Skillet Doux

Central Gyros

Gyros Spits	Dominic Armato

You ask me to name restaurants of my childhood, and other than Showbiz Pizza Place and Superdawg, Central Gyros is pretty much the only one I don't have to think about.

This is old school Chicago at its finest, a Greek restaurant where the waitresses are lifers, the walls are decorated with sculpted styrofoam and there are no fewer than four Chicago police officers eating at any given time. "Greek" might actually be a more accurate moniker than Greek, and I don't say this with the slightest hint of derision. Chicago Greek is kind of its own little Americanized subset of the cuisine and, like Italian-American, it has its own seductive charms even if those charms might be lost on relatives visiting from the mother country.

Of course, I wasn't seeking authenticity when I visited a few weeks ago, I was seeking nostalgia. We must've eaten at Central Gyros once a month when I was growing up (at least it seemed that way), but other than a single visit during my abbreviated college years, when I corralled a few friends who couldn't understand why we were driving half an hour west to hit a divey Greek place, I don't think I'd been there since high school. Unsurprisingly, little has changed. The sign out front that features a glowing, rotating gyro spit looks every bit as decrepit as it always did. The wait staff may very well be the same people. The roasting meat is still front and center as you walk in the door, in a front galley kitchen lined with reddish brown tile. The carved styrofoam murals that line the walls have been repainted and are now brightly colored rather than their former dusty gold, but this is still a casual neighborhood joint that serves up all of the Greek-American standards.

	Saganaki	Dominic Armato

Said standards start with saganaki, which is a moral imperative when visiting any such place. I confess I'm unsure how widespread the practice has become, so for those who may be unaware, saganaki -- at least as it's served here -- is a Greek-American hybrid dish that's generally accepted to have originated in Chicago's Greektown in the late '60s, with Parthenon Restaurant holding the most credible claim to its invention. Though melted cheese spritzed with lemon is entirely common in Greece, the Americanized version involves more than a little showmanship. A thick slab of cheese, usually kasseri, is dusted with flour and seared in a small superheated pan from whence the dish takes its name. The cheese is then doused with brandy, flambéed tableside, and served sizzling hot with a spritz of fresh lemon. When on, it's killer, and Central Gyros' is the same as it ever was. The whole production is kind of corny, a throwback to an era when it took three foot tall flames and yells of "Opa!" to get Americans to try ethnic cuisine. But crisped on the outside with a gooey, melty interior and the sour tang of both the cheese and lemon, the dish itself holds its own. It's a crowd-pleaser, even without the theatrics.

Taramosalata	Dominic Armato

Central Gyros' taramosalata may have been largely responsible for my status as social outcast while growing up. When you're in second grade, trumpeting your affection for creamy goop comprised primarily of fish eggs is not the way to win friends and influence people. The kid who ate worms may have had a leg up on me. This version is, I believe, a potato base, and I can't claim wide experience with taramosalata, so for me this is pretty much the standard. It's a thick and pasty rendition, unabashedly salty and best spread on bread. Despite sharing the table with five other adults, I think I finished two of the scoops. Some things never change. And though my playground social status may have taken a hit, I credit this taramosalata with teaching me at an early age that some foods aren't nearly as strange as they sound.

	Fried Eggplant	Dominic Armato

A couple of years back, I was gratified to learn that my compatriots over at LTH Forum had discovered Central Gyros, and most who visited had taken to it quite favorably. Of course, it's always interesting to hear a fresh take on a place you've been visiting all your life, and the one bit of information I found most valuable was that their fried eggplant is exceptonal. It is, and I have Michael Morowitz (eatchicago) to thank for introducing me to a new favorite dish at an old favorite place. Not a singular favorite, mind you, but one I'll have a hard time passing on henceforth. The fried eggplant is exceptional, sliced into centimeter-thick half moons and fried so that the outer surface is crisp bordering on brittle while the eggplant inside practically melts into a warm vegetable goo. It's so good that the accompanying skordalia -- pasty garlic and potato dip -- isn't really necessary, but it's still a better dish for it. Thanks, Michael!

Gyros	Dominic Armato

The restaurant's namesake and king of the Chicago Greek staples is, of course, the gyros, so a meal would somehow seem incomplete without. What the United States knows as gyros was, for better or worse, another Chicago invention, though precisely which enterprising soul first started selling it in its mass-produced state is in dispute. Gyros is, of course, an actual Greek dish that traces all the way back to the Turkish doner kebab, but 18th century Turks who carefully layered fresh cuts of lamb to prepare theirs would no doubt be taken aback by the processed meatloaf cone that could only be the product of the meatpacker for the nation. But though less than artful, there's a certain entrepreneurial charm to Chicago-style gyros, and it can make for a damn fine if less than rustic sandwich. Given the product's uniformity, it's really a matter of preparation, ensuring that the meat is hot and crisped by the fire without getting greasy. On this trip, Central Gyros half succeeded. Methinks this was not carved fresh from the flaming spit, which is a shame. But it still scratched the itch, even if it was a little lackluster on this particular occasion.

	Souvlaki Sandwich	Dominic Armato

More disappointing was the old Armato family standby, the souvlaki sandwich. Here, chunks of pork tenderloin are marinated in olive oil, lemon juice and herbs before being skewered and grilled and served on a pita with tomatoes, onions and tzatziki. Aside from the institutional tomatoes, the accompaniments were spot on, with a warm, pillowy and lightly crisped pita and thick, garlicky tzatziki (Chicago Greek is not so much with the subtlety). But the beloved pork wasn't cutting it this evening, a little cool and oddly shy on flavor. I'd have written it off to either an off night or memories tinged by rose-colored glasses, but I'm informed by my family that the off nights have been a little more frequent than the on nights as of late, which is troubling.

A little Greek coffee and we were stepping out the front door and back into the present. As the food goes, Central Gyros wasn't quite what I remembered. Though some favorites remained unchanged, others seemed unusually weak. But Central Gyros is preserved in amber, both metaphorically and literally (the decor IS kinda reddish-brown). It embodies the food and atmosphere of a bygone era and that, coupled with a number of dishes that are still pretty darn good (and a couple that are great), make it a place to visit, even if you're lacking the nostalgia factor.

Central Gyros

www.centralgyros.com

3127 N. Central Avenue

Chicago, IL 60641

773-545-1276

Andreoli

Salami	Dominic Armato

The first time I met Giovanni Scorzo, chef and proprietor of Andreoli, he was holding a massive chunk of cured pork a scant few inches from my nose.

It was the first time I'd eaten there. A shopping and scouting mission had me all atwitter, and I'd hurriedly rushed back to give the kitchen a try. After a perfect meal, capped off by a perfect espresso, I went up to the counter to grab a little pancetta to use for my own pasta the next day. The young fellow at the counter told me that they were all out, and as I was giving an "aw, shucks" and snapping my fingers, he explained that the next batch wasn't ready yet. "Wait, you cure your own?" He held up an index finger and excused himself for a moment, stepping over to a scruffy middle-aged gentleman slicing cured meats at a large wooden table. After saying something to him, the older fellow nodded and twisted his lips in a "sure, why not?" gesture, and moments later the young man returned with a huge, rolled pancetta, still in the netting and obviously just cut down from wherever it had been drying. The older fellow quickly removed the netting, pulled out an ancient-looking knife shaped like a scimitar, carved off one end of the nearly two foot long log and held the rest to his nose. He took a deep breath, his eyes lit up, and his lips curled into a satisfied smile. He looked up for the first time since I'd been standing there, caught my eyes, strode over to the counter and reached across, holding it out for me to do the same.

	Patatine Fritte	Dominic Armato

It was absolutely beautiful. I was blown away by a huge noseful of pork, cured but still clean and fresh with a little spice and the sweetly musky undertones it had picked up while drying. I probably said, "Whoa!" or something similarly Keanu-esque, so he took it back to his work table, carved off a paper thin slice and handed it to me. The fat melted away on my tongue, and I briefly considered vaulting across the counter and running away with a twenty pound hunk of cured meat. Then I realized that I'd probably rather have this guy as a friend. "You make your own pancetta?" I asked. "I make pancetta, salami, soppressata, capicolla, culatello... the only thing I don't make, I don't make any money." He returned to the table and started pulling out more and more house-cured cuts for me to sample. And it was here that my quest of more than a decade had come to an end.

Tomato, Anchovy, Gorgonzola	Dominic Armato

Rewind ten or twelve years. I'm traveling to Italy quite a bit, and on those torturous breaks in between trips, I'm getting increasingly frustrated with my inability to find the kind of trattoria-style fare that I miss so much. Why is this so hard? It isn't rocket science. Get a few good ingredients, treat them with respect, don't screw them up. You don't even have to make fresh pasta. The boxed stuff has its own wonderful character. I want a little trattoria like the ones that are on every corner in Italy. The corners that aren't occupied by churches, anyway. Not those places that call themselves trattorie where everything is either saucy Italian-American, or it's hideously overworked, or it's elevated to a fine dining level and turned into something elegant but somehow lacking the same humble soul. I want one of those tiny family-run joints that are warm, comfortable, and that know how to get out of the way of their food. And I resolve to find it back home.

	Calamaretti del Sacrestano	Dominic Armato

It took a while, but Andreoli is it.... finally. I cannot express how excited I am by this place, but boy howdy, I'm going to try. Over the past six months, I've visited over twenty times. The reason I didn't write it up sooner? I can't stop eating at the place. I can't bear to not do it justice. I want to taste a little more, document a little more, share a little more, paint a more complete picture. I want to try just one more veal dish, sample a couple more sandwiches, inhale a few more dolci... for months, I've been unable to say enough is enough and just start writing. So here it is. Andreoli is a spectacular restaurant, it's the restaurant I've been seeking for over a decade, and I'm not sure that the people of Phoenix realize just how lucky they are to have it.

Insalata di Mare	Dominic Armato

Andreoli, Scorzo's mother's maiden name, is shop, restaurant, cafe and gathering place. Born in Calabria and raised in Liguria, Scorzo previously ran a white tablecloth restaurant in Scottsdale called Leccabaffi. It's no longer with us, and it wasn't Scorzo's for its autumn years anyway. To hear from those who know him, Scorzo got sick of the place. Sick of the grind, sick of the BS involved in running a restaurant at that level, and sick of the people who didn't appreciate the food. So after throwing in the towel with Leccabaffi and taking some time away from a restaurant kitchen, he opened Andreoli, a comfortable place where he could invite people into his kitchen, cook for them and make them happy on a very personal level in ways that only people who are driven to do this kind of cooking can. It's small. There are a dozen tables at most, squeezed into the space while shelves of Italian grocery items line the walls. When you walk in, Giovanni's either working behind the counter, or he's seated at a table with some other Italians, sipping espresso and bantering in animated fashion while his daughter, Francesca, holds down the fort. During the day, people stop in for sandwiches. In the evening, families eat with their kids. It may start out as a shop and restaurant, but you keep showing up and showing up and one day Giovanni's telling you about his upcoming trip to Italy while Francesca plays with your baby daughter and suddenly it's a home -- a home with really, really good food.

	Vitello Tonnato	Dominic Armato

The regular menu is mostly focused on sandwiches with a few salads and antipasti, and there are plenty of gems to be found there. But the real magic happens on a small white board with roughly a dozen items that change on a daily basis. A soup or two, a few pastas, a couple seafood dishes, a few meats... whatever strikes Scorzo's fancy that day. and outside of the sandwiches, what's most striking about both menus is how thoroughly traditional they are. So many Italian restaurants in the States feel compelled to stand out through their menu, reinventing and reimagining the classics, which is all fine and good except that almost all of them do it poorly. It's so refreshing to find an Italian kitchen steered by a hand confident enough to simply do these dishes the way they've been done forever, and do them well.

Linguine alle Vongole Veraci	Dominic Armato

Sometimes, a meal might start with simple marinated vegetables, set out on the counter for you to peruse before you order. Or a simple salad, like slabs of ripe tomato with slivers of onion, anchovy fillets and dollops of gorgonzola dolce. Nothing fancy, just excellent ingredients put together and lightly dressed. If you're lucky, you might be able to get a hold of some of Scorzo's housemade salumi, which show the understated grace of the experienced hand that prepared them. Some are coarse and rustic with melting globules of fat, some are fine and tender with an almost pate-like consistency, but all maintain the flavor of the pork, which never gets lost in curing salts or an overabundance of seasonings. Scorzo's pancetta is luscious and sweet with a little bit of chile heat -- he's from Calabria, after all -- and though it's been doing wonderful things to my pastas at home, it's so good sliced paper thin and eaten raw that it almost seems a crime to cook it.

	Fusilli con Ricotta e Pomodori	Dominic Armato

Other starting tastes abound. I'm especially fond of Scorzo's patatine fritte, which are in the running for my favorite fried potatoes of all time. Forget the focus on crispness that dominates fried potato cookery in the States. These are fried in olive oil and there's nothing crisp about them. But they taste like potatoes, and fabulous ones at that. The crispness comes from the accompanying fried leeks which, along with a remoulade-like dip, make me glad Francesca talked me into ordering them. Seafood is also well-represented, and you'll find items like breaded and fried sardines, insalata di mare or multiple preparations of calamari. The insalata di mare is done with enormous, juicy mussels and clams with chunks of calamari and octopus. It's a simple marinade with wine vinegar, shredded carrots and big chunks of celery, and it's unabashedly marine, without the slightest effort to clean it up for those who don't like their seafood to taste like seafood. The Calamaretti del Sacrestano is a grilled preparation, soft and charred and bathed in lemon, olive oil and the squid's natural essence -- so much of it that it'll take half a loaf of bread (made in house, by the way) to mop it all up, and you'll want to. On a recent visit, I was thrilled to see one of my absolute favorites, Vitello Tonnato, and Scorzo's hits it right on the head. For those unfamiliar, Vitello Tonnato is poached veal that's chilled and very thinly sliced, then topped with a mayonnaise-like sauce that's blended with tuna and usually topped with capers. Scorzo's is especially delicate, avoiding the dry fate that often befalls the veal, and his sauce is unusually smooth and light.

Ravioli al Funghi e Tartufi Bianchi	Dominic Armato

Pastas are perfect. Simple and perfect. And above all, simple. What's more, in true trattoria fashion, factory-made dry pastas are well-represented. The superiority of fresh pasta is an American conceit, whereas Italians know that both have their place at the table. Linguine alle Vongole Veraci -- with clams -- is not the soupy, garlicky mess it is everywhere else. It's fresh, light, clean, tasting of clams rather than bottled clam juice. The sauce is barely there, and it has just a whiff of garlic. There's no cheese, and don't ask for any. This dish is about the clams, and about the pasta itself, as it should be. When Scorzo goes rich, he goes rich, but keeps the flavors simple to keep them from getting muddy. Fusilli is bound by a mess of melted fresh ricotta, but it's an excellent ricotta (also made in-house), it hasn't been flavored seven different ways, and it's paired with grape tomatoes, bursting through their skins and cutting through the cheese's richness with their naturally sweet acid. I presume Scorzo uses the same fresh mushrooms as everybody else, but how he pulls so much flavor out of them for the Ravioli ai Funghi is something I'd like to know. Pressed between sheets of firm but yielding pasta and basted with salty butter and a touch of white truffle oil, they're remarkably intense. Pappardelle al Cinghiale, another old favorite of mine, embraces the boar's wild nature. Scorzo's version is downright chunky, containing huge pieces of meat, and the underlying pasta has bite to match. And these are just a few... a light and delicate veal-based Penne Strascicate, light potato gnocchi in a tomato sauce with a slightest touch of pesto, tangled Fettuccine all'Aragosta... they're all wonderful.

	Pappardelle al Cinghiale	Dominic Armato

I haven't spent nearly as much time with the secondi. I keep getting hung up on the pastas. But the ones that I've had have all been wonderful. Veal Saltimbocca shouldn't be smothered in cheese. It should be as it is here, seared in the pan and bathed in its own juices, butter and Marsala, with nothing more than prosciutto and sage to accompany it. And one of the best seafood dishes I've had in a long time, Gamberoni Reali alla Brace, fresh from Greece, seven inches long with the tails curled. What do you do with such precious creatures as these? Almost nothing. A little oil, a little lemon, salt and pepper and a grill. When Scorzo set the plate in front of me, he said, "You know, the heads, right?" holding his fingers to his lips and making a slurping sound. "Are you kidding? That's the best part!" I replied. "She couldn't do it," he said, grinning ear to ear and teasing a woman -- a regular, I think -- seated on the other side of the store. She looked up, smiled and shrugged. Her loss. I started with a knife and fork, but Scorzo quickly tossed me a huge pile of napkins, confirming that my preferred method was entirely acceptable. They were sweet... so sweet, seasoned with the brine from whence they came. Little smoky flakes of charred shell snuck their way into one bite after another, further infusing the meat with smoke and fire. I got lost for a while, completely dismantling each shrimp, slurping every last bit of essence and leaving nothing but a pile of dry shells and hollow heads.

Gamberoni Reali alla Brace	Dominic Armato

Dolci? Also done on the premises. Between the savories, the sweets, the salumi and the crusty bread, the kitchen's versatility is amazing. You'll find all manner of cookies, including cantucci (what most know as biscotti), chocolates with toasted nuts, the occasional creamy or custardy offerings popular with Americans like cannoli and tiramisu, and the most delicious cornetti I've ever had. Named for their horn-like shape, cornetti are the Italian analogue to croissants, and though cornetti are generally a little moister and more bready than their French cousins, Scorzo takes them even further, creating a dense, moist, almost cakey sweet bread that is one of the best pastries I've had in recent memory. If you're a fan of pain au chocolate, try one of his chocolate cornetti and then try going back. Good luck with that.

	Vitello Saltimbocca	Dominic Armato

There are so many things that make the food at Andreoli so wonderful, but chief among them, I think, is the amount of restraint that Scorzo exercises. With so many of his dishes, as I eat I sit there and think about how almost every other Italian restaurant in the States would add two more ingredients, and those two ingredients would screw everything up. This is the essence of Italian food. Killer ingredients prepared using simple techniques that maximize their natural flavor. It seems like such a simple formula, but when you cook simply, you're exposed. The slightest errors are magnified. But Scorzo seems to get it every time. He does just enough, without doing too much, and he does it right.

When I first started visiting Andreoli, I couldn't figure out why Scorzo isn't one of the most publicly beloved chefs in the entire city. Whether or not he wants it, he deserves that recognition. But I came to accept that this was wishful thinking on my part. I understand exactly why. It's perhaps a little intimidating when half the people in the place aren't speaking your language. You might pay $20 for a pasta or $32 for an entree and there isn't any waitstaff. Food kind of comes out of the kitchen whenever it comes out of the kitchen. It's that kind of place. But for those who aren't married to traditional restaurant trappings, Andreoli is a goldmine of Italian food the way it's meant to be. Am I worried that I'm overselling the place? Not really. Andreoli is kind of a litmus test for where people's priorities lie when it comes to dining out. With this kind of food, you either get it or you don't. Those of us who don't will wonder why they should wait in line, sit in the middle of a store and pay $20 for a plate of pasta when they could spend that same money on a more upscale Italian dinner in an upscale restaurant. Those of us who get it, however, know that the food at that upscale restaurant isn't half as good, that more complex isn't necessarily better, and we'd much rather be fed by a fellow who holds freshly sliced homemade pancetta across the counter so we can take a deep, intoxicating whiff.

Andreoli
www.andreoli-grocer.com
8880 East Via Linda
Scottsdale, AZ 85258
480-614-1980
Mon - Sat	10:00 AM - 9:00 PM

The Quarterly Report - Q2 2010

Chinese Pancakes @ Super L Ranch Market	Dominic Armato

One thing is, sitting around a hospital room means you have a lot of time on your hands. So while there's no Bravo and Top Chef is out, heck, as long as there's time to kill and I've got myself an internet connection, why not do the quarterly report? For those who missed it first time around, these are the last three months' worth of little snippets and impressions that never seemed significant enough to work into full posts. Which means they're even less comprehensive than usual. Consider them a quarter's worth of little snapshots, in no particular order.

	The Fallen Angel	Dominic Armato

La Grande Orange Pizzeria
4410 N. 40th Street, Phoenix AZ 85018
La Grande Orange seems to be a rather popular spot. And having only stopped into the grocery until recently, I wasn't quite sure why. There was some good stuff to be found, but it struck me as a gourmet grocery that was more style than substance. Good for picking up some treats, but not really a market in any serious sense. I warmed to the place quite a bit, however, after sitting outside with a pizza and salad from the accompanying pizzeria one evening. I'm pretty agnostic when it comes to pizza styles. They all have their charms. So while hardcore traditionalists of many stripes might be offended by the sourdough crust, I have to back it up. This is a tasty pizza with great texture, alternately charred, crisp and unusually chewy. The Fallen Angel, with Schreiner's Italian sausage, roasted peppers and shaved fennel, has a healthy level of spice with a balancing natural sweetness. And it reminds me that I really need to check out Schreiner's sometime soon.

Italian Sub	Dominic Armato

My Daddy's Bakery
11677 West Bell Road, Surprise, AZ 85374
Surprise doesn't get a whole lot of attention within food nerd circles, and driving through it's not hard to see why. But I still subscribe to the theory that there are little hidden gems everywhere you go. And while I don't know that I'm willing to call My Daddy's Bakery a gem based on the one sandwich and couple of sweets I tried, it's more interesting than most everything else I've driven by down Bell Road. Cute little place that's mostly Italian pastries, cook at home pizzas and a few frozen pastas. A basic sub of the throw-it-all-on-there Italian-American variety did the job, hitting the spot in a no-frills fashion. Sfogliatelle could've been lighter but were enjoyable, and cannoli were similarly workmanlike, even if the use of green candy sprinkles rather than pistachios was a little annoying. But they were mini cannoli, so perhaps it was to avoid the use of nuts for grandkids' sake. Still seemed kind of sacrilegious.

	Ricotta Ravioli	Dominic Armato

Pasta and Sugo
2916 N. 40th Street, Phoenix AZ 85018
I think the deathwatch was on for Pasta and Sugo the day they opened. Odd location, crude signage, and a bit of an identity crisis. Perhaps they know what they are, but I'm not getting it. They produce pasta and sugo (natch), nothing else, and not very much of it. A few shapes of fresh dried pasta, a few varieties of frozen ravioli, two or three sauces -- that's about it. And this could be great if the product's great. The bagged pasta was worthwhile, nice bite with a bit of whole wheat for a slightly rustic flavor. But it was priced like an ultrapremium import and just didn't seem worth it. Eating in is a disaster. Arriving in a plastic takeout container, the pasta was waterlogged and the sauce was flat and crying out for salt (mediocre tomatoes, I think). Though the method of service gave a clue as to why. Only a handful of tiny tables in the place, and our group of five was served slowly over the course of twenty minutes. I think they only have one microwave, and I don't mean that as a joke. Which is especially frustrating because when all you're serving is three kinds of ravioli and a couple of sauce options, would it be so hard to keep some boiling water going and two pots of sauce simmering? It just seems unnecessary. And the stripped-down trappings wouldn't bother me one bit if the pasta were good, but it just isn't. Not after being prepared that way, anyway. I'd love to support a place like this, but I just can't.

Steak House BLT Burger	Dominic Armato

The Grind
3961 East Camelback Road, Phoenix AZ 85018
The Grind has been pretty well covered by others, and I don't know that I have that much to add, but I'll note it here for posterity's sake. The big question for me, as much as I hate to do the old head-to-head thing, is how their burgers stack up against Delux. So do I prefer The Grind? Yes and no. And that's the problem. When the burger's on, and it's cooked to the right temperature, and the bacon is crisp and it's nicely sauced, there's absolutely no contest. It's a great burger with a real meaty, beefy patty with substance, in contrast to the glorified meatloaf over at Delux (I have teeth, guys, and I'm willing to use them). But The Grind has been wildly inconsistent, and sometimes that burger just doesn't come together. Also doesn't help that the late-night menu has been stripped down and only features one burger. When it's on, I love your Steak House BLT burger, guys. Sure wish I could try the others.

	Salade Frisée aux Oeufs et Lardons	Dominic Armato

Petite Maison
7216 East Shoeman Lane, Scottsdale, AZ 85251
Staff meal at Petite Maison is rather eclectic, but the regular menu is pretty much straight-up bistro. With a twist, I suppose you could say. Lots of them. Little ones, though, as if they wanted to put a signature spin on each classic. Problem is I'm not sure they're improvements. I haven't spent a ton of time in France, but does anybody there put a croque monsieur on a croissant? Even if somebody does, I think it's a mistake. I don't care if it looks good on the menu, it doesn't do justice to either the croissant or the croque monsieur. And the frisée salad with poached egg and bacon has a beautiful poached egg, but rather than nice chunky, fatty lardons you get a pile of bacon that's been sliced and chopped and cooked dry. Again, not an improvement (and it's overdressed, to boot). This is perhaps overly harsh. We had a perfectly nice lunch, and I've certainly sampled more bistros on the worse side of Petite Maison than the better side. But while I appreciate attempts to put a personal spin on convention, it's frustrating when it seems like those choices are made without careful thought.

Chinese Pancakes	Dominic Armato

Super L Ranch Market
668 North 44th Street, Phoenix AZ 85008
A fun little diversion if you're hitting one of the restaurants down by the Chinese Cultural center on the weekend is a small cart that the Super L Ranch Market puts out front. I'm not familiar with this particular brand of sweet treat, but I like it. Similar to takoyaki, these pancakes are produced on a hot griddle with indentations into which is first poured a batter, then a filling, then more batter before they're flipped to cook on the other side, resulting in a thick pancakey dessert puck with your choice of sweet filling. Red bean and coconut were two of the options on the day I walked by, as well as one other choice that I've since forgotten. But they're tasty, a little crisp on the exterior, sweet and volcanic in the middle, and the long line of folks waiting for their turn makes for a nice little taste of street food culture in a town that doesn't seem to have very much of it, Nogales Hot Dogs notwithstanding.

The Girl and The Goat

Awwwwwww	Dominic Armato

Let me make something absolutely clear, lest you think I'm plumbing new depths of Top Chef obsession. I did NOT travel to Chicago for the opening of The Girl and The Goat. But when the enormously (over)hyped opening of a Top Chef winner's restaurant happens to occur the very week we have a night on the town -- a week when I was taking a Power Rankings pass, no less -- checking it out kind of seems like a moral obligation. I don't mean to give the wrong impression. I was actually quite curious to see how Stephanie Izard's place would turn out. I'd eaten at her previous restaurant before she was a reality television star. But to check out how fame and fortune may or may not have changed her meant making peace with the fact that I'd be letting the blog be even further dominated by Top Chef this month. With a little trepidation, I suppose I can deal with that.

	Fat Bread with Liver Butter	Dominic Armato

In her pre-reality televison days, Stephanie (being on a reality TV show puts you on a first name basis with the public, you see) was the chef at a joint in Wicker Park named Scylla. I had a couple of meals at Scylla not long before they closed, and while I can't recall the details (this is precisely why I started a journal/blog, by the way), I recall a bit of an uneven experience that nonetheless included some rather exciting peaks. I remember thinking at the time that if you picked the winners, you'd walk out having had a great meal. I didn't get much of a chance to suss out those winners, however, as Scylla closed up shop shortly before Stephanie went on Top Chef. Which precipitated which is anybody's guess. Shortly thereafter, she became a national culinary icon, having snatched victory from popularly favored (though no less popular) Richard Blais, and after a brief respite, what followed was a slow crescendo of rumor, then buzz, then announcements, then delays, then name changes, then a marketing blitz, and finally... just this week... an opening. Yes, Chicago, henceforth when you read daily updates about The Girl and The Goat, they will most likely involve discussion of actual food.

Cave Brothers Mozzarella	Dominic Armato

So my ladylove and I went to go check it out this past Wednesday. I concede up front that it's completely unfair to write about a place like this just a scant few days after opening. Early writeups are always unfair, but when the hype has reached such a fevered pitch, it's especially unfair. The Girl and The Goat can't possibly live up to expectations, and not letting them at least get their feet wet seems cruel, somehow. But such is the reality of the Yelp era, I get one shot at the place this year, and it happened to be this week. I figure I'd better take it. So the usual "just opened" caveats apply. Even under the best of circumstances, I like to think of these posts as data points rather than "reviews," and that goes triply here. It's only fair.

	Chilled Sweet Onion Soup	Dominic Armato

The Girl and The Goat is big! Much bigger than I expected somehow, a lofty space on Randolph in the West Loop filled with unfinished wood, black and dark green accents and the pleasant, if pungent, scent of wood smoke from the open oven in back. There's a rather sizeable bar, a small lounge with low couches where many appeared to be eating a full dinner, a long kitchen along the back and plenty of tables to cover what I expected would be a crush of opening week reservations, until I checked Open Table on Monday morning and discovered that other than a gap from 6:30 to 7:45, Wednesday night was wide open. Had so many decided to keep their distance that the crowds they had sought to avoid were rendered illusory? The room sure seemed pretty busy. Perhaps the throngs got wise to the Open Table backdoor later in the day. It's a small plates menu (surprise!), divided into vegetables, seafood and meats, with a small addendum featuring oysters and breads.

Crispy Pig Face with Chimichurri	Dominic Armato

Yes, breads. While trying to keep an open mind, I'm unsure of how I feel about bread service being monetized. It feels a little like we've simply found a way to charge for something most places give away for free. But like most other things, items given gratis are worked into the prices anyway, so I suppose this way the cost is limited to those who choose to partake. Nonetheless, it's a little jarring to pay $5 for a small loaf of fresh bread with liver butter and diced plums, even if the description thereof is all you need to hear to know why we did it. It was delicious, hot and soft bread spread with creamy butter that had a little offal funk, and bright, sweet tart plums for contrast. It was perhaps the second-most decadent bread service I've encountered, safely behind the creamy crock of lardo at Carnevino, which was free. But then, dining at The Girl and The Goat doesn't require taking out a second mortgage for a steak that may be older than the house you're mortgaging (and yet I'd do it again... and again... and again... but I digress).

	Skirt Steak a la Plancha	Dominic Armato

Dishes, by design, arrived in no particular order, though I don't know if this is a conscious choice or some opening week jitters. My first taste was a small one, a sample of my ladylove's salad, listed on the menu as Cave Brothers Mozzarella with sungold tomatoes, yellow plums, watercress and purple beans. It was as described, a fine specimen of a salad, especially when it came to the crisp, slivered beans, that satisfied without thriling. You can make friends with salad, but it has to be one helluva salad. This was not. But I enjoyed the taste I had. My first, however, rather endeared me to the chef. It was a chilled sweet onion soup, with beautiful, explosive flavor and a wonderful creamy texture despite what I suspect was a total absence of dairy. Highlighted with a small dollop of mildly spicy poblano-sorrel oil, it was a beautifully refreshing dish for a hot evening that still had some depth and body. Perhaps my favorite of the evening.

Crisp Skate with Calamari and Garbanzos	Dominic Armato

Nipping at its heels was my next dish, the "crispy pig face" with chimichurri, daikon and baby arugula. Stephanie, like many chefs these days, displayed an unhealthy (yet oh so wonderful) obsession with pork products during her stint on Top Chef, and little bits of pig are to be found all over the menu. It's the star, however, of this dish, which plays kind of like an unusually succulent schnitzel, breaded and crisply fried with fresh greens and a chimichurri that had some kick. My first taste left me a little flat, but it quickly became apparent that this was because I'd first hit upon a lean corner of the cut. Once I found the fat -- which was practically everywhere else -- the plate melded together into a meaty and herbacious blend of flavors with a wonderful crunchy texture.

	Soft Shell Crab with Sweet Corn	Dominic Armato

Sadly, texture was something of an issue for the next two dishes, and our dinner went south for a bit. Though my ladylove seemed quite tickled by it, I was underwhelmed by the skirt steak a la plancha. Done with slivered beets, wilted romaine lettuce, assorted pickled vegetables and what was described as a salted goat milk caramel, it seems like it should have had a lot more depth than it did. It actually came across similar to an Asian-style sweet and sour beef salad that you might have at a Thai or Vietnamese place. But without something like the punch of chiles or the salty pungency of fish sauce, it felt flat. That the skirt steak didn't seem to retain any of the seared flavor you'd expect it to pick up from the plancha didn't help, either. Combine that with intentionally wilted greens, and it felt like a weak, overly sweet Americanized Thai beef salad that had been sitting in the container a little too long. Overly harsh, perhaps, especially considering the kitchen's young age. It wasn't bad, really. But that's what immediately sprung to mind.

Rabbit Rillettes in Crisp Rice Crepe	Dominic Armato

The first of my two seafood dishes was similarly challenged, and I started to suspect that we might be seeing some opening week issues on display. The crisp skate was done with grilled calamari rings, sweet (pickled?) grape tomatoes, garbanzo beans that challenged the teeth (though not unpleasantly), grilled radicchio, capers and a tomato aioli. There were small issues, like the fact that I wouldn't have known the calamari were grilled if the menu didn't say so (not a hint of char or smoke). But most importantly, the panko-breaded crisp skate was anything but. It was soggy, limp and barely warm, and it resulted in a dish that completely lacked texture. There may very well have been a good dish in here, but it was very difficult to see past a sad piece of seafood. It remains to be seen whether the skate and the skirt steak bloom once the kitchen tightens up a little bit. I think it's a possibility, but they're definitely not there yet.

	Goat Cheese Bavarois	Dominic Armato

This would have been the end had we not opted to add a couple more dishes mid-meal. The plates are small enough that I'd say three will do most folks, going down to two or up to four if you typically find yourself on the extremes. My last dish was another crack at seafood, a fried soft shell crab that was, indeed, served crisp, atop a bed of sweet corn kernels and dressed with a chili aioli. The crab was seasoned, barely dusted and fried, letting it shine which was a great call. These little fellows are so delicate and so tasty that there's no sense burying them. The sweet corn was similarly minimal and delicious, but the whole dish was put off by one unfortunate error, which was an overabundance of lime juice that really took over the dish. Again, work out the kinks and this is a winner (though the crabs will most likely be gone by then).

Corn Nougat with Plum and Bacon	Dominic Armato

But despite some of the problem dishes, we ended on a high note, a creative little dish that still wasn't quite firing on all cylinders, yet managed to delight us nonetheless. Rabbit rillettes are rolled in rice crepes and fried crisp, then floated in a bowl of ginger "giardinare" and sweet garlic puree, and topped with thinly sliced carrots and a bit of spigarello (the green stuff). The flavors here were wonderful and well-balanced. The rabbit not only took to the broth beautifully, but its shredded texture lapped up the liquid once the crepes were cut apart. The garlic was present but not overpowering, and the vegetables atop were pure and delicious. The singular issue was, again, that the crisp crepes weren't very crisp. Only the tiniest bits on a couple of edges provided any clue that they were intended to be. And while I'm sure they were meant to be partly crisp, partly soft (a call I fully support), a little more texture would have made the dish. But this was a winner even as we received it.

Desserts were creative and enjoyable. A goat cheese bavarois with berries and crisp oats was clean and restrained in its subtle sweetness. The corn nougat -- corn ice cream, as far as I could tell -- was served with crumbled corn bread, corn kernels, diced plum and bits of crispy bacon, and the only problem was that the nougat arrived half-melted, in keeping with the evening's theme.

	Inspiration For The Name	Dominic Armato

That theme, of course, is that The Girl and The Goat just opened, and I have absolutely no business writing about it. Like the meals I remembered from Scylla, there were big hits and big misses. But this offering from Stephanie lent the impression that it might come together with a little more time. The beauty of restauranting in the internet era, however, is that unlike with a traditional newspaper review, there will be no shortage of others commenting in the coming weeks on whether or not the kitchen finds its footing. Less highly anticipated restaurants might not survive a lukewarm early reception, but unless the city of Chicago has completely succumbed to goat fatigue (I suppose a case could be made for the north side of the city... *sigh*), Stephanie will get the time she needs to whip the kitchen into shape. I hope she does, not because she's so damn likeable (though she is), but because there are some really compelling ideas here that I'd like to see hitting the table at full strength.

The Girl and The Goat
www.girlandthegoat.com
809 W. Randolph Street
Chicago, IL 60607
312-492-6262
Mon - Fri	4:30 PM - 11:00 PM
Fri - Sat	4:30 PM - 12:00 AM

Crudo

Albacore with Apples, Truffle and Black Garlic	Dominic Armato

I have mused before, and I'll try not to make it a tired theme, about what strikes this particular newcomer as Phoenix's odd relationship with seafood. "It's tough to get fresh fish in the desert," I've heard, on more than one occasion. But surely, no sushi bar exists this side of the Pacific that obtains even half of its fish locally. Le Bernardin isn't exactly pulling its kanpachi, sea urchin, langoustine and hiramasa out of the Hudson. Heck, even when it comes to crab in Maryland, a state so devoted to the crustacean that the little blue buggers are on their driver's licenses, it's a challenge to find the locally fished variety. Most of Maryland's pride is shipped in from the Gulf of Mexico, Venezuela or Southeast Asia these days (perhaps less so the Gulf now, but... ugh... best not to think about that). Of course, there's nothing like day boat seafood, but the point is that whether or not they should be (a question I'll leave for the more ecologically-minded), seafood restaurants are largely location irrelevant. And yet, it's almost as though there's a lack of seafood culture here. So as odd as I may find the complete absence of independent fishmongers, it's refreshing to know that there are places -- quirky, independent ones, even -- that are devoted to a variety of lovely, fresh fish. It is, after all, Crudo's namesake.

	Butterfish with Crispy Lardo	Dominic Armato

"Quirky" may be one of the most important thoughts to hold onto, here. Crudo is a truly odd little beast, serving breakfast in the morning and fairly straightforward panini and flatbreads in the afternoon, only to morph into a creative, Italian-inspired seafood restaurant by night. This daily transmogrification is a function, it would seem, of the restaurant's location in the front of a hair salon. This isn't quite as odd as it sounds, but it's pretty close. The Steven Paul Salon once housed a more conventional cafe before Crudo took it over, and the room isn't shared with styling chairs and hairdryers, but rather a small jewelry and clothing boutique. And though I'm firmly in the food before ambiance camp, the better place to park, I think, is out on the patio, which is where we found ourselves on an unseasonably cool June evening.

Tuna with Orange, Basil and Olives	Dominic Armato

Chefs Cullen Campbell and Brandon Crouser have tag-teamed a menu that's about fifteen items long, split right down the middle between hot and cold. But the more compelling option, for me at least, is the ability to do three, four or five courses -- your pick -- at $10 apiece, making it possible to bring a companion with whom you don't mind trading plates and sample two-thirds of the menu on one pass. The top half is mostly comprised of the namesake crudi, thinly-sliced raw fish doused in olive oil and seasonings that challenge tradition but are firmly rooted, for the most part, in Mediterranean flavors. Further encouraging sharing is the fact that the crudi plates are of a fair size. Splitting a dish will still yield you 4-5 slices of fish. Seafood options are mostly absent from the bottom, cooked half of the menu, but the meats and vegetables found there are similarly Italian-inspired, again with plenty of creative twists to keep things lively.

	Hiramasa with Espelette and Bottarga	Dominic Armato

The first dish to come our way was a firm and light butterfish, topped with crispy fried lardo and oven-dried tomatoes. Consisting of nothing but cured pork fat, the lardo first crunches and then melts into the fish when you take a bite, and the oven-dried tomatoes provide a cleaner, sweeter flavor than a typical sun-dried, which always seems to completely take over any dish it's added to. Good call there. Meanwhile, my ladylove started on tuna, awash in olive oil and topped generously with orange segments, diced olives and basil. The olives -- again, a very clean-tasting variety -- gave a little salty punch without giving too much, and while the dish could have benefitted from a better piece of fish, I don't mean to cast aspersions on the quality of crudo's seafood, which was generally quite good and no less than I'd expect without getting into, no doubt, pricier territory.

Madai with Meyer Lemon and Sea Beans	Dominic Armato

The second wave was even a little stronger, my dish being hiramasa, a type of amberjack, done with iitois (a local allium with which I'm not yet familiar, but it could have passed for a chive), a dash of spicy espelette and a hint of grated bottarga. It's about this time that I noticed each of these crudi was introducing an element that was a little rough around the edges -- fried pork fat, briny olive, fishy bottarga -- which I rather enjoyed as a departure from the clean/tart/sweet profiles that typify most creative Asian sashimi these days. After trading dishes, I had another that followed the same pattern: generous squares of albacore with crisp green apple matchsticks, black garlic and a touch of earthy truffle. Clean, sweet and tart balanced by earthy and pungent. Another refreshing taste with a little character.

	Anchovy with Roasted Baby Bells	Dominic Armato

Our final pass at the crudi contained what was, for me, the peak and valley of the top half of the menu. I started with the peak, the "Japanese auction" selection for the week, which was madai, a type of red snapper, dressed in a lightly sweet Meyer lemon oil, Meyer lemon rind and a scattering of sea beans, confusingly named as they aren't beans and don't grow in the sea, even if they rather taste like it. I found this to be the most delightful crudo of the evening, due in no small part to the fish which seemed a notch above the rest of the pack, even before I realized that was our "special." And though I enjoyed some more than others, the only crudo I'd be perfectly content to scratch off my list was the white anchovy with roasted bell peppers, housemade pickles and shiso. But that may be attributable to the fact that I find it hard to get excited about marinated white anchovies, which always strike me as way too heavy on the vinegar, and these were no exception.

Fegato Grasso with Polenta and Dates	Dominic Armato

Having shaded more heavily towards the crudi in our selections, we were forced to pass on some rather delightful-looking hot dishes, like a rolled veal breast, gnocchi with prosciutto broth and fingerling potatoes with more lardo. But I suppose you need something to go back for. I found the latter half of the menu a little more uneven, actually, including one dish that didn't quite sit well with me at all. The fegato grasso (exactly what you think it is) was served surrounded by a loose polenta and topped with honey and dates. The combination of honey and dates I found just a little too powerful for the fegato, which was lost unless I got a big chunk of it and a touch of the accompaniments, quickly leaving me with a big plate of polenta, dates and honey. But more importantly, something in the polenta clashed with the fegato... butter, I think? To my palate, they just fought each other. This dish didn't come together for me.

	Mushrooms Au Gratin	Dominic Armato

More successful was the menu's requisite umami bomb, which I'd chide as a culinary trend except for the fact that I kind of like it. "Au Gratin" is a terribly misleading way to label the mushrooms, which are, I believe, roasted with mozzarella, Grana Padano, fingerling potatoes, and a little truffle before being topped with a very loose egg. This one's not rocket science, and it may be a slave to fashion, but really, what's not to like? Slightly less trendy was a beet-stained risotto, and while "stained" might give the impression that this was a surface application, in reality it was a full-on BEET dish. A small tower of risotto was wrapped with grilled zucchini and capped with a thick slab of roasted beet and a lone basil leaf. The balsamic drizzled around struck me as unnecessary. It's easy sweetness and overused, particularly in a dish that featured enough natural sweetness to make it redundant. The risotto was done with bacon and Grana Padano, and the flavor was wonderful, even if the texture struck me as slightly off. The risotto had bite -- most important -- but it struck me as a little too loose. These are, however, minor complaints. This was a very nice dish.

Beet-Stained Risotto	Dominic Armato

The winner of the hot dishes for me was a brodetto alla Triestina, which bucked convention in a way that made me rather happy. Brodetto, in its origins, was a humble seafood stew, made with whatever was abundant, most often done with tomato and wine and tarted up with vinegar (I've always wanted to say that in a food context). This is usually a rustic dish, but here it's cleaned up for a night on the town. A very light interpretation, this brodetto comes across more like a pile of fish and vegetables sitting in a broth, which has its upsides and downsides. The downside is that the yellowtail, potatoes and oven-dried tomatoes, while bright, tender and delicious, somehow didn't feel fully infused with the broth's character. But then again, maybe that would have been too much. The broth carries a punch, sweet and tart and so powerful that it almost feels like an agrodolce, and yet is light and clean and doesn't leave you feeling sticky sweet. I'm a little torn. I'm not convinced the body of the "stew" couldn't be better married to the broth, but I dig that broth so much I'm pretty content with it the way it is.

	Yellowtail Brodetto	Dominic Armato

We weren't feeling dessert that evening, though the choices sounded mostly conventional. Of course, that can fool you sometimes (I love that no matter how many people rip it off and give it flashy names, Jean-Georges still refers to it simply as "warm chocolate cake"). But we left quite satisfied. Crudo is a charming, if unconventional, little place. In general, I think the crudi are stronger than the piatti, but it's mostly a very solid menu, and I wouldn't hesitate to return. Another thing I'm trying to adjust to here is the summer lull. It's one thing to hear about how restaurants get rather quiet this time of year, and it's another thing to go to a place the Saturday after a glowing writeup from the New Times, sit for three hours and only see two other tables. But looking around the neighborhood, the quiet certainly didn't seem limited to Crudo. Frustrating as that might be, I suppose it's better that it's the season rather than the digs. But if the summer kills off as many restaurants as I've heard, Crudo deserves to be on the list of places to help through the heat. And with cool, light, raw fish dishes as their specialty, doing so certainly won't be a chore.

Crudo
www.crudoaz.com
7045 East 3rd Avenue
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
480-603-1011
Tue	8:00 AM - 8:00 PM
Wed - Sat	8:00 AM - 10:00 PM

Tadich Grill

Tadich Grill	Dominic Armato

You're on your own in San Francisco.

It's been a long day, your stomach's gnawing, and anyplace honest with a counter is sounding like a good idea. A restaurant that's been around for over 150 years can't have survived that long by playing to culinary trends -- were there culinary trends in 1849? -- so you brush past the fellows having a smoke on the sidewalk out front, open the door and step out of the rain-drenched night and into the bustle within.

	The Long Counter	Dominic Armato

It isn't 1849, but it might as well be 1949. If you block out the less conservatively dressed patrons and the servers' terminals, you could pretend that Truman was still president, Don Newcombe was the NL rookie of the year and Tony Bennett was still Joe Bari. So you wait for a spell until a stool opens up at the satiny smooth wooden bar that starts at the front door and goes on forever, maybe all the way into the kitchen in back, maybe all the way into the bay. You take a sip of water and, under yellow light cast by ancient brass fixtures, start to look over a menu filled with the kind of simple seafood and steaks that meant the good life to your grandparents. Your waiter steps up, white jacket, black tie, slick hair, a face with experience, and though he works a busy counter he moves with economy and carries himself like a foreign dignitary. "Can I get you something to drink?", he says, sounding like he arrived here from Western Europe, but decades ago. You ask for a Diet Coke, to which he responds, "I said something to drink," with just enough of a wry tone and a twitch of the lip to keep it friendly. He glides off to retrieve your Coke. You're the boss, but it's his turf.

Seafood Cocktail	Dominic Armato

You start to regret the selection. Something with bourbon somehow seems more appropriate as you soak in the scene. Folks who got off late unwind with an old-school cocktail. The walls are lined with trench coats and the counter lined with briefcases. A septuagenarian with earlobes like dried apricots -- a regular -- sits down to your left, orders and eats a minute steak with potatoes, pays his tab and hobbles off before your seafood cocktail even hits the counter. The seafood cocktail decided to dress for the occasion, wearing a perfectly trimmed lettuce leaf, purely for show, that frames a chaotic mix of bay shrimp, prawns and crab claws, cool and tender, still smelling of the sea. It's touched with just the right amount of cocktail sauce, a house blend that eschews ketchupy sweetness in favor of texture and fire, the tomato pulp still detectable, the horseradish wafting up into your nose before the fork passes your lips. It's simple and perfect and you sigh when you reach the bottom all too quickly. Your waiter raises an eyebrow and cracks the faintest smile as he whisks away the empty vessel. He won't ask what you thought of it. He already knows.

	Cioppino	Dominic Armato

When he returns, he bears a wide, shallow bowl filled with a stew whose acquaintance you're anxious to make. The cioppino's a house special, and if you doubt the house's authority, the plate helpfully reminds you that the house was built, figuratively at least, in 1849. The seafood stew is bold and decidedly not of this era, made with heavily reduced tomatoes, dried herbs, what must have been every sea creature at the market and enough oil to carry their flavor. The first spoonful of wine-fortified soup hits your lips, and you're transfixed. It's deep and developed, almost bordering on dirty, with the essence -- no, the bold, unmitigated totality -- of the bounty of seafood that adorns the bowl. Clams, mussels, shrimp, crab, scallops, fish... they're all here, all with their own distinct flavors, all sweet and luscious and tender. You have bread to dunk. It isn't crusty, artisan bread, but rather thick slices of something light and moist, toasted to a faint crisp, basted with butter and garlic and absorbent like a sponge. You have to resist the urge to tear through the cioppino like a madman, but you manage to linger with it for a spell, making every spoonful count and using the bread to mop up afterwards. You couldn't have gotten anything more out of the bowl if you licked it. The dishwasher will pause for a moment, wondering how a clean bowl got mixed in with the dirty.

Bourbon Bread Pudding	Dominic Armato

You don't have room for dessert, but you're going to eat one anyway. Bourbon makes an appearance, allowing you to right an earlier wrong, steeped with caramel and basting a bread pudding that comes out of the kitchen without its cap. Your waiter walks it over to a free patch of countertop, reaches into a refrigerator below for a bottle of fresh whipped cream, lays a huge dollop on top of your dessert and, by accident, a small one on his fingertips. He glances over his shoulder, and in a flash, the misplaced cream disappears into his mouth before he turns and sets the dish before you. "Pudding" seems like even more of a misnomer than usual, with cubes of spongy bread and tender, cooked apple nearly unsullied by binder, held together, it would seem, by sheer force of will and the occasional raisin. It's sweet and delicious and you need coffee, so you order an espresso. But the machine behind the counter spits and belches and emits a few disconcerting noises, and after fiddling with it for a few minutes, your waiter declares it dead and sullenly informs you that drip coffee will have to do. "That's okay," you say, realizing that a plain old cup is more appropriate, and this was probably providence. An old mug is set before you, the coffee within is smooth, warm and easy to drink, and with three deep gulps, it's gone.

You pay the check, and as you struggle to stand, your waiter thanks you with a warm smile. He genuinely seems to mean it. Or he's a master at making you think so, which is really all the same to you. You work your way to the front of the narrow building, another lone body falling in to take your place. You step back into the cool night, stand in the neon light and take a deep breath. A cab pulls up and asks if you need a ride. And even though you get in, you think to yourself that he arrived too soon. You really would have liked a few more minutes.

Tadich Grill
www.tadichgrill.com
240 California Street
San Francisco, CA 94111
415-391-1849
Mon - Fri	11:00 AM - 9:30 PM
Sat	11:30 AM - 9:30 PM

FnB

Grilled Spicy Broccoli	Dominic Armato

And now, a couple of unqualified raves.

We've been in town for five months now, and though I never get around as much as I'd like -- not a tenth as much as I'd like -- I feel like I'm starting to get the lay of the land a little bit. And in those five months, I've been to three places that I can plainly state I adore without reservation. The first, I wrote about a few months ago. The second, I hope to write about later this week. And the third, even if I'm late to the party, should really come as no surprise.

	Fresh Mozzarella	Dominic Armato

The first time I stepped into FnB, I suffered a twinge of melancholy. Even with a successor on the horizon, I miss Sea Saw, and it's more than a little weird to see that sleek, modern space all cozied up. Though it sports a comforting menu with a strong farm-to-table aesthetic, FnB is no dive. Even if it's one of the anomalies that puts the cuisine before the scene, it's still situated in Old Town Scottsdale, which means the dim lighting, playful yet meticulous tile work and white tablecloths might be considered a concession to those who (to their discredit) might reflexively write off anything more rustic. I wouldn't have thought it possible to see a place like FnB described as "too casual," but since I have, to those who might have turned up their noses at such a place before the raves started rolling in -- and there are plenty of you out there -- stick around and you might learn something about restaurants with heart.

Fried Rock Shrimp	Dominic Armato

The thing is, though FnB's execution is, in every aspect, careful and meticulous, the place is all heart. It starts with Pavle Milic who, along with his wife Emily, runs the front of house and does so with the kind of energy and panache usually reserved for fictional characters. But this endlessly entertaining song and dance is coming from a fellow who's incredibly passionate about what he's doing, and genuinely wants to make people feel happy and at home. The restaurant's heart also radiates from its kitchen, still smack-dab in the middle of the room and surrounded by a counter on three sides. But this is no show kitchen. These ladies are working it, and watching them work it just adds another connection between diner and dish. And most importantly, chef Charleen Badman's menu is packed full of heart. Gastropub, farm-to-table, refined comfort food -- call it what you will, but it's food that's simultaneously approachable and deep, and whether you're inclined to favor or eschew the culinary zeitgeist (and whether or not you feel FnB captures the same) is and should be irrelevant. This is some hands-down great food, and that's all that matters.

	Smoked Trout Salad	Dominic Armato

As I walked into FnB for the first time, late one Friday night, Badman was hand-pulling the mozzarella that would, moments later, be set in front of me along with some bread. That pretty much set the tone right there. The menu starts off with a few noshes, like marinated olives and roasted nuts, and "a piece of cheese, a little fruit & grilled nut bread" which is exactly as it reads. One dish that almost seems out of place is one I had to try, if only for that reason. Crispy rock shrimp and jalapeno tartar are ubiquitous these days, but never this good. Perfectly tender, perfectly crisp, perfectly balanced sauce... it's a reminder that this was always a delicious dish, long before it was butchered by every other sports bar. And yet, it was the low-water mark of my trips to FnB, almost a little tease that said, "Yeah, we can do that. Now here's what else we can do."

Braised Leeks	Dominic Armato

The middle of the menu is absolutely dominated by vegetables, which outnumber the entrees two to one. I'd say this is simply playing to the kitchen's strengths, but that would imply the kitchen has weaknesses, which I have yet to discover. It also probably has much to do with the fact that FnB has a pretty strong commitment to sourcing as much local produce as possible. The smoked trout salad is more salad than trout, with fennel, arugula, orange, onion and ginger, and wouldn't be so notable if the vegetables weren't so pristine or the trout so fresh and delicate. Fried green tomatoes are killer, tart, hot and crispy and perfectly punctuated with a creamy, fresh green goddess dressing, crumbled feta and a bushel of greens. Again, it's all about ingredient selection and execution. There's no rocket science, here. Just killer produce perfectly prepared.

	Fried Green Tomatoes	Dominic Armato

Other vegetable dishes are a little more inventive. The local food nerds tweeted themselves blue, declared April 30th "Leekapalooza"... heck, did everything shy of staging a mock funeral procession down Scottsdale Road when the braised leeks were taken off the menu for the season. It wasn't entirely unwarranted. Succulent braised leeks are served up under cover of melted fresh mozzarella, smothered with a pile of coarse, crisp mustard-laced breadcrumbs and topped off with a fried egg. It's a running gag in kitchens nowadays that putting a fried egg on top of anything makes it a bestseller, but there are places where it's gratuitous and places where it isn't, and FnB's braised leeks are firmly in the latter camp. It's the kind of dish that builds reputations, all gooey and oozey with those toasted breadcrumbs to keep it from becoming umami soup.

Asparagus with Pureed Cauliflower	Dominic Armato

That said, the vegetable that haunts my dreams is actually the grilled spicy broccoli, served with Meyer lemon aioli and little bits of crispy onion. The char takes one of the most milquetoast of vegetables and makes it sing, with a little acid from the aioli, a little zip from the crushed red pepper and a little crunch from the onions, it comes at you from every direction and they all work. Since the vegetable portion of the menu is rounded out with swiss chard and spaghetti squash, the asparagus is practically hoity-toity in comparison, swimming in a cauliflower puree and topped with a handful of crisp and paper-thin fried beets. On first taste, I thought it needed some acid. But a couple more bites, and I realized that Badman was right -- it absolutely didn't. We're programmed to expect lemon or balsamic or a nice, tart Hollandaise. It's practically convention. But this is a less aggressive approach that brings something else out of the asparagus. Something good.

	Lamb Tenderloin with Snap Peas	Dominic Armato

I'm a little embarrassed to admit that I've only sampled a single entree at FnB. What can I say? I keep eating vegetables. But the one big dish I tried was a knockout. Grilled lamb tenderloin was billed alongside snap peas, potatoes, olives and mint. It's a very rustic plate, tender, intensely-flavored meat in a puddle of natural jus with a heavy dose of fresh mint and just a occasional stray bit of tart, salty olive for punch. My favorite touch, however, was that the snap peas were mixed with haricot verts. It seemed so odd not to simply choose one or the other, but damned if they didn't work together, one crisp and sweet, one tender and vegetal... ditching convention in a subtle way that yielded compelling results. And compelling the dish is, as pure and beautiful an expression of lamb as I've tasted in a long time.

Crème Brûlée	Dominic Armato

Desserts follow the same formula, simple on the surface, done just so. A dense chocolate cake with ice cream and rhubarb compote and a lemon cake with strawberries and fresh whipped cream were bordering on conventional, but excellent. It was a crème brûlée, however, that stole my heart. Chamomile, I think? Rich and custardy with a blast of fragrance, the crust was absolutely killer and decidedly old-school. A circular branding iron sits in the grill's coals, and you know exactly how many people are ordering the crème brûlée because the restaurant fills with the smell of burnt sugar every time it hits the ramekin. It's a perfect crust, crisp and caramelized with a certain smokiness that I've never had elsewhere. Who decided that a butane torch was progress? I say bring back the branding iron. It makes a killer brûlée. Should you forego dessert, you still get a little something sweet, in the form of light and crispy peanut brittle. I'm sure Pavle would be all too happy to honor a request for an extra piece, but frankly, I wish they'd just put a whole plate of it on the menu so I could get my fill without feeling like a noodge.

	Peanut Brittle	Dominic Armato

I really can't shower enough compliments on the place. The food is so unpretentious and approachable, but those who really know their food will appreciate just how carefully it's done, and how significant its subtle little twists are. I can't come up with any reason not to love FnB, but by god, some people are trying. I've heard it called "too casual." I've seen the presentation referred to as "sloppy." And I'm just flabbergasted by this. I mean, really, so f-ing what? Phoenix -- Scottsdale, particularly -- has a certain reputation as a place that values style over substance when it comes to restaurants, and comments like this betray the nugget of truth at the heart of every stereotype. Thankfully, this seems to be the minority opinion, and the restaurant's well-deserved success is very, very encouraging. FnB is bridging the gap, making soulful food in a stylish neighborhood, dressing up its homey tendencies just enough so as not to scare those with narrow expectations for what constitutes an acceptable restaurant atmosphere. Make the room a little more downscale and move it a mile or two west, and I'm betting the food doesn't get a fraction of the attention, even though it wouldn't deserve it one iota less. But if a slightly polished atmosphere and prime location is what it takes to make the point that great food need not be flashy, I'm okay with that. More of this, please.

FnB
www.fnbrestaurant.com
7133 E. Stetson Drive
Scottsdale, AZ 85252
480-425-9463
Tue - Thu	5:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Fri - Sat	5:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Sun	5:00 PM - 10:00 PM

Quiessence

Quiessence	Dominic Armato

Quiescence : The quality or state of being marked by tranquility at rest.

Essence : One that possesses or exhibits a quality in abundance as if in concentrated form

One would presume, of course, that the name is a play on words rather than a misspelling, but since that pretty much sums up the courtyard where we spent four hours, I'd say we have confirmation. Quiessence is an uncommonly charming restaurant. And given this blog's usual laser focus on the grub, I feel a little silly making such a big deal out of it, but when simply approaching the front door is as notable as it was here, I see little reason not to make kind of a big deal about it.

Charmingly Overgrown	Dominic Armato

Quiessence is one of three restaurants located at The Farm at South Mountain, which has somehow created a little self-contained alternate universe down there in South Phoenix. You're driving through a dusty residential neighborhood where the yards are all gated, you see the sign and hang a hard right, and suddenly you're surrounded by lush vegetation, meandering down a gravel road that's flanked by stately pecan trees. The walk from the parking lot to the restaurant takes you past fences, trellises and thickets clogged with fragrant flowers and vines, until you arrive at a tranquil little courtyard at the back of which is situated a low, unassuming building that houses Quiessence. Or, if you book a little bit in advance, you can instead spend your evening in the courtyard itself, under a green canopy lit with twinkle lights (as my ladylove affectionately refers to them), warmed by the flames of the outdoor wood burning oven that's used to bake the restaurant's breads. Named, appropriately, The Brick Oven Table, it carries with it a special menu and the presumption that you're happy to let the chefs send out whatever the heck they feel like preparing for you. That accurately captures our attitude towards most restaurants we visit, and so we decided that the brick oven table was the one for us.

	Chef Spread	Dominic Armato

Though I believe the "Chef Spread" is available to all of the restaurant's patrons, it's a fine way to welcome somebody to a special table, nonetheless. I'd heard good things about the charcuterie at Quiessence, and they certainly lay out an impressive spread. Downright succulent mortadella with an almost spongy texture, a very restrained and mild cacciatora, sweet felino and a luscious Mangalitsa coppa confirm that the Chef de Cuisine has been spending some time in Italy. But the spread isn't limited to salumi. A couple of the best bites included a complex and... um... heady head cheese, served atop a large cracker with thin slices of pickled onion, and smooth and salty pork rillettes on thick crostini with a lone celery leaf garnish. The meats match the mood, very mellow and delicately flavored. My initial response was to wish a couple of them were seasoned and/or cured a little more aggressively, but a couple more bites and I thought better of that, recognizing the skill involved and happy to enjoy the plate's character for what it was. Accompaniments were limited to some parmesan grissini and, far more notably, a small plate of fresh vegetable pickles. And when I say fresh, I mean fresh. Even if we hadn't been informed that they were prepared daily, I would have suspected as much. They were done with an incredibly light touch, coming across more like fresh, crisp vegetables that had been blanched and kissed with a touch of vinegar and pickling spices than what you'd typically think of as pickles. They really suited the plate well, and I thought they were particularly well-suited to the head cheese and rillettes. I could've eaten a plate of them as a standalone course and enjoyed them more than either of the salads we had later, and that isn't a shot at our salads.

Seafood Salad and Shellfish Soup	Dominic Armato

After a leisurely break between courses (what would quickly become a theme for the evening), we were treated to a duo of seafood appetizers, hot and cold. On the left, a cold seafood salad, with oyster, clam, tilefish, scallop and perhaps something else I'm forgetting, diced and seasoned and presented in an oyster shell. On the right, a demitasse cup filled with a cream of shellfish soup with a touch of fennel oil. The seafood salad was on the same page as the charcuterie, seasoned with a great deal of restraint, tasting mostly of the seafood itself, and quite refreshing. The cream of shellfish soup is to be commended for not being very creamy, another light treatment that nonetheless focused on capturing the briny, dusky elements of the shells as much as the sweetness of the meat therein. I might've preferred just a touch more intensity from a vessel so small, but this is the pickiest of preferences. It was a delicious soup.

	Citrus Salad	Dominic Armato

With the salad course, for which we each received a separate dish (eat half and switch!), I was still enjoying the food, but a disturbing trend that had reared its head with the presentation of the charcuterie launched into overdrive. Namely, the descriptions of our dishes were starting to get rather... unwieldy. To be clear, I appreciate that Quiessence is making every effort to source their ingredients as locally as possible, and there's a certain folksy charm inherent in such a practice that suits the restaurant's vibe. But really, I do not need to know which local farm supplied the carrots, in whose backyard the lettuce was grown, and which branch of the tree on the other end of the courtyard dropped the grapefruit (only the last is an exaggeration... barely). Especially when working without a menu, I like to be told what I'm eating. But it should not take longer to introduce the dish than it does to eat it.

Salad with Fresh Ricotta	Dominic Armato

In any case, our salads were perfectly enjoyable, as fresh and vibrant as their (lengthy) pedigree would suggest. The citrus salad was, I thought, the lesser of the two. Though lovingly crafted from a mix of citrus, fresh greens, onions, fennel and a creamy pecan dressing, it struck me as awfully wet, and not because it had been overdressed. The flavors were very nice, but the amount of moisture killed any crispness and had it approaching soggy. The other fared much better. Slivered radishes, carrots and fennel were tossed with greens and a lemon vinaigrette, and paired with salty grilled croutons and a healthy scoop of a delightfully fresh and creamy housemade ricotta. The only thing that can make a great ricotta better is a touch of salt, oil and acid, which is exactly what the croutons and lemon vinaigrette provided. That a humble garden plot in curly, shaved form shared the plate was merely a bonus.

Gnocchi with Fava Beans	Paccheri with Braised Beef	Dominic Armato

Pasta's always a tough sell for me. It really has to be sharp. And to their credit, I thought both of the offerings we received were really quite good. But despite respecting the care that went into them, I couldn't quite muster much in the way of enthusiasm. Slightly cheesy gnocchi had a great spongy texture, and the accompanying fava beans were as fresh and light and green as the rest of the menu would lead you to expect. A pair of paccheri -- stuffed with an abundance of shredded, braised beef, seated in a pool of tomato sauce and smothered with provolone cheese -- played more like unusually refined Italian-American than Italian-Italian, but were perfectly enjoyable as such. As much as I advocate simplicity when it comes to pasta, perhaps both dishes needed just a little something to put them over the top. While warm and satisfying, brightness was a little tough to come by. Still, two very solid pasta dishes.

	Smoked Marlin with Lettuce	Dominic Armato

An intermezzo of smoked marlin provided some subtle and unexpected pleasures. A thinly-sliced marlin wrapper and fresh lettuce filling made for a small cigar-shaped taste, topped with fennel and lemon zest and dressed with a touch of fennel oil. At first I wanted a little more smoke in the fish, until I realized that the fish's delicate nature had turned a leaf of lettuce, of all things, into a focal point of the dish. Tightly bound inside the wrap, the lettuce's leafy crispness took on a certain density, and given that it was no doubt lovingly raised by some salt of the earth local farmer, it had great flavor. Though the dish was officially about the marlin, which was very nice, its design had the effect of forcing me to really appreciate a great leaf of lettuce... and how often does that happen?

Seafood Plate	Dominic Armato

And then we went from seafood the small and subtle to seafood the big and brash. An enormous platter was set before us -- with no size reference, the photo belies its scale -- that contained an assortment of fresh seafood. On the outskirts, seared tilefish and grilled scallops were plated with fried basil and a Sicilian tomato sauce, meaning in this case that the addition of copious chiles and raisins made it both spicy and sweet, and the centerpiece was a battered and fried softshell crab atop a cauliflower puree. The fish and scallop were nicely cooked (the scallop a touch over for my tastes, but well within the realm of acceptability), and between its spicy-sweet nature, the tomato's intensity and thick slabs of garlic, I enjoyed the sauce's unashamed brashness. The softshell crab, however, left me completely unsatisfied.

	Grapefruit Sorbet	Dominic Armato

It was aggressively salted -- appropriate, thank you -- but its preparation just came off flat. The batter was unusual, not at all crisp but rather puffy and almost a little doughy, and the cauliflower puree was barely seasoned, so that the pair came off as completely one-note and desperately in need of some kind of acid or other bright element. I could absolutely get behind treating the crab minimally and letting it shine. Salt it and fry it and call it a day. But dispense with the batter then, which only got in the way. It was a hit and miss course, to be sure. Next, we were treated to the limited bounty of the courtyard, a spoonful of grapefruit sorbet with a sprig of mint to act as a palate cleanser. And then it was off to more meaty fare.

Milk-Braised Ham with Greens	Ribeye with Ramps and Mushrooms	Dominic Armato

The ham was the more interesting of the two, its aggressive, salty nature and oftentimes tough texture muted by a lengthy bath in warm milk. Crisp beans, a hearty sauce and some rather intense and delicious braised greens completed a very enjoyable and gut-warming main course. The other meaty offering was a little more conventional, slices of ribeye atop a bit of potato hash, served with grilled mushrooms and ramps and sauced with demi and what I believe was a ramp puree. It's impossible not to get excited about the beautifully crisp, almost chive-like nature of fresh ramps, and the dish was executed perfectly well, but I found myself wishing for just a little something to break it out of such a conventional mold.

Cheese Board	Dominic Armato

Is it my failing that I've become bored to tears by conventional cheese courses? Not that I intend to hold every restaurant to The French Laundry standard, but I put the blame squarely on the shoulders of Thomas Keller, for having introduced me to the composed cheese course. Allow me to understand -- I can have a variety of cheeses and a variety of accompaniments that may or may not suit some of my cheeses, and I can sort of nibble and nosh on these various elements, or I can have a dish that selects a central cheese and designs a dish around it, seeking to carefully complement and enhance the cheese's unique and delectable attributes. Why would I choose the former, exactly? As it was, I didn't have a choice. We received a traditional cheese board, with a cow's milk reserve from Wisconsin, some manner of Camembert, a very pungent and spicy bleu and an angry little ripened goat from Cypress Grove. There were crostini, there were pine nuts and pecans, there were slices of apple and a fig and rosemary jam, andzzzzzzzzzzzzz... I'm sorry, it's not you, Quiessence, it's me. At the risk of incurring the wrath of dairy zealots, I've always had a hard time mustering great excitement over the traditional cheese course, and now I'm really just done with it. Most likely, this is MY problem, but it is what it is.

Dulce de Leche Bread Pudding	Goat Cheesecake	Dominic Armato

Generally speaking, my capacity is almost limitless, so I was surprised by just how stuffed I was at this point. Mercifully, though plentiful, the desserts were small. A cube of dulce de leche bread pudding with crème anglaise and fresh whipped cream was a very dense and cakey iteration, which might insult some but didn't bother me one whit. More to my taste was a goat cheese cheesecake... or goat cheesecake, I guess... tangy and dense, rolled in crushed pecans, sitting in a pool of caramel and topped with a bing cherry. I love using goat cheese in cheesecake and I've always wondered why I never saw it until I did it (though it was undoubtedly done thousands and thousands of times before it struck me as a good idea). It has the tanginess of cream cheese, but a richness and complexity that cream cheese lacks. Good stuff.

	Chocolate Mousse	Dominic Armato

Chocolate mousse was a childhood favorite, even if it's more recently fallen out of favor. But this version, a mix of white and dark, was made atypically compelling by a lot of small crunchies I couldn't identify, taking that uniform texture and giving it a little life. Vanilla panna cotta with fresh strawberries, the dessert that by all rights should have stolen the show for me, had the misfortune of following a crème brûlée I'd had at FnB the night before. Of course crème brûlée and panna cotta aren't synonymous, but they're similar enough that with every bite I couldn't help but think that it wasn't nearly as flavorful or enjoyable as that fabulous crème brûlée I just had last night. The strawberries, however, were exceptional specimens.

Vanilla Panna Cotta with Strawberries	Dominic Armato

One of the things we'll remember the most about our dinner at the Brick Oven Table at Quiessence is its length. Once we'd paid the check and staggered out of our seats, our meal had clocked in at over four hours. Thankfully, we had an absolutely wonderful time, mostly because it was, for us, a rare opportunity to really spend some time with each other, but also due in no small part to the exceptionally pleasant surroundings. Again, this is a blog that tries to keep the focus as much as possible on the food, but this is a situation where I really feel the need to point out that dining at Quiessence -- outdoors, at least -- is as much about what surrounds the table as what is placed upon it. Our dinner was very good, deftly executed but for a couple of lapses, very much ingredient-focused and quite enjoyable. That puts Quiessence in good company. But what sets it apart is, truly, the entire experience. I guess the best way I can put it is to say that our dinner was very good -- good enough that it didn't make us feel for a moment as though we were paying for the surroundings, even if we were a little surprised to discover that we wouldn't have completely minded doing so.

Quiessence
www.quiessencerestaurant.com
6106 S. 32nd Street
Phoenix, AZ 85042
480-275-8888
Tue - Sat	5:00 PM - Close

Trending Late

Kumamoto Oysters with Yuzu, Chili Gelée, Micro Shiso and Fresh Wasabi	Dominic Armato

Of all the food trends that have come and gone over the years, I have to admit that -- selfishly speaking -- this is one of my favorites.

It would seem that the "staff meal" -- when a restaurant that isn't typically a late-night institution has extended hours one or two days a week -- is rapidly gaining popularity here in Phoenix. They don't even remotely resemble any staff meals I've ever seen, and I'm mildly resenting the implication in some circles that this is increasing the availability of "good" food late at night (late-night diners aren't good?). But when you're somebody for whom the easiest time to sneak out for a bite is late at night, they could call it the Book Club or the Board Meeting and I'd still be happy to have another dining option.

So on a recent Thursday, I struck out with a couple of fellow food nerds with the intention of hitting the most recent addition to the late night scene. Posh is still a fairly young restaurant, and their hook is that they've taken the age-old practice of letting the chef cook whatever the heck he wants and turned it into standard operating procedure. Not so from 10:00 PM to midnight on Thursdays, however, when an actual menu with 4-6 small dishes and plenty of alcohol specials makes an appearance. For now, late nights at Posh are a three-week-old experiment, but based on my experience the first two weeks, here's hoping it remains a regular event.

	Boar Bacon with Fried Egg	Dominic Armato

Briny Kumamoto oysters received a treatment far more elaborate than their resultant flavor would suggest, and that's a good thing. When you see that they're dressed with yuzu, chili gelée, micro shiso and fresh wasabi, you wonder if there's going to be an oyster buried in there somewhere. But the additions complement both the oysters' flavor and their provenance, gentle Japanese touches accentuating rather than standing in the way of the salty little critters. Braised(?) boar bacon, accompanied by artichoke leaves and a lentil puree, was barely visible, peeking out from beneath a fried egg with a vibrant yellow and deliciously oozy egg yolk, but its shyness was a ruse. Big, porky flavor was its true character, the inherent saltiness of the bacon mitigated by that luscious egg yolk. A fusion of two food trends (bacon and fried eggs) that are getting a little ubiquitous? Ehhh, who cares. Great flavors, and the menu's better for it.

Pig Ear Ravioli with Morels	Dominic Armato

Late night at Posh wasn't exclusively comprised of hits. A play on stuffed shells with tomato sauce that substituted brandade for the ricotta was a lot nicer in theory than it was in practice. But even if the misses weren't relegated to the minority (they were), Posh could have earned my loyalty on the strength of two dishes alone, the first of which is the pig's ear ravioli. Conventional wisdom is that pig ears are all about texture, and doing something meaningful with them is a matter of harnessing that odd chewy/tough character and using it for good rather than evil. But Posh's owner/chef Joshua Hebert sidesteps the texture issue entirely, pulverizing the pig ears into a smooth and savory paste and using it to stuff some rather delicate ravioli with a not-so-delicate veal demi. The sauce is intense, just a tiny bit sweet, and further accented with sautéed morels. I really need to quit using the term umami bomb, but it applies in spades. The pasta is light and delicate, but the flavor is huge.

	Brûléed Foie Torchon with Spun Sugar	Dominic Armato

One of my new favorite dishes, however, is one that could just as easily lead off the dessert menu, despite its decidedly meaty nature. Foie gras takes sweet very well, but a lot of people overdo it. Hebert over-overdoes it and circles back around to awesome. A succulent little puck of foie is sugared and brûléed, paired with diced fruit, dressed with a very sweet orange sauce, and topped with a rather dramatic cloud of spun sugar. The foie's brûléed crust is wonderfully crisp, and the spun sugar is thicker than cotton candy and comes across as downright crystalline (probably because it is), making for a pair of delightful textural contrasts to the foie's natural squishiness. But even the foie itself has a lot going on in the texture department, having been assembled, it seems, from a rough and uneven dice that keeps it from being texturally uniform and makes it a real pleasure to eat. Most importantly, however, the foie somehow stands up, its rich flavor blasting right through all of that fructose and sucrose. I've had some pretty mean foie dishes over the years, but this one's going to stick in my head for a good long while, I think.

I should probably get around to eating a normal meal there at some point. And with a couple of big winners like those, the sensible thing would have been to go home happy. But why have one dinner when you can have two? When discussion turned to Petite Maison's role as local pioneer of the "staff meal" and it was pointed out that they were just down the street and still open, we decided that one late-night meal couldn't hope to contain us. That I'd kicked off the evening establishing myself as culinary enabler by handing the menu to my companions and saying, "The answer to all of your questions is yes," may have also played a significant role in this harebrained decision.

"BLT"	Dominic Armato

Thankfully, it paid off. Though Petite Maison's website features their staff meal quite prominently, in practice it was simply a matter of walking in, parking at the bar and asking what they had that night. On this particular night, it was but two dishes. A "BLT" and... chili cheese fries. At a French bistro? Huh. Ah, well. I lived two blocks from Bob's Big Boy in Burbank, California for five years. I'm no stranger to late-night grease bombs. Bring two of the former and one of the latter, we said, in perhaps not so eloquent a fashion. The "BLT" was a rather loose riff on convention, thin crispy bacon on a brioche bun with endive and sweet -- very sweet -- tomato confiture. My compatriots quickly identified the bacon as the work of The Meat Shop, and that fine product was well-accompanied. "BLT" might be stretching the limits of the term a little bit, but it was a tasty little sandwich.

	Chili Cheese Fries	Dominic Armato

While the BLT was a significant departure from the tried and true, the chili cheese fries were exactly the opposite. This wasn't an upscale reimagining of chili cheese fries. It was simply chili cheese fries, done very well. A huge pile of crisp, seasoned fries were buried under a mound of meaty, flavorful chili that was studded with chunks of a soft, tangy cheese that I couldn't identify (read: was too busy eating to bother trying). I don't want to oversell it. It's chili cheese fries. But it's made with an unusual amount of care. It was still a gutbuster, but rather than being a total grease bomb (not that there's anything wrong with that), it was actually a carefully executed dish with components that maintained their own character rather than devolving into a uniformly squishy mess.

I'm somebody who's only too happy to roll out the door at two in the morning, grab a newspaper, park at a linoleum countertop somewhere and tuck into a questionable tuna melt. But you know, it IS kind of nice that the amount of late-night fare that isn't of the greasy spoon or booze sponge variety appears to be on the rise. In chatting with Hebert, he mentioned -- and I'm paraphrasing -- that it'd be nice if a few more restaurants jumped in, everybody took a different night, and it became possible for folks to go out for more refined late night food on every night of the week. I say why stop there? I'd love to see everybody pick a night or two to offer extended hours. Not that there's anything wrong with that tuna melt, but it sure is nice to be able to sneak out at night for a little brûléed foie and an endive and tomato confiture BLT. As trends go, this is one I can get behind.

Posh www.poshscottsdale.com 7167 E. Rancho Vista Drive, Suite 111 Scottsdale, AZ 85251 480-663-7674 Tue - Thu 5:00 PM - 11:00 PM Fri - Sat 5:00 PM - 12:00 AM Thursday Late 10:00 PM - 12:00 AM

Petite Maison www.petitemaisonaz.com 7216 East Shoeman Lane Scottsdale, AZ 85251 480-991-6887 Mon - Fri 11:00 AM - 10:00 PM Sat - Sun 10:00 AM - 10:00 PM Thu - Sat Late 10:00 PM - 12:00 AM

The Quarterly Report - Q1 2010

Carne Asada Tacos @ Sonora Mesquite Grill	Dominic Armato

One of the things that always drives me nuts is the volume of places I never get around to posting about. Maybe I only tried one thing, maybe it wasn't particularly notable for good or bad reasons, maybe I wanted to go back before writing but never quite got around to it and probably never will, or maybe I just feel funny writing up a whole big thing about a place where I had a pretty decent lunch once. So less because I think this is all that useful and more because I'm obsessive about cataloguing this stuff, I figure I'll take inventory every few months of places that I don't think are going to find their way into a larger post at some point, and chunk them together into one frankenpost instead. So with that, in alphabetical order, the quarterly report for Q1 2010:

	BBQ Pork Soup	Dominic Armato

Best Hong Kong Dining
1116 South Dobson Road, Mesa AZ 85202
I was headed to Hodori for Korean, and kind of got sidetracked. For some reason BBQ pork soup just seemed suddenly compelling (why I went Chinese over Korean when craving soup, who knows), so I popped in here instead. It's a huge menu that's a mix of traditional and Americanized Cantonese, and may be worth a little exploration in the future. On this particular day, though, I just got a simple noodle soup with cabbage and sliced char siu. The soup and noodles weren't anything special, but they did kind of have that no frills hole-in-the-wall corner joint in Hong Kong vibe, and they hit the spot on an afternoon when I was really craving them. The char siu was really nice, though, which makes me wonder if anything else on the menu is worthwhile.

Italian Beef	Dominic Armato

Chicago Hamburger Co.
3749 East Indian School Road, Phoenix AZ 85018
Chicago-style hot dog stand within a mile of home? Day one stop. Though they serve all of the Chicago standards, the specialty of the house is the "Chicago Slider," which I mostly find puzzling. Do people associate sliders with Chicago? White Castle was founded in Wichita and has its corporate HQ in Ohio. Anyway, the sliders are, indeed, the best thing I've had there, a little larger than the WC and appropriately steamy. The Vienna Beef dogs (Vienna/Royko standard) are solid, if they don't quite have the steamy magic of the better places, and the fries are standard-issue frozen fare, if done as well as can be expected. Steer clear of the Italian Beef, though. It was really awful for a lot of reasons that aren't worth enumerating. Just don't bother.

	Tostada de Ceviche	Dominic Armato

Mariscos Acapulco
3226 East Thomas Road, Phoenix AZ 85018
I got here a few times, and actually rather enjoyed it. It's straight-up, no-frills Mexican mariscos and everything is solid, if unremarkable in its consistency. I had some pretty good crab enchiladas in potent tomatillo sauce, inexpensive whole fried fish in a tasty garlic sauce, clean and fresh ceviche tostadas, and a worthy version of one of my favorites. I have a weakness for a good coctel de camarones, and Acapulco's makes me happy, fresh shrimp, plenty of avocado and a very light sauce that would be problematic if the table weren't covered with all of the ketchup, hot sauces, saltines and limes you need to doctor it to your preference. As long as you aren't looking for anything too fancy, Acapulco should hit the spot.

Fish and Chips	Dominic Armato

Ricky's Big Philly
3538 East Indian School Road, Phoenix AZ 85018
Don't get too excited. They just closed down a couple of weeks ago after losing their lease. Which is too bad. Ricky's Big Philly was a burger and dog joint, and I don't want to oversell it, but what they did they did with an unusual amount of care. Good burgers, chicken sandwiches, and an especially good fish and chips special. Fresh cod, battered and fried to order with housemade slaw and good fries absolutely destroyed the better-known Pete's just a few blocks to the east. I'm not generally one for seasoned fries, but here they were lightly dusted with a house blend rather than being saturated with overspiced gunk. And their onion rings are absolutely killer, thick rings that are soaked overnight and freshly battered and fried. Ironically, the only thing that wasn't any good was the cheesesteak, dry and shredded into oblivion. But as long as you steer clear of the place's namesake, it's an unusually good burger joint. Hope they manage to reopen somewhere.

	Curry Chicken Salad Sandwich	Dominic Armato

Sacks Art of Sandwicherie
4730 East Indian School Road, Phoenix AZ 85018
Though I'm admittedly doing my best to set aside what may be the second-worst restaurant name I've ever seen (Winner: You-A-Carry-Out-A... no joke), Sacks is the kind of place I really want to like but just can't. A huge selection of creative sandwiches -- it's right up my alley. But everything I've had has ranged from okay to terrible. The curry chicken salad shown here is one of the better ones I tried, but it's muddy and poorly-balanced and plays more like a heavily curried chicken paste. I don't believe for a second that the "prime" beef sandwiches actually contain prime beef. It isn't a deli, so I blame myself for not liking the "Reuben," which had weak corned beef, cole slaw instead of sauerkraut and a sickly sweet Russian that tasted like it used Miracle Whip for a base. But the most telling item was a simple turkey sandwich, which featured typical cheap deli counter fused lunchmeat swimming in saline. When you're flogging your sandwich prowess, you really ought to be roasting your own turkey -- or at least sourcing something that doesn't look like whatever was on special at the Safeway next door. It's a $6 sandwich. Charge me two dollars more and make it good, please.

Matzo Ball Soup	Dominic Armato

Scott's Generations
5555 North 7th Street, Phoenix AZ 85014
A good Jewish deli is always on our short list of restaurants to locate when moving to a new town. Scott's Generations is scratching the itch for the moment, but the search goes on. Matzo ball soup was muddy and the matzo was leaden. Chilled beet borscht was passable, but the flavor was a little weak and in need of more sourness. Scott's will satisfy a Reuben craving, though. The corned beef is passable, and it's griddled up nice and crisp and plenty gooey on the inside. I've heard the pastrami is worthwhile, but I can't speak to for it personally. So, I guess the summation is that it's hit and miss so far and nothing's knocking me over. Anybody who's found a better deli, I'm all ears.

	Carne Asada Tacos	Dominic Armato

Sonora Mesquite Grill
4613 E Thomas Road, Phoenix AZ 85018
Tipped off by fellow foodnik Joel over at One For Dinner, I popped into Sonora Mesquite Grill for what he's billing as "the best carne asada tacos you've never heard of." And I have to say, they're very good for what they are. It's a tiny joint, they serve only carne asada, barbacoa and chicken, and everything is exceptionally fresh. Ordering a couple of carne asada tacos netted me the two beauties you see here, along with a selection of salsas. The meat's heavily marinated, with great flavor that includes the mesquite that it's picked up off the grill. Really, I think the only reason I'm not quite as enamored of the place as others is a matter of personal preference. Sonora Mesquite Grill's is very tender and moist, and I actually tend to dig slightly drier, more charred meat when I go looking for carne asada. But it's clear that a lot of care is going into the food, I suspect most will prefer this to what I typically seek, and the woman running the place is one of the sweetest you'll ever meet. They deserve to stick around and I hope they do.