PANE BIANCO – Phoenix, Arizona
When she lived in Tucson, Arizona Republic dining critic Andi Berlin would drive nearly two hours to Phoenix to enjoy foods that can’t be found anywhere else in Arizona. One of her five favorites held such sway over her that she actually moved to the Valley of the Sun so that she could enjoy it more often. Now that’s a gastronome after my own heart! Among the cinquefoil restaurants was Pane Bianco, whose sandwiches Andi says “are so perfect that they’ve achieved cult status.” Perfect sandwiches! Hmm, that’s a good reason to relocate and maybe the reason the Phoenix real estate market is among the nation’s top 10 hottest markets. During dozens of trips to Phoenix over my eighteen-year tenure at Intel, I would have described Phoenix as a culinary wasteland. That’s based largely on well-intentioned colleagues taking me to their favorite restaurants–usually chains that hadn’t yet made their way to the Land of Enchantment or worse, Arizona-style Mexican restaurants. There were exceptions, of course, but those were few and far in between and in every case, those few were restaurants I discovered myself, usually on my way to the airport. To abet my culinary explorations, I would actually schedule a late flight…