientôt, mon ami.

The La Madeleine at Scottsdale Fashion Square in Scottsdale, AZ has closed after a twelve year run. I will miss them greatly, I doubt that I will ever get to dine on real plates with real flatware and drink from stemware in the middle of a mall food court again. Merci beaucoup for the memories, La Madeline!

Thankfully, there is still La Madeleine's unique charm to be had in town, just down the road at 32nd Street and Camelback in Phoenix, same shopping center as Delux.

Review: AZ88, Scottsdale, AZ

First off, my apologies for not posting much on here. I've been having plenty of food adventures, but haven't been feeling the urge to write. There is more to come, including trips to Fate in Phoenix, and the Creole legend Commander's Palace in Las Vegas. Now, on to your regularly scheduled review.


Through my time on Chowhound, I have noticed that legendary reviewer Seth Chadwick and I have had more than a bit of synchronicity. There have been several times that one of us has reviewed something, and the other had just recently either been to that restaurant or had some other similar experience. You know how Seth Chadwick's most recent review was of Blu Burger Grill? AZ88 is a posh Scottsdale burger joint. Like Bette Davis uttered in All About Eve, "Fasten your seat belts, it's going to be a bumpy night."

My experience started off well enough, meeting up with a bunch of my friends from work. We got a banquette table big enough for all of us. The whole place is very modern and comfortable, with sleek, reasonably comfortable furnishings all over the place. I'm glad they weren't very busy; the combination of cathedral ceiling and lack of soft surfaces would surely make it almost impossible to hear anything when the place is hopping. I looked through their cocktail menu and noticed one of their feature cocktails was the legendary Sazerac, a combination of rye whiskey, a dash of Herbsaint (a New Orleans creation made as a substitute for absinthe), Peychaud's Bitters, and a little bit of sugar to mellow things out. If you haven't had a Sazerac before, I can tell you it is certainly worth seeking one out. Don't do it at AZ88, though. They put too much sugar in there, making it taste more like a whiskey punch. Thankfully, there wasn't so much sugar that it wasn't drinkable, just enough that the noticeable flavor was just sweet instead of the desired balance of sweet and strong. I could have sworn they put some Sprite in there (heaven forbid), but maybe my taster was just off.

Our server was obviously new to serving; he half-heartedly asked if we wanted appetizers, then sort of wandered off. An off-duty server from AZ88 was sitting with us, and *she* ended up taking our order instead. If a brand new server is THIS green, he has no business trying to wrangle a table of 8 on his own. He really should have had some kind of help instead of just getting thrown to the wolves like this. I can't fault him for this, but he certainly left me plenty to fault him for nonetheless. I ordered their Burger Au Poivre II, a peppercorn-crusted burger with a burgundy wine sauce, topped with blue cheese and bacon; thankfully, AZ88 will let you do your burger medium-rare, and that's exactly how I ordered it. I waited a while for my burger, my drink sat empty, and eventually my burger arrived. It was well done. The accompanying fries were both overcooked and cold. I already wasn't happy from the lack of server attention, this did not make things any better. I sat for a few minutes, trying to get the server's attention. He got a drink order from the girl next to me, I tried to signal him and thought I made eye contact with him, and he left. He brought the lady's drink, and left again. The off-duty server (you might notice I'm not mentioning the off-duty server's name, there is a reason for this you'll find out soon enough) noticed that I was absolutely steaming at this point. She then took the burger back to the kitchen to get remade. At this point, I was very much ready for another drink. I went against my good judgment and ordered something that tends to be a bit tricky to make, a classic cocktail called the Monkey Gland. It's a mix of gin and orange juice, with a dash of Pernod and a dash of grenadine, served straight up. It's a simple enough cocktail, but there's a twist that will trap all but the most seasoned bartenders; Pernod is a particularly strong liqueur. Use too much and it will completely take over the drink. The bartender used too much, and you couldn't taste anything but Pernod. To compound the problem, the bartender barely shook the drink before pouring it, and therefore was a good bit warmer than the ice-cold that I was expecting. There are few things in life less pleasant than warm gin.

When my remade burger came out, the burger was done to the right temperature and everything was hot, but the fries were oversalted almost to the point of inedibility. The burger itself was dominated by the blue cheese, and the beef was almost flavorless. I think the bun was specially made for them, as I hadn't seen one like it anywhere else, but it was flabby bread that threatened to surrender to the juices from the medium rare burger, and offered no substance or flavor of its own to add to the burger. The one shining part of the burger was the bacon; nice, thick-cut bacon with some good smoky flavor of its own. I somehow ate half of the burger, but I was feeling too vitriolic at this point to want any more food.

I finally managed to get the waiter's attention, and did get a glass of water from him to quench the excess sodium on the fries. He was quick to get the water (it would have been nicer if he offered some at the start!), but the glass was eight ounces at most. It's water, it's free, could you at least give me more than three swigs? I drained it in five seconds, and by some miracle caught his eye so he could get me another. After the second water, I never saw him near the table again except to get me a box for the rest of my burger. At this point, I wrote off the complete meal as a loss. I went for the manager (I would have asked the server for the manager, but I wasn't about to wait another twenty minutes for him to appear again). I explained to him how everything was off for me and the server was still much too wet behind the ears. I got something that resembled an apology, along with an explanation that this was the server's first night on the floor. The manager said he'd be over at my table in a few minutes. He never came. Instead, he sent the off-duty server over with a revised check that comped my ridiculously screwed up burger. Hey, Manager! If you say you're going to do something, you really should do it, especially if the person you you were talking to is not a happy camper. I understand that bad things happen all the time; the true service level of a restaurant is most evident when taking care of an angry customer. At this absolutely essential point of service, you failed. Miserably.

My Sazerac was eight dollars, the Monkey Gland was a whopping eleven bucks. Apparently, a pour of their house gin is 9 dollars (and they don't even have the decency to use a name-brand liquor at that price! I don't even WANT to know how much it would have been if I asked for Tanqueray), and for the privilege of rinsing the ice with Pernod, they charge 2 dollars. Two bucks for half a teaspoon of Pernod? You have absolutely GOT to be kidding. The markup on that is something like 20 times the cost. Even with the comped food, I felt like I was getting way, way overcharged. But then, this is the heart of downtown Scottsdale, where people somehow think that because they're paying too much, the place must be really great.

The very last straw was when I was paying up, still incensed at the combination of pitiful service and overpriced everything. I was grumbling at how I felt ripped off by the experience, and then the off-duty server opened her yap, and said in a very snide tone, "Well if you don't like it, you don't have to come back." I was ready to tip the off duty server quite nicely for being so helpful during the meal, but after mouthing off to me like that, I decided my money would stay right in my wallet. Damn right I won't come back! I'll go over to Delux, where they serve up much better burgers for less, pour well-made, generously sized cocktails, and the servers don't act like I'm making their social hour difficult by expecting a refill on my water.

Ratings below are on a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being high. Occasionally, zeros and sixes may be awarded for exceptional cases.

AZ88
Scottsdale Civic Center (south of Indian School and Drinkwater)
Food: 1 (I hated it)
Service: 0 (Not Acceptable)
Atmosphere: 4 (I liked it)
Overall: 1 (I hated it)
Value: 1 (Very poor)
Kid Friendly: 2 (Not a good idea)
Open for: Lunch Mon-Fri, Dinner, Late Night

I was thrilled to see the McDonald's on Southern west of Dobson had completely disappeared, leaving a pile of rubble in its wake. Then I noticed the sign on the chain link fence stating it would reopen in late November. Oh well, those three seconds in the interim were glorious.

Good news, and better news!

First, the good news: Trader Vic's got quite the good review in the Phoenix New Times.

The better news: The rat bastard Stephen Lemons isn't doing the food review anymore! The new gal is so much easier to read. Thank goodness.

I Hate Being Sick

I've had some wicked bug for the last five or six days. I thought it was done for, then it came back for Round 2 after a hellish evening at work. But that's more than you need to know. The thing I hate about being sick is that it COMPLETELY throws off any Chowhoundish nature I have. Gimme a ton of Gatorade and a box of Ritz crackers when I have the flu, and I couldn't be happier. Tonight, for some reason I was craving mashed potatoes, and WOW they came out absolutely perfect. I took a pound of potatoes in their skins, brought them to a boil, and then let them simmer until I could poke one with a paring knife and it slid right back into the water. I drained off the potatoes, and put them through a ricer (easily the fastest way to do mashers- just cut them in half, put one half in the ricer cut side down, and press through. The skin stays in the ricer hopper) back into the hot pan. Then, in went 4 tablespoons of very well softened butter and then 1/2 cup of warm milk (I would have used half and half or maybe some heavy cream, but the half and half I found in the back of the fridge was close to collecting Social Security). That last bit is very important, the butter, THEN the milk. If you mix them in at the same time or mix in the milk first, the starch in the potatoes will soak up the water content in the milk and make something resembling glue; mixing in the butter first coats the starch with fat so that it won't soak up all that moisture. Then in go the seasonings (about 3/4 teaspoon of salt and some ground black pepper are mandatory, I also added some Brady Street Cheese Sprinkle from Penzey's), and it's done. They're wonderfully fluffy, silky smooth, and just oh so wonderful.

Lemonade

I just recently tried the lemonade recipe from the current issue of Cook's Country, and dayum, that's some great lemonade! It's certainly easy enough- cut one lemon into thin slices, and muddle it with 1-1/2 cups of sugar, using a potato masher or similar large blunt object, until the sugar starts to dissolve. Add 7 cups of water and 2 cups fresh lemon juice, strain out the lemon slices, stir well, chill, and serve. If you like, you can add 2 cups of strawberries (or other berries, or even go crazy and try peaches or mangoes, the possibilities are endless!), 1 cup of fresh mint leaves, or 1/4 cup of grated fresh ginger to the lemon slices and sugar before muddling.

Cooking: Grill Madness

I live in the Phoenix area. It gets hot around here. No, wait, I take that back. It gets really damn hot around here. Today the high was somewhere over 110 degrees. Needless to say, I spent as much of the day as possible indoors. Eventually, dinner sounded like a good idea, and cooking anything indoors did most certainly NOT sound like a good idea. So, I decided to fire up the grill and put together a feast. I knew that the main course was going to be some kind of grilled chicken breast (a freezer staple item around here), and then started to scavenge around for other possible items to throw on the grill. I almost did a cold rice salad since we have some leftover rice on the fridge, but my love of baking prevailed and I made grilled garlic flatbread. Also on the side were grilled green beans, and grilled fruit for dessert.

The chicken itself was simple enough. I wasn't in the mood for a BBQ or sweet and sour glaze (both of which I had in the fridge), so I put together one made out of hoisin sauce, soy sauce to loosen up the mixture and provide savoriness, honey for an additional sweet note, orange muscat champagne vinegar to brighten the mix (I would have used rice vinegar but I was out... shhhhh don't tell), and some red chile flakes for spice, and took a taste. I could tell it needed something, but wasn't sure what. Off to the overflowing spice rack I went to see what I could do. Eventually, the jerk spice blend caught my eye. I added a very generous sprinkle, and was most pleased with the result. A dash of black pepper rounded things out. The chicken was an easy preparation- brush the glaze on one side, grill glazed side down, brush more glaze on, flip, and cook until done.

Grilled flatbread technically was a very simple grilled pizza topped with nothing more than extra-virgin olive oil and kosher salt. I started out by sauteing garlic and thyme (I should have used the fresh rosemary on the back porch, but alas I forgot about it) in 2 tablespoons of olive oil, then blending that into 4 cups of flour, a packet of rapid-rise yeast, and 1-1/2 teaspoons of salt in the food processor. Then, I pulsed in 1-1/2 cups of warm (110 F/43C) water, kept pulsing until the dough came together, then let the processor run for 30 seconds. After a couple of kneads on the counter, I let it rest until doubled, split it into 8 pieces, pulled each one into a nice little ball, and let them rest under a damp towel for a few minutes so I wouldn't have to fight the gluten. I then squished each one out into 1/4 inch thick rounds, placed them on floured cookie sheets (you think I'm letting my wood pizza peel anywhere near the griddle? Yeah right!), and took them out to the grill. Once there, I brushed extra-virgin olive oil on each piece of dough, gave it a good sprinkle of kosher salt, and placed it oil side down on the grill. I let it cook for a couple of minutes until it was set and had grill lines on one side, then brushed on more oil (the flare-ups from drips were thrilling to say the least!), gave them a flip, and cooked them for a few minutes on the other side before pulling them off the grill. These came out absolutely fantastic. I can see myself putting this together every time we're planning on doing grilled meat for dinner.

Making Jamaica

I tried out the recipe over on epicurious.com for jamaica, a Mexican agua fresca (the name translates literally to "fresh water"; aguas frescas are a blend of fruit, sugar, and water) made from hibiscus blossoms. I used 3 ounces of the hibiscus flowers, 1 cup of sugar, and a gallon of water. To start, I got the water to a boil, then added the hibiscus and sugar. Once it returned to a boil, I let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes, then strained out the hibiscus flowers and let it chill. It turned out pretty good, but I think it could be stronger on hibiscus and definitely sweeter too; it had a light, pleasant sweetness, but didn't have the right sweetness level to taste like every other agua fresca that I've had. I know that next time it would greatly help to have a lid on the pot, I lost almost a quart of water to the combination of evaporation and the hibiscus absorbing liquid. Speaking of which, one of these times I'll try squishing down the hibiscus to get some good concentrated flavor back into the pitcher where it belongs.

I'd like to try fixing the sweetness and strength levels at the same time, but I would prefer to fix one variable at a time in the recipe. The first will be adjusting sweetness, then seeing if pressing the hibiscus will make for a stronger end product, then finally adjusting the amount of hibiscus leaves. In Cook's Country, they just published a recipe for some positively delicious lemonade, and it uses 1/2 cup of sugar for every 3 cups of liquid; I think I'll do 2 cups of sugar next time, and go from there.

Wow, that was yum

Thanks everyone for bearing with me through this period of Not Much Posting. I have been in training for Trader Vic's, which means I have a brand new job, and *that* means I don't have much money coming in... yet. Thankfully, that all changes starting tomorrow. I have now tasted everything on the menu, and I think I can safely tell you that everything on the menu is very good. The appetizers were for the most part very impressive; my favorite was the Crab Rangoon (they use actual Dungeness crab in it!) and the calamari with wasabi mayo. The calamari has a tempura-style batter on it, is cooked perfectly, and the wasabi mayo side adds just the right flavors. For first courses, you can't go wrong with either of the soups. The Bongo Bongo soup is a Trader Vic's original, a very savory cream of spinach soup enhanced with oysters. Their Won Ton Soup is bar none the best I've had anywhere, very fresh tasting with deeeeelicious won tons. On the main course, you have GOT to try things from the wood fire oven. The most outstanding dishes from the oven were the pork chops, ribeye steak, and Indonesian rack of lamb. Items from the woks were also excellent; dishes such as the chicken chow mein and kung pao chicken are all perfectly executed, and the Szechwan Prawns are unbelievable, the sauce on them is so good I picked up my tasting plate and licked it clean. The desserts were for the most part nothing out of the ordinary, except for the chocolate macadamia nut tart, and the rum ice cream with pecan praline sauce. The coffee creme brulee is quite good, but after the time I made classic creme brulee at home, I'm completely spoiled on my version. So, my ultimate dinner for two at Trader Vic's:

Cocktails: Tiki Bowl for two (or just about anything, all the cocktails are out of this world)
Appetizer: Crab Rangoon (and maybe some calamari too)
First Course: Trader Vic's Salad and Won Ton Soup (shared between us)
Main Course: BBQ Pork Chop and Szechwan Prawns
Desserts: Rum Ice Cream and Sorbet Trio (the BBQ meats are very rich and scream for a light fruity dessert afterward) with a coffee drink

Preview: Trader Vic's

As some of you may know, I'm in training to be a server at the new Scottsdale location of Trader Vic's. It's been rough, I tell ya... learning about all the products by tasting them. We got our first taste of the food tonight, and all I can say is WOW. What we tasted tonight was utterly amazing. The staff who has worked at other Trader Vic's locations are telling me "Wait till we get to the really good stuff!"

I can hardly wait.

Cooking: Lemon Meringue Pie

I recently picked up a copy of Rose Levy Beranbaum's Pie and Pastry Bible at Bookman's. For quite some time, I've been waiting for a craving for one of the specific pies in this weighty tome to strike; there's so many absolutely phenomenal looking things in here, there's just no way to choose except to wait for a craving to strike. It finally did, and its name was lemon meringue. I can definitely say that Beranbaum's instructions are quite well written, I never felt like I was at a loss for what to do next. There are three parts to a lemon meringue pie; the crust, the filling, and the meringue topping. The crust she recommended was the Basic Flaky Pie Crust, and then for an especially light meringue that won't weep, an Italian meringue, made by whipping hot sugar syrup into beaten egg whites.

The recipe itself isn't too bad; bake the crust, make the filling and add to the hot crust, make meringue and top the pie, then bake until the top is nicely browned. This time through, everything but the crust has been chalked up to a learning experience. I was going off the visual cues that Beranbaum gave for the cooked filling (thick, smooth, and translucent) and not the temperature the cooked filling was supposed to reach (190 degrees F). Next time, it's getting cooked to 190. When I picked the pie up off the cooling rack, I saw the meringue jiggle around. Uh oh. My fears were confirmed when I tried to pick up the first slice; I made lemon meringue soup.

The meringue also was also much less than perfect; this was my first time doing an Italian meringue, where hot sugar syrup is beaten into whipped egg whites. For what it's worth, this was my first time that I'd done anything involving the culinary napalm that is boiling sugar syrup. I now know for next time to not scrape out the pan when transferring the hot syrup to another vessel. As you may guess by now, there were little chips of sugar flint all through the meringue.

Then there was the pie crust... oh Lord, was there the pie crust. If the pie crust is any indication, I'm going to have people begging me for the recipe once I have the lemon filling and meringue down pat. It was far and away the best pie crust I've ever eaten... it was tender, yet incredibly flaky, and for once it was a blind-baked crust that didn't shrink in the oven! I'd better be careful, I might end up making the pie crust and baking it just to eat it... wow, it was good stuff.

Signs You're Dating a Chowhound

This should be fun...

1) They take you to a restaurant you have never heard of, in a part of town that you normally wouldn't venture into.

2) You recommend a really trendy restaurant and they look at you like you grew a second head.

3) You try to take them to Olive Garden and they threaten to break up with you.

4) They have a cookbook on their nightstand.

5) If you take them out for dinner and a movie, they don't care a whit about the movie.

Cooking: Pan Pizza from Cook's Country Magazine

We did the pepperoni pan pizza from the most recent issue of Cook's Country magazine and it is pretty darn good. There's a couple of minor tweaks I'd make... First is to do more herbs in the sauce than 2 cloves of garlic for a 28 ounce can of crushed tomatoes. Second is that I wish the dough was a bit richer... maybe substituting some melted butter for some of the olive oil would do the trick? Other than those, it came out absolutely wonderful. I loved their trick of microwaving the pepperoni in between a few layers of paper towels to get rid of the grease; puddles of orange oil have plagued more than one pizza I've made, and this one had none of it. I can see doing triple batches of this instead of calling out for Papa John's again the next time everyone wants pizza.

Chowhound Rules of Thumb

Something I've been meaning to do for a while is the Chowhound Rules of Thumb. These are various things about restaurants that will be true just about no matter what. Some time soon I'll make this a sticky article and put it up on the sideboard. And maybe I'll update the recent CDs, I keep picking them up and am about 15 behind. This list will most certainly grow with time, and feel free to suggest your own. If I like it enough I'll use it as part of the list.

#1: If a restaurant has a special gimmick, the restaurant will use that gimmick for all it's worth in hopes that you won't notice how bad the food is.
Corollary: If the restaurant moves in any way, whether it's because it's on a boat, or rotates at the top of a building, this goes double. Especially if it rotates at the top of a building.
Corollary 2: If they offer dinner and a show at the same time (such as Medieval Times does), the food will be industrial fare no better than from a Hometown Buffet.

#2: If there is an adjective as part of the name, such as "authentic" or "good", the opposite will be true. This goes both ways, I've heard good things about a place called Terrible's.

#3: Places that leave the cents off the menu (Filet of sole........... 23) charge 2 dollars more than they should for an entree.

#4: If jalapeño poppers are on the appetizer list, anything on the menu that could come from a bag in the freezer (i.e. 90 percent of the appetizers and at least half of the sides) comes from a bag in the freezer.

#5: Things wrapped in bacon taste really good. If the best praise you've heard about a restaurant is "The bacon wrapped (insert foodstuff here)" is AMAZING!" go elsewhere for dinner.

Tasting: Coke Blak

I'm intrigued by the vast line-up of flavored sodas to give a twist on classic beverage fare. In the last few years we've seen coke with cherry, vanilla, cherry and vanilla, lemon, lime, and goodness knows what else I missed. The gurus at the Coca-Cola company have come up with yet another iteration of their timeless drink. Coke Blak is certainly an interesting twist... coffee flavored Coke. It works better than it sounds... the coffee sparks the mild acidity of Coke, while the spices in the Coke do great things to the coffee. Now if only they'd use sugar instead of high fructose corn syrup... aie. It's available in glass bottles at convenience stores.

Review: Burger King, Scottsdale AZ

I tried out some new mass market products today, and thought I might as well tell you all about it, since this is a food blog and all. First up was the new french toast breakfast sandwich from Burger King. I will start out by mentioning I absolutely despise BK. They're bland as hell, unless the food is overly salty, their menu board is in desparate need of a new color, and they just try WAY too hard to be "edgy". I think the idea going through my head when I went there this morning was "If I buy one, will you PLEASE stop playing those damn ads?"

I get to the drive-thru and order the sammitch with ham on it (knowing full well that their sausage is positively horrid), a medium order of the Cheesy Tots that someone was telling me about, and my standard fast food breakfast beverage, orange juice (I'm reminded of putting hot fudge on frozen yogurt... it's still bad for you, but hey it's yogurt so it's a little healthy, right?). I pull around to the window, pay up with plastic, see my food sitting in the drive-thru window while the drive-thru person goes and takes care of something else (apparently one guest at the counter and one at the drive-thru constitutes a major rush for these people), and eventually get my food. I check in the bag and see the sammitch, and a small order of hash browns. Grr. I do understand these things happen, so I went in and told the person at the counter what happened. They looked at it, took the hash brown order out of the bag and put it back under the heat lamp (!), then put in my correct order. Before I got my correct order, the drive-thru person protested that I hadn't paid for that one. Holy christ. I've worked in the service industry for a very, very long time, and have learned two simple rules:

1) If there is a problem, the customer is right.
2) If the customer is wrong, see rule 1.

For something as minor as a miscommunication on an order, all that should happen is a swift apology and fixing the order. Protesting that you think you're right should never, EVER be done.

Anyway, once I got things fixed and back on the road, I started chowing down. The french toast sandwich is almost as good as the McGriddle sandwiches from McDonalds... in other words, it sucks. Their eggs are almost flavorless, the cheese completely unnoticeable after it got absorbed by the bread, and the bread has the same blah feel as a French toast stick. The only thing even remotely good was the ham, which was sliced nicely thin and had some flavor to it. I think if for some reason I go back to Burger King for breakfast, I'll do this with no egg, extra cheese, and hope to God they have raspberry jam, and have a luxurious Monte Cristo sandwich for breakfast. Well, at least a somewhat reasonable facsimile of one. The cheesy tot things were quite possibly one of the worst things I have eaten in a very long time. It was something that tasted sort of like cheese with little bits of almost cooked potato, wrapped in breading and deep fried. It was kinda cheesy, kinda crisp, but mostly a pasty mess. Whoever mentioned them with a smile in the first place should fear my wrath, and then I'll make him a breakfast that actually tastes good. Oh, and as for the orange juice... something that has a little bit of pulp in it won't kill us. Really.

And what an honor, Burger King has received the first ever score on What the Jester Had for Dinner of 0 on the 1 to 5 scale. The normal scale is:

5: I love it!
4: I like it.
3: It's OK.
2: I don't like it.
1: I hate it!

On rare occasions, you'll see the 0, which stands for Not Acceptable. This is for those times that something is just plain unforgivably awful, such as the double whammy of implying that I did something wrong AND putting food that had been given to a guest back on the serving line. Whatever the offense, it is absolutely certain that I will never, EVER visit the place again. On the other end is the 6, which will simply be known as "Oh. My. God." These are the places that do things just so extraordinary that you tell EVERYONE you know about it, from friends and family to the checker at the grocery store. If you see me rate something a 6, for goodness sakes get over there NOW. Just stay the hell away from Burger King.

Burger King
Scottsdale Rd north of the 202
Food: 1
Service: 0 (Not Acceptable)
Atmosphere: 2
Overall: 1
Value: 2
Price: 1 (Cheap Eats)
Kid Friendly: 4
Open for: B, L, D

Noooo... One of my favorite places for a Chinese lunch, Jasmine Palace on Scottsdale and Thunderbird, has closed up shop. The chocolate wontons will be sorely missed, along with the lunch buffet that was, for once, some outstanding chow.

Review: Houston's, Scottsdale AZ

Again, not much in a writing mood right now...

In a nutshell, it's an above average chain. The food is solid but uninspired (and sometimes overseasoned),

Houston's
6113 N Scottsdale Rd
Scottsdale, AZ 85250

(480) 922-7775
Overall: 3
Food: 3
Service: 4
Atmosphere: 4 (Almost a 5, but like so many other restaurants it was too noisy)
Price: 3-4
Value: 2
Open For: L, D
Kid Friendly? 2

Review: Los Sombreros, Scottsdale AZ

Full review on the way when I think about it... for now, here's the numbers.

Overall: 4
Food: 4
Service: 3
Atmosphere: 5
Prices: 3-4
Value: 3
Hours: D
Kid Friendly: 3

I Got New Equipment!

A friend of mine realized that he wasn't using his stand mixer very much, and decided to sell the thing off for 20 bucks. It's a KitchenAid K5SS mixer, made by Hobart. He gave me first dibs on it. Naturally, I pounced on it like a fat kid on a cupcake. It now resides very happily in my kitchen, permanently on the counter because it's damn heavy... this thing is built like a tank. It has all of the standard attachments, plus a combination food grinder and pasta extruder. I am absolutely THRILLED to finally have a KitchenAid mixer in the house. We do have a Bosch around here, but it almost never sees the light of day because it's such a pain in the ass to use.

Making Sorbet

Someone around the house picked up a tub of Dreyer's Slow Churned Light strawberry ice cream. As one can imagine with products that were never virtuous but made less bad for oneself, it was wholly unsatisfying. It just didn't taste like strawberry unless you hit the ribbon of strawberry flavored swirl, and even then it just tasted sweeter. So, I decided to take matters in my own hands and made some berry sorbet. I went off the Cook's Illustrated recipe, and started by pureeing 3 cups of berries with 1/2 cup of water in the food processor, and then strained out the solids. I added a cup of sugar, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon of rum (the recipe specifies vodka or berry liqueur, but I don't have either around here, and what would a strawberry daiquiri be without rum?), mixed it well, and let it chill first in the fridge, then the ice cream freezer. Once it reached relatively frozen consistency, I transferred it to a container and let it finish freezing in the freezer. The end product, while tasty, was much softer than I prefer. This would likely be due to the large amount of sugar. Sugar lowers the freezing point of the mixture; not enough and you end up with something hard and icy, too much and you end up with sorbet that doesn't freeze all the way through. I'll keep working on the recipe until I get it nailed down.

UPDATE: The sorbet needed an overnight stay in the fridge, not just a couple of hours. It's wonderful now.

Reviews: Wolf Creek Brewing Co, Valencia CA and Pink's, Los Angeles CA

First off, big thanks to the Los Angeles Chowhounds. If it wasn't for you, this review wouldn't be possible. Alas, I didn't get to try as many of the suggestions as possible because I asked about the Valencia area and our hotel was in Pasadena 40 minutes away (I wish I had known before I got in the car to head over, there's some great looking stuff around there!), but I appreciate the help.

We went to Wolf Creek in Valencia after spending the day at Magic Mountain, and absolutely loved it. One friend of mine got the tri tip dinner, another friend got the meatloaf special, and I went with the blackened chicken pasta. All were utterly wonderful, and the portions quite generous, something we were glad about after not eating much at Magic Mountain (10 bucks for nachos that would cost 4 outside the park will do that to you!). I thought my dish was the best one; it had a good balance of pasta to veggies and chicken, the veggies were cooked just right, the pasta was al dente, and the level of seasoning was just right. We split a slice of the caramel chocolate chip cheesecake for dessert, and were pleasantly surprised when we found out it was on the house.

The next day, we were going to meet up with some friends for lunch in Hollywood, but we quickly scuttled those plans after finding out they were going to California Pizza Kitchen. It's a good thing cell phones don't come with buttons that let you strangle the person on the other end of the line, it would have had much use if it did. We were in the Hollywood area with nothing but my wits to guide us, and enough money for something cheap 'n cheerful. We almost stopped at the Tommy's on Hollywood Boulevard just off the 101 (may not be the most exciting of things, but at least it's something we don't have here in Phoenix), but then I remembered about Pink's hot dog stand on La Brea and Melrose. Thanks to the wonderfulness that is Google Local on cell phones, we were there lickety-split.

I am very, very glad we ended up at Pink's; they serve up one mean chili dog! I got the Today Show dog, which features two tube steaks, mustard, onion, chili, a slice of cheese, and guacamole, all on one bun. I wish the bun was a little bit more substantial, but then again, a bun that nondescript definitely doesn't compete with the toppings for dominance. Thankfully, the bun was sturdy enough to hold all of the toppings without conceding before you're done with the dog. The dog is easily one of the best I've had. I really appreciated the natural casings, and their chili is ridiculously good. We sampled sides of onion rings and chili cheese fries; neither one is all that great (they come frozen out of a bag), but the fries were a winner since they acted as a vehicle for more of the chili.

Again, thank you very much California hounds for your help on my journey, I really appreciated it. Hopefully next time, my friends will give me some advance notice so I can plan our eating better, but hey at least we didn't end up at CPK like the people we were supposed to meet ;-) Come on over to Phoenix some time, I'll be glad to show you around the best my hometown has to offer!


The Ratings:
(1 to 5, 5 is highest)

Wolf Creek Brewery
27746 N McBean Pkwy
Valencia, CA 91354
(661) 263-9653
Overall: 5
Food: 5
Service: 5
Atmosphere: 3
Prices: 3-4 (moderate to med-expensive)
Value: 3
Kid Friendly?: 4
Open Late?: No

Pink's
709 N La Brea
Los Angeles CA (Hollywood)
(323) 931-4223
Overall: 5
Food: 4
Service: 4
Atmosphere: 3 (it's hard to go wrong with al fresco dining)
Prices: 1 (Cheap Eats)
Value: 3
Kid Friendly? 3
Open Late? Goodness yes.
NB: Cash Only

A Tale of Two Gelati: Arlecchino and Gelato Spot

A friend of mine, the ever lovely Bellana, had a rather stressful week. It's one of those cases where you need really damn good ice cream, and a really fun movie. I decided for ice cream that we would go try Arlecchino, the new gelato place attached to the ever growing La Grande Orange complex on 40th and Campbell, right in the middle of the Arcadia district. I swear, 30 years from now LGO & Co. is going to take up the entire neighborhood with all kinds of chowish goodness. Anyway, I tried one of the special gelato available (I have no idea what it was called, but it was vanilla gelato with raspberries mixed in), and Bellana tried out the blood orange sorbetto. Both were... decent. I felt like my gelato was a little too airy and almost on the gummy side, certainly indicative of too much air allowed to mix into the finished product, and you really couldn't taste any of the small bits of raspberry sprinkled throughout. Bellana's sorbetto was quite firm (exact opposite problem, not enough air), but pleasantly flavored. There were a number of things that left me with a less than sweet taste in my mouth, all of them revolving around customer unfriendly policies. First is the ten dollar minimum on credit card purchases. I absolutely despise places that do this; to me it gives an air of two things, either my money isn't good enough for them unless I'm spending more than I want to, or they're desperate to stay in the black. Maybe both. There was also the oddity of two flavors costing more than the rest. If you go for a double scoop of the special Amaretto flavor, you'll drop seven dollars instead of the four that you thought you were going to spend. SEVEN DOLLARS for two scoops of ice cream? For money like that, it had better have me rolling on the ground in fits of ecstasy. Just bump the prices up by a dime across the board and get it over with. Next up in the line of issues is that half of the items are listed only in Italian. [We interrupt this review to bring you an important news flash... It is raining in Phoenix! Hallelujah! We now return you to your regular review.] I like to have the ['nother news flash... thunder too! I'm a native Arizonan. Close to five months without this makes one a little goofy for it] items shown in English next to the Italian word. While asking what the hell everything is is a nice way of getting to know the proprietor, I'd much rather be able to glance and automatically know "Ah, straciatella is chocolate chip!" Then there's their last policy... a two sample maximum. I'm indecisive as hell. I like to get as much information as possible before making my decision. Angel Sweet lets me taste a bunch of things. Gelato Spot lets me taste a bunch of things (and with as many flavors as they have, thank goodness!), why doesn't Arlecchino let me taste a bunch of things?

I decided halfway through my scoop that we should have an informal tasting, and try out the Gelato Spot on 32nd and Camelback for a side-by-side comparison. Upon arriving at the Spot, I was very relieved to find that we came in at a slower point during the night. If you arrive at a busy time, I hope you bring earplugs. Something about the painfully trendy girls who frequent the gelato spot has them all yipping at each other in high-pitched tones like the irritating thousand-dollar dustmops with legs... er, I mean... cute little toy dogs that they inevitably own. Add a high ceiling and hard surfaces all over the place, and even a few people in the place can make quite a racket. We were both craving lots more frozen deliciousness, so we each got the large, a three-scoop monster: Mine was key lime pie gelato, mango sorbetto, and blood orange sorbetto for comparison's sake; hers was passion fruit sorbetto, raspberry sorbetto (good for comparing to Angel Sweet), and strawberry cream gelato. Now *this* was ice cream heaven. The blood orange sorbetto here was everything it should be: Intensely flavored, just the right balance of sweet to acidity, and a texture of frozen silk. All of the flavors were fantastic, and great fun was had trying out different combinations of the six flavors between us (blood orange and raspberry... mmmmmm). There were some minor quibbles with the Spot, though. One is that I ran into the occasional chunk of ice, likely a remnant of someone not letting the rinse water drain off of the scoop before diving in. The other is that the noise level in the place makes it hard to communicate your order to the girl behind the counter.

I can now say that I have tried out all three of the major gelato choices in the Valley. My favorite... is still Angel Sweet. They may not have the mind-boggling array of flavors of the Gelato Spot, but their product is faultlessly smooth every single time, and the clientele know how to speak without squawking. I also greatly enjoy their somewhat unorthodox scooping method of smooshing down your selections side by side in the cup; it makes snagging a little bit of one flavor and a little bit of another that much easier. Yeah, I know it's a weird thing to notice. But still, I like it. Gelato Spot is a really close second. I love their creativity with the flavors, but those pesky yapping customers and icy bits in the gelato are just enough to keep me getting my main gelato fix at Angel Sweet. Arlecchino... I wanted to like it, really I did. Alas, weird texture, weak flavor, and a bevy of customer unfriendly policies leave it as the also-ran in the world of gelato in Phoenix.

Quickie: what was Fat Slim's on 40th and Camelback is now a trimmed down version of Soma Cafe, called Soma Express. Go try it just for the health of it.

Jester Bite: Mr. Hunan, Tempe AZ

Quick service Chinese joint on University and Hardy; certainly not worth driving more than a few miles for, but if you're in the area and are in the mood for cheapie Asian food, it delivers good bang for the buck.

Review: PB Loco, Scottsdale, AZ

I started to notice some years ago that old-fashioned comfort foods were starting to get popular. Suddenly, new flavors of mashed potatoes sprang up on menus, the very comforting side dish of risotto became popular, and pot roast suddenly became vogue. It's rather nice in quite a few ways; if you've had a rough day and Mom is nowhere around to cook for you (or, if you're like me, mom isn't a good cook), no-nonsense, wholesome food is just around the corner. This movement has taken a couple of interesting turns. One that I have yet to try is Cereality, a place hidden in the Memorial Union on campus that lets you mix cold cereal with various topping to create your dream bowl of cereal. I'll let you know how that place is some time in the near future, if I ever remember it's there while they are open. Another funky comfort food shop is the relatively new PB Loco, located inside Scottsdale Fashion Square, on the top floor close to Nordstrom. As you may surmise by the name, PB Loco specializes in gourmet peanut butter. Many people are content with somply crunchy or smooth peanut butter; PB Loco does 10 other flavors, including things you may have already mixed with peanut butter like chocolate or bananas, to things you never would have guessed would go so well in peanut butter, like curry spices or sun-dried tomatoes. To get even more creative, PB Loco offers up a selection of 12 sandwiches, plus the opportunity to create your own masterpiece. Some friends decided to sample a bunch of different sandwiches, and so we descended on the place like the peanut butter crazed fools that we are. We tried six different choices. First up was the Cinny Nilla, with cinnamon-raisin peanut butter, apple slices, caramel, and vanilla cream cheese. Our next choice was the PBBLT, sun-dried tomato PB with lettuce, bacon bits, and cream cheese. Sandwich Number Three was the Latte Da, with mocha peanut butter, pretzels, and marshmallow fluff. We had another sweet choice with the Loco Coco, with dark chocolate PB, raspberry jam, and coconut flakes. We had a bit of a hard time selecting the last two, so we went out on a limb and got the Curry Spice (curry PB with cucumbers and pineapple bits) and the infamous Wacko (the same curry PB, but this time with pickles, coconut, and potato chips). All of the sandwiches come on decent bread (it wouldn't suprose me if they got it from Willo Bakery since that's where they get the peanut butter dog biscuits they sell at the register), and are grilled on a panini press, definitely a nice touch. The PBBLT and Cinny Nilla were expected favorites, as the peanut butter/apple and peanut butter/bacon combinations are already established favorites among more than a few people. The surprise favorite was the Curry Spice, with a nice blend of flavors and textures. The Wacko was the least favored (as you can expect); it was still quite good, but nowhere near the peanut buttery euphoria that came from all the other sandwiches. To top off the comfort vibe, each sandwich comes with a handful of animal crackers. My one quibble with PB Loco is that it ain't cheap by any stretch of the mind. It's really, REALLY good PB, but six bucks for a jazzed-up peanut butter sandwich? Ouch. But still, it's worth it for when you get a weird craving for peanut butter and just nothing but the wierdly addictive PBBLT or Curry Spice sammich will do. Of course, you could always get a jar of their peanut butter and take it home with you...