Category: Arizona

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Chino Bandido – Chandler, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno6:51 PM

Gustavo Arellano has the right idea. The brilliant and hilarious author of Ask A Mexican, a widely syndicated alternative newspaper column, confronts the “bogeymen of racism, xenophobia, and ignorance” with humor. In his weekly column, he defeats stereotypes and those who wield them by using deprecatory wit to exaggerate those stereotypes to the point of the ridiculous. In the Language chapter of his uproarious book, he provides a list of commonly used Mexican terms and phrases so that “you, too, can become a Mexican.” The book defines a “Chino” as “literally “Chinese,” but the catchall phrase Mexicans use for all Asians regardless of nationality.” This is clarified with the example: “Vietnamese food is my favorite Chino cuisine.” I found it…

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The Original Wineburger – Phoenix, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:37 AM

Every year, children of all ages fall in love all over again with the heart-warming 1947 Christmas movie, Miracle on 34th Street. We’re aghast when the district attorney demands that defense lawyer Fred Gailey provide “authoritative proof” that Kris Kringle is “the one and only Santa Claus.” We share Gailey’s seeming desperation when he offers as evidence, a solitary letter addressed to Santa Claus at the NYC Courthouse. We’re enraged when the D.A. retorts that one letter is hardly enough proof, and are proudly vindicated when Gailey has guards march in with huge bags overflowing with letters. We revel in Gailey’s argument, “Your Honor, every one of these letters is addressed to Santa Claus. The Post Office has delivered them.…

ArizonaBarbecueRating: ExcellentUnited States

Honey Bear’s Barbecue – Phoenix, Arizona

Gil Garduno2:40 PM

Depending on the type of egg, the minimum temperature for frying an egg is said to be 144-158F and on scorching summer days in Phoenix, television news shows perennially traumatize visitors and tourists by frying an egg on the city’s sidewalks. If blistering heat is the reason the Phoenix area has so many outstanding barbecue restaurants, I’m all for Albuquerque’s temperature climbing a few degrees in the summer. The venerable Honey Bear’s Barbecue is easily equal to, make that superior to Hap’s Pit Barbecue which I had thought to offer the best barbecue in the greater Phoenix area. Honey Bear’s has been serving Memphis-style barbecue since 1986 when the proprietors launched the first of three Phoenix area restaurants.  In close…

AmericanArizonaBreakfastRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

El Tovar – Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona

Gil Garduno9:57 PM

When Spanish explorer García López de Cárdenas first laid eyes on the Grand Canyon, surely his reaction wasn’t “it’s just a great big hole in the ground.” That was the reaction of a friend of mine, who much like other modern Americans is so caught up in the trappings of pop culture and “technolust” that he’s lost the ability to be impressed by what it has taken nature millions of years to produce. It took some six million years for the Colorado River to create the multi-hued, steep-sided gorge that is today considered one of the natural wonders of the world.  The incomparable magnitude of the Colorado River’s handiwork certainly wasn’t lost on the Fred Harvey Company, the West’s most…

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Sushi Eye – Tempe, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno4:04 AM

To Western diners used to restaurant ambience defined by an effusive, sensory bombarding, over-the-top flamboyance, many Japanese restaurants feel stark and barren in comparison. That austerity is actually by design. The Buddhist teaching of “wabi” which means “quiet of tranquility” posits a non-attachment to material things. Wabi values the ability to make the most of starkness and poverty by cherishing the subtle beauty found only in a very simple environment. In some sushi restaurants, the minimalist decor is not much more than functional and and nearly as raw as sashimi. Lighting is subtle, perhaps even romantic. The ambience seems to inspire hushed tones and an almost reverent mood, in some cases almost as if you’re at a Buddhist temple. That’s…

AfricanArizonaRating: N/R (Not Rated)United States

Cafe Lalibela – Tempe, Arizona

Gil Garduno12:21 AM

One of the first things that caught my attention during a 2006 visit to Cafe Lalibela were beautiful, brightly painted depictions of revered Christian events such as Christ carrying the yew hewn cross to Calvary. The art shouldn’t have surprised me. Ethiopia’s (especially the city of Lalibela’s) historical ties to Christianity span several centuries. Lalibela, the city for which the restaurant is named, is one of modern Ethiopia’s holiest cities and a center of pilgrimage for much of the country. With a population of very nearly 100% Ethiopian Orthodox Christian, Lalibela is renown worldwide for its monolithic churches built during the reign of 13th century monarch Saint Lalibela for whom the city is named. The names of several places in…

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Lee’s Sandwiches – Chandler, Arizona

Gil Garduno1:15 AM

For years, the American viewing public was subjected to the bombardment of the airwaves with the exploits of Jared. Once a corpulent fellow who weighed 425 pounds, Jared metamorphosed into a 190-pound shadow of his former self largely through a calorie reduction effort comprised principally of submarine sandwiches proffered by America’s most prolific sandwich chain. Many of us caloric overachievers regard those commercials with skepticism–not that Jared could lose so much much weight, but that any sane person could eat such a mediocre sandwich twice a day for an entire year. I could understand it if Jared’s sandwich diet was comprised instead of banh mi, the unrivaled Vietnamese sandwich that surpasses any chain produced submarine sandwich in America. Banh mi…

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Joe’s Real BBQ – Gilbert, Arizona

Gil Garduno3:05 PM

No ordinary Joe is this, critics would have you believe. Instead, they insist, this is one of the best 59 restaurants in the Phoenix area (Phoenix magazine, 2002). Located in a 1929 brick building that saw its “hay day” in the golden age of agricultural Arizona, it retains the charm that helps make downtown Gilbert a popular destination. A 1948 John Deere tractor holds a position of honor in the restaurant’s dining room and might remind you of the opening sequence of Green Acres (a popular 1960s television comedy) in which Oliver Wendell Douglas bounced up and down on his chugging tractor as he surveyed his worse for wear farm. Joe’s menu features large selections of meat, each cooked “low…

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Hap’s Pit Barbecue – Phoenix, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno2:29 PM

Good barbecue in Arizona? You’d better believe it! Hap’s Pit Barbecue is one happening barbecue joint, one that its proponents believe its name is short for “happiness because that’s what it elicits from its diners–that and audible exclamations of “wow” and “yum.” Hap’s is a perennial listing on Phoenix magazine’s coveted best restaurant list and the only Phoenix barbecue establishment to earn a five star designation from the Arizona Republic newspaper. If you’re looking for national credentials, it’s been raved about on USA Today. Despite those impressive plaudits and accolades, what it took to get me to Hap’s was a recommendation by my great friend and fellow barbecue aficionado Dianna Peoples. I’d been fooled before by the magazine rants of…

ArizonaClosed in 2015Gone But Not ForgottenSteakUnited States

Pinnacle Peak Patio – Scottsdale, Arizona (CLOSED)

Gil Garduno3:12 AM

To a lexicologist like me, the word pinnacle has connotations of “the highest point of development or achievement.” In other words, it’s synonymous with ultimate, apogee, culmination, peak, summit, zenith, climax or apex…and those are just the synonyms (a word along with Thesaurus for which there are no synonyms) off the top of my head. At 3100 feet in elevation, Pinnacle Peak itself is one of the more prominent landmarks in North Scottsdale. Whether seen under a star filled night time canopy or beneath a cerulean summer sky, its weathered boulders, craggy spires and desert vegetation make it one of the more spectacular vistas in the area. Spectacular is certainly not a word you would use to describe the Pinnacle…

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The Keg Steakhouse – Chandler, Arizona

Gil Garduno3:11 PM

A Canadian steakhouse in the silicon desert city of Chandler, Arizona? You bet! In fact Canada’s most renown steakhouse has made expansive forays into the United States with restaurants in Arizona, Colorado, Oregon, Texas and Washington among its more than 80 restaurants in North America. Founded in 1971 in Vancouver, the Keg Steakhouse is a cut above many American dining establishments, particularly in terms of service. You won’t find stereotypical Canadian ambiance at the Chandler location, much of whose walls look as if they had been built by Chacoan stone masons. What you will find is a casual and relaxing atmosphere and some of the most attentive and knowledgeable wait staff around. In fact, if rated solely on the attentiveness…