Buck & Rider – Gilbert, Arizona

If you believe you can’t find great seafood in Phoenix because it’s landlocked and nine months out of the year its temperature rivals that of the sun, you would be mistaken.  As my friend Steve Coleman reminded me recently, 200 years ago, passenger trains in England made fish and chips possible throughout the country by facilitating the transport of fish to interior cities.  Similarly, advances in air travel and refrigeration have made seafood much more available to those of us whose only fresh seafood is the Rio Grande minnow.  Sure, you can catch some fish in the rivers and canals throughout Arizona, but you won’t find lobster, crabs, oysters, mussels, stone crab and other “real” seafood. For years, my dear friends the Plata Brothers Bruce and Loren have been singing the praises of Buck & Rider. Though the name sounds like a children’s cowboy cartoon, Buck & Rider offers a soiree of fresh fish and seafood sourced daily from coastal regions.  Those coastal regions aren’t solely within the fruited plain, but even New Zealand where fresh hamachi comes straight from the net to shipping containers designed to preserve its freshness.  There are three Buck & Rider restaurants in the Valley…

Myke’s Pizza – Mesa, Arizona

Americans eat a tremendous amount of pizza. Denizens of the fruited plain consume roughly 3 billion pizzas annually. Per capita that’s about 46 slices or 23 pounds per year, adding up to about 100 acres of pizza daily,  Pepperoni is the favorite topping and Super Bowl Sunday the biggest sales day. Over 90% of the U.S. population eats pizza regularly, making it a staple for any meal. With staggering numbers like that, you might think no country–not even Italy–comes close to competing with the United States for pizza consumption.  Norwegians consume the most pizza per capita globally, averaging around about 25 pounds per person annually. That’s significantly more than Italy or the U.S. According to Food & Wine, the most popular pizza in Arizona is a “meat lovers” pizza.  Perhaps, that’s because pizza paramours across the Grand Canyon State have not discovered Myke’s Pizza in Mesa.  When the season is right, Myke Olsen and his crew don’t hesitate to add in-season fruit to a pie.  Pineapple is old news–no longer new, exciting, or relevant.  Everybody does pineapple pizza…much to the consternation of purists.  In season, Myke’s pies may be graced by such ingredients as fresh sliced peaches.  Myke’s has also…

Red and Green: New Mexico’s Culinary Scene Was on Fire in 2025

T’was the year that was, a banner year for Gil’s Thrilling (And Filling) Blog with more milestones having been achieved. Most significantly to your friendly neighborhood restaurant review blogger was the continued dialogue–your sharing of comments noting contentment, humor, news or displeasure with me or some other food topic. There are now 14,838 comments on 1,507 reviews. My edacious publicist Bob of the Village of Los Ranchos (BOTVOLR) retains the lifetime commenter achievement award with well over 1200 comments over the life of the blog. In 2024, however, he was supplanted by the always clever and witty Lynn Garner as the year’s most prolific commenter. 2025 saw the launch of several new restaurants, several of which appear to have long-term appeal. The year also saw the closure of several stalwarts, some of whom served the Duke City for decades. Among those are  Zinc Wine & Bistro, Budai Gourmet Chinese and Scalo. Here is a list of the most popular reviews on Gil’s Thrilling… MOST POPULAR REVIEWS: 2025 Papa Felipe’s Mexican Restaurant (Albuquerque) Gimani: A Slice Bar (Albuquerque) Perea’s Tijuana Bar & Restaurant (Corrales) Ramona’s Mexican Cafe (Albuquerque) The Burrito Lady (Albuquerque) Il Localetto Rossi (Albuquerque The Sandwich Company (Albuquerque) My…

Gil’s “Best of the Best” for 2025

Welcome to Gil’s list of my favorite dishes in 2025.   These dishes were selected not for complex culinary preparations and exorbitant price points, but for the simple preparation of dishes that taste as if they were prepared by a chorus of angels in a celestial kitchen. These are the dishes most indelibly imprinted on my memory engrams…the first dishes that come to mind when I close my eyes and reflect on the past year in eating. As with previous yearly compilations, every item on this list was heretofore unknown to my palate before 2025. Every dish was a delicious discovery from within New Mexico’s sacred borders. In chronological order, my “best of the best” are: February, 2025 Mena’s Burger From Ramona’s Mexican Cafe in Albuquerque: By any other name Mena’s burger (tortilla burger with American cheese, green chile, lettuce, pickles, tomato and a special secret sauce) is a green chile cheeseburger, albeit not constructed within traditional burger buns.  Somehow Ramona’s kitchen staff manages to create a tortilla pocket that limits spillage (otherwise the special sauce would have been all over my shirt).  To say this is one of the best green chile cheeseburgers in New Mexico would not be an understatement. Green…

Harold’s Cave Creek Corral – Cave Creek, Arizona

Football fans can be unforgiving…and some of us have elephantine memories.  Dallas Cowboys fans, for example, will never forget nor forgive the Pittsburgh Steelers for having bested (obviously the referees cheated) the Cowboys twice in the Super Bowl.  Never mind that our beloved Cowboys finally did beat Pittsburgh in a later Super Bowl.  We’ll never get over losing two.  Our only consolation is that at least we didn’t lose to those neanderthal New York Giants.  Someday you’ll have to ask me how I feel about the Steelers and Giants.  With such antipathy toward those miserable Steelers, the one place you’d think I’d never be caught dead would be a Steelers Bar, much less one of the most highly regarded Steelers Bars in the country.  But, that’s precisely where we spent our New Years Eve. Mind you, it certainly wasn’t my idea.  My brother-in-law Tim–who knows about as much about football as the women on The View know about integrity–wanted to impress me.  He didn’t know that espying propaganda declaring the sprawling Harold’s Cave Creek Corral “Heinz Field West (the dreaded Steelers play at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh) might instead nauseate me.  Still, there it was–copious articles of adulation strewn throughout the…

Guido’s Chicago Meat & Deli – Scottsdale, Arizona

For years now, my Kim and I have largely eschewed American television, especially its sophomoric, lowbrow and “meant for voyeurs” reality shows.  We’ve been increasingly gravitating to an almost exclusive viewership of British television which we’ve found to be meant for grown-ups rather than children.  British television programs offer a sophistication direly absent in American programming.  British programs tend to be more substantive, refined and of much higher quality than their American counterparts.  That assessment applies to mysteries, comedies, dramas and even commercials. The final nail in the coffin for American television were two absolutely unwatchable reality shows:  The Kardashians and Jersey Shore.  Both showcase obnoxious, self-aggrandizing and vacuous characters with no redeeming characteristics.  The Jersey Show, for example, made celebrities of four loud, foul-mouthed, hypersexual Italian Americans who self-style as “guidos” and “guidettes.”  Never mind that “guido” (slang for a working-class urban Italian-American) is widely perceived by Italian-Americans as a pejorative word, like “spic” or “wop.” It’s a very unflattering stereotype. Lest you think we lowered ourselves to watch such detritus, we caught a promotion for the series which bragged about gathering the “hottest, tannest, craziest guidos” and assembling them at a beach resort where all would be laid…

Perfect Pear Bistro – Tempe, Arizona

Growing up Catholic, I probably read more about the gods of Mount Olympus than the catechism which taught about the almighty God worshipped at St. Anthony’s in Peñasco.  I didn’t hold the gods of Greek mythology in reverence.  If anything, I wondered how they could be so peurile and petty.  Though also splenetic and petulent, they were very interesting.  Perhaps indicative of my future gastronomic interests, I was particularly curious about the foods that were so prominent in Greek mythology.  Pears, for example, were sacred to two of the most powerful goddesses: Juno (queen of the gods and marriage) and Aphrodite (goddess of love and beauty.  Pears were also prominent in one of my very favorite books, The Odyssey. Growing up in agrarian Peñasco, we were surrounded by lush trees offering a bounty of cherries, chokecherries, apples, peaches, apricots and more.  The only pear tree I can recall was in our grandfather Max’s front yard.  While the pears were sweet and delicious, we seemed to prefer using them as projectiles to hurl at one another or at offending cows daring to trespass into our yard.  Pears rated rather low in the pantheon of fruits…at least as an edible fruit.  Perhaps…

Mrs. White’s Golden Rule Cafe – Phoenix, Arizona

How do you become a centenarian?  For Elizabeth White, achieving 100 years of age may be attributed to living the Golden Rule (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”).  She instilled that spirit into the restaurant she purchased from her brother in 1964.  Phoenix was a much more segregated city when Elizabeth White christened her eatery “The Golden Rule Cafe.” Despite the prevailing attitudes of the time, she believed in treating everyone with kindness and respect, a core tenet of the Golden Rule.  Her prominent prescence and welcoming spirit led to guests adding “Mrs. White’s” to the “Golden Rule Cafe.”  Like the wonderful woman who founded the restaurant, Mrs. White’s Golden Rule Cafe is an institution. Mrs. White’s Golden Rule Cafe is a home away from home for guests of all walks of life.  Famous clientele include Senator John NcCain, Jesse Jackson, James Brown and others.  Guests frequent Mrs. White’s for comfort food, but they return because of the hospitality.  You really are treated like a welcome guest.  A longtime community cornerstone, its kitchen serves up authentic Southern soul food reminiscent of grandma’s cooking.  Slow-cooked meals prepared to order hearken back to the days before homogenized food…

Lon’s at the Hermosa Inn – Paradise Valley, Arizona

When making reservations for our Christmas Day meal, it dawned on me that the restaurant we chose (Lons at The Hermosa) was located in Paradise Valley, a wealthy enclave nestled  between Phoenix and Scottsdale. Paradise Valley is backdropped by the Camelback and McDowell Mountains. It’s known as a luxurious desert oasis with high-end resorts, golf courses, fine dining, and affluent residences. For some reason it made me ponder just what children would consider paradise. I wondered if Art Linkletter ever asked kids on his program Kids Say The Darnest Things what they consider paradise to be.  Alas, that question was apparently not asked during the lengthy television run of that beloved program. During a 2005 interview on CNN’s Larry King Live, Linkletter did discuss his personal views on the afterlife and heaven, contrasting them with the traditional view of paradise.  In the exchange, Larry King mentioned that Billy Graham expected paradise after death. When asked for his own beliefs, Linkletter responded that “Heaven sounds too placid” for his taste and that he would prefer a lot of activity.  This suggests that for Art Linkletter, an ideal afterlife would not be a place of quiet, eternal rest (a common interpretation of…

Scott’s Generations – Phoenix, Arizona

Until 2025, the only generations of Scotts I’ve known are Dan (God rest his beautiful soul) and Latayne, their son Ryan and daughter-in-law Kimber and their children Canaan and Judah.  Everyone calls them “the great Scotts,” largely because they live their Christian faith.  Latayne is, in fact, a very prolific author of several Christian books.  My friend Ryan and I have broken bread on many occasions.  He’s a fellow trencherman who delights in finding great restaurants with generous portions.  Ryan would have loved Scott’s Generations in Phoenix…and I would have loved seeing his baby blues feast on a robust sandwich overstuffed with enough meat to feed….well, generations of Scotts (or one Ryan). While the name on the marquee suggests that Scott’s Generations is a family restaurant, its owners aren’t sunamed “Scott” nor are they of Scottish lineage. Scott’s Generations was established nearly four decades ago by father-son duo Gene and Scott Snyder. In 1988, the Snyder family moved to Phoenix from New York, launching the deli six months later (June 1989). It was their way of keeping a slice of the Big Apple with them. Vestiges of New York City are prominently displayed.  They’re on the walls, on the menu,…

Pullano’s Pizza & Wings – Glendale, Arizona

Several years ago during a fund-raising effort, Albuquerque’s PBS television station KNME aired a program called “Sandwiches That You Will Like.”   The documentary was produced by the exceptionally talented Rick Sebak of Pittsburgh station WQED.  The entertaining travelogue featured delicious sandwiches (and the folks who make and enjoy them) served by shops, stands and diners from across the USA. This program originally aired in 2002, also the year a companion book titled Sandwiches That You Will Like was published.  The book was written by fabulous food author Becky Mercuri. I was well aware of most of the sandwiches showcased in the documentary and the book.  There were several, however, I had not tried.  The most intriguing sandwich to me was the “Beef on Weck” from Schwabl’s in West Seneca, New York, just outside of Buffalo.  Schwabl’s claims to have invented the beef on weck.  The segment on the beef on weck featured Becky Mercuri, one of my very favorite food authors.  Becky’s enthusiasm for the sandwich was so heartfelt and genuine that I wanted to visit Buffalo to sample one (or ten) of them.  Moreover, I hoped to share a few beef on weck sandwiches with Becky. What, you ask,…