My Restaurant Reviews: North Phoenix and North Scottsdale (Chandler, Ajo: fit in, lease)

[dc1225]

Originally Posted by ivanabacowboy

Presentation on the robata: cool platters, nicely garnished. They dont do the "bring a big fork of meat to your table" thing, it's all nicely plated. I didnt really inspect the grill-tho it is open to the dining area.

Stars out of 4: I will be generous and say a 3.5+.

I didnt see the table cooking-I believe that is teppan and they do that at Sapporos. Tho it is possible Roka does it if you sit closer to the grill area (we didnt, we sat in the dining room) and you may be able to watch the preparation. But it isnt "tableside" (or tabletop lol!).

tabletops are only reserved for dancers i believe...that's what the Scottsdale city ordinance says!

[ivanabacowboy]

Maggiano's (FLW & Scottsdale in Promenade): Went here the other night for dinner with my sister who is in town from Vegas. Pretty nice place. Muy crowded when we arrived about 6:30ish. I would suspect they get a lot of business from the offices in Promenade, and that a large part of the clientele at this hour was still the "after work" crowd judging from their suits and ties.

The food was good-basic "homestyle" Italian for the most part. We did the Family Style service. You pick 2 appetizers, 2 salads, 2 entrees, 2 pasta dishes and 2 desserts, and they provide you enough portions for your party of each. Pretty reasonable-$26.50 per person. Tho some of the dishes will add additional to the tab per person.

We had the Caesar and Maggiano's salad. I only tried the Maggiano's-it was pretty good.

For appetizers we had calamari and fried mozzarella. Nothing like a warm fried hunk of breaded cheese with marinara. ;-)

For the pasta dishes, we had lasagna and ziti. For our entrees, chicken marsala and an Italian pot roast. For dessert, tiramisu and cream puffs with vanilla ice cream.

The food was generally good. Not "knock your socks off gourmet" kind of good, but "filling homestyle" kind of good. We ended up with lots of leftovers and they give you a doggy bag. Nothing "fancy"-ie this is a more "down home" type restaurant environment than say like Roka Akor in my last review. So things like fancy garni and palate cleansers (and $11 bottles of water...) and the like were notably absent. Which was ok because this just wasnt that type of place.

They do have a "main" menu where you can order everything ala carte. But by the time you order 1 entree and a salad, you are probably within a couple dollars of the range of the full Family Style serving menu.

Reasonable price. Especially as you will fairly assuredly have leftovers for a lunch or another meal. Kids would definitely more prefer a place like this than the last few I have written about.

I give it a thumbs up and recommend. Including for kids. If you are looking for "fufu" dining, not here. General homestyle Italian restaurant.

[ivanabacowboy]

Delux (about 32nd & Camelback): Burger joint. Fairly small but exceptionally crowded. Muy cool contemporary decor-but muy uncomfortable stools to sit on. The table was cool-it was lit underneath. Which was a good thing because halfway through our meal they dimmed the overhead lights and if the table hadnt been lit, we wouldnt have been able to see our food. When we arrived at 6:30 it was over a 30 minute wait.

The bar has all kind of cool tap beers. I am not a beer person so take that for what it's worth. Tho my sister did have an interesting Pear Cider Ale or something like that. It was alcoholic but definitely tasted pear. In fact, it tasted basically like a fruit spritzer or wine cooler of sorts. Quite sweet-but refreshing.

Burgers were about $9.50. They are large. A half is more than enough for one person. They were "so so". My favorite burger is still Zinc at Kierland with the truffled gruyere-this didnt hold a candle.

Sweet potato fries. Served in miniature shopping carts. Way cool touch.

They did have salads and a few other items on their menu, but we all got the burgers.

Overall, ok. But nothing to write home about.

And the parking was horrible. It is in one of the omnipotent shopping plazas that this town seems to be famous for. But with nowhere near enough parking. I had to park by Safeway. ;-)

The most interesting aspect I didnt even personally see-the supposely unisex restrooms with wash basins in the hallway outside.

If you are in the area looking for a burger, it is an ok place. I wouldnt go out of my way to go back-I can get better burgers closer to home. A $20 burger meal (between the burgers, fries and drinks, it was close to that) better be impressive-this really wasnt. Grade C for average.

[ivanabacowboy]

Review coming tomorrow: Carefree Station. A bit out of my jurisdiction, but my sister wants to go there for her birthday. In Carefree. About 10 miles up the road.

[dbean]

Flo's Asian Kitchen---------Scottsdale Rd and Bell Rd

Awesome Chinese food at a reasonable price. Perhaps some of the best Chinese I've ever had, highly recommended!

[ivanabacowboy]

Carefree Station (on Ho Hum Road lol in Carefree): These folks get an A for atmosphere. Nice outdoor and indoor digs in sort of an "old world" kind of theme thing. There was hardly anyone there. My sister says during the cooler seasons it is muy crowded tho. Really nice outdoor dining area.

Mostly Mexican/southwest type "comfort food". Tho they had some other things like a Thai dish on the menu I think which I found weird. I've learned most smaller restaurants that try to do different types of cuisine usually do much better at some and not as good at the others.

I had a plate of 3 enchiladas. One was beef with like a mole/barbecue type sauce. Didnt care for it much. The others were pork with verde salsa type sauce and I think chicken with a jalapeno cream sauce-those both were good. Not earth-shattering good, but good. Came with some type of pasta, which I thought was a tad strange. But with all the colors, it was a very pretty dish. It was under $15.

For appetizers we had calamari. Tasted more like fish sticks my son said lol! We also had stuffed jalapenos. One was chorizo and blue cheese, the other I think was shrimp. The chorizo one was good. But for 4 peppers it was like $10, so a tad overpriced. I am not really into spicy food, so I took one tiny piece of jalapeno and dug the filling out. ;-)

My sister had a pork chop that was very large. My niece had a southwestern Chicken pasta dish that looked really good-but she said was muy spicy (and both my sister and niece like spicy food). My son didnt order an entree because his tummy wasnt feeling good-tho he had been thinking about the scallops.

They had basic bread rolls but any restaurant that actually brings you warm rolls with spreadable (read: not rock hard solid) butter gets brownie points in my book.

They did have some more expensive items on the menu. One bonus: on some dishes, you have an option of a full portion or a "petite" portion. I think that is a good idea. One dish we all wanted to try was chorizo and pineapple with I think guacamole-sounded good.

The food overall was good, not world class. But reasonably priced and a nice atmosphere. Our total bill including 4 beverages, 1 glass of wine, 1 alcoholic drink, 2 appetizers and 3 entrees was just a hare over $100. I would recommend.

dbean: my son has been to Flo's. He said it was really good. I believe they have a few locations in the valley.

[ivanabacowboy]

Today my sister and I were going to go to one of our Indian dive restaurants at 32nd & Greenway for their lunch buffet. Get there to find out that oops they are out of business-as evidenced by the letter posted on the door by the landlord saying they were delinquent in rent and taking over possession of the property...

So we went a few miles away to another Indian restaurant at Bell & 16th St. Taste of India. All you can eat lunch buffet was $9.95 so reasonably priced for a buffet. Decor was nice, clean but appears last remodelled in about....1972 lol! (Mauve??) Anyhow, the food was good. I am not overly familiar with Indian cooking so could not tell you what most of what I ate was called, but every dish I tried was good. I am always leery of Indian cooking because some of it is exceptionally spicy and I do not like spicy-all of the dishes I tried were mild to barely spicey. So if you like spicier Indian food, you may want to ask the staff to kick it up. The warm chai was excellent-and free with the buffet! Would definitely go here again. Not "out of this world great" or "5 star" material by any means, but good comfort food Indian style at a reasonable price for all your can eat. I would recommend for a fairly cheap lunch of decent good tasting food if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

In the plaza where this is located, there is also a Thai restaurant my sister said is really good, and there were signs that a Mexican restaurant had just opened. So one-stop-ethnic-lunch destination. ;-)

[azdr0710]

ivana...

just discovered this thread and I like it....but there are so many restaurants in Phx - hard to mention all the good ones....

you reviewed El Chorro on Lincoln in PV several months ago...I agree it has seen better days....last time we were there, it had a feeling of smug complacency, as if it felt "we're El Chorro and go to hell, world"....it's been a local landmark for decades, has a classic Arizona-style casual patio, great views, non-fussy service, cool Western-style bar, and those sticky-buns....but.............

$18 for it's famous Eggs Benedict is a bit cocky (!!)...similar prices all around...lots of regulars hanging out in the bar seem to get priority service over non-regulars...a bit clique-ish, I think....the valet parker, though, was friendly and casual...

not saying at all it's horrible, but I don't like to see a local legend rest on its laurels.....

[Howard Roark]

I like Sapporo's. Fun place. Atmosphere is one thing and it's a great place for hot shots to show off their spending on Ferrari's. It's such a sight! Actually I'm serious about the fun and noise and atmosphere.

My sister and her boyfriend and I love Salute at Desert Ridge. Clean, classy place for pasta.

I used to live in Central Phoenix and now in Ahwatukee. I don't get to North Phoenix or North Scottsdale often enough. I have a good fishing hole in one spot where a certain night of the week there are mostly females. I won't say which day and I won't say where, but it's not in North Scottsdale or North Phoenix! Sorry boys!

[homlish560]

I like Michelina's for Italian food, they're right off the 51 on Shea blvd - north Phx.

A little on the expensive side but a nice place to impress a date and have a romantic dinner. Good hint for Valentines Day coming up!!!!