3 new restaurants you should try in March
The first time I heard the term “clean eating,” I was working as a private chef for a real-estate developer in Paradise Valley in the early 2000s. While staying at one of their homes in Los Cabos, Mexico, I brought a big lunch spread to the table, filled with grilled fresh grouper, vegetables and fresh guacamole and salsa.
“This is really clean food,” my boss pointed out. Back then, clean eating wasn’t mainstream. But
It’s peak restaurant season, the scene is popping and exciting things are happening in Phoenix.
Surprising things, as well.
For this month’s Eat Here First, a longtime star of the local Chinese restaurant scene tries his hand at something new. And one of the Valley’s most wildly creative chefs pairs his playful global style with some killer cocktails.
But first, something special is growing in Glendale that herbivores and carnivores alike ignore at their peril.
Casa Terra
fast-forward 15 years and now you even see it in quick-service restaurant commercials on TV.
At its foundation, clean eating means choosing foods closest to their most whole-food, least-processed state:
❚ A whole apple instead of apple fruit leather.
❚ Steel-cut oats instead of instant oats. Stoneground, whole-wheat flour instead of refined, bleached flour.
❚ A whole chicken thigh instead of pureed chicken pressed into a nugget with preservatives.
Pretty much all food falls on a processing continuum,
Brilliant or bonkers, take your pick, chef Jason Wyrick has chosen to open a fine-dining vegan restaurant in the West Valley.
For what it’s worth, my money is on the first.
The space in downtown Glendale that once housed Zang Asian Bistro has undergone a crisp refresh, converting the restaurant into a refined but approachable white tablecloth destination with a colorful countenance and a MexicanMediterranean crossover vibe. But the physical transformation is just the start. Wyrick has opened one of the most exciting — and maybe most important — spots from low- to highly processed, you’re plucking it off a tree and eating it.
Foods that are less processed tend to be higher in nutrients (like fiber and potassium); contain no added sugar or salt; are void of dangerous added trans fats; and probably contain more phytonutrients, vitamins and minerals.
While highly processed foods may be fortified with nutrients like vitamin D, which can be useful, you can alternatively take a supplement if you’re of the year.
Let’s be clear about this: Casa Terra isn’t a great vegan restaurant. It’s a great restaurant, full stop.
This probably shouldn’t come as a surprise. Wyrick is an authority on the subject, working as a plant-based cook and educator for nearly two decades. What will surprise many — even if it shouldn’t — is just how great Casa Terra is, even a scant few weeks after opening its doors to the world.
Wyrick’s stunningly gorgeous plates set high expectations, but dishes like the jicama crudo ($9) quickly reveal his flavors can keep pace. Scalloped slices of the crisp vegetable, its starchy characteristics carefully muted, are dressed with a unless bright and brilliant array of infused oils, pureed avocado, citrus segments and the pungent nip of fried garlic.
Crisp arancini ($13) plied with mushroom duxelles pair with shattering sails of paper-thin fried bread and a hearty, vinegar-laced Romesco, while smoky meatballs ($15) made with Impossible Burger and almond milk ricotta are better than most of the meatballs in town made with actual meat and dairy.
Spinach-stuffed agnolotti ($20) don’t have the bite one expects from classic pasta, but they’re fiendishly delicious, swimming in a tomato sauce that just sings. Similarly, the saffron chorizo risotto ($24) makes you quickly forget any textural differences, a megaton bomb of umami intensity brightened with saffron and olives.
Desserts ($8) are just as strong. Cigarillo-size churros are among the best I’ve tasted, skinny and crisp with a mix of sauces. And a chocolate torte may actually benefit from the lack of dairy, drifting away from the usual punishing richness and shifting the focus instead to the excellent quality of the cocoa.
Discussions of vegan cuisine too often devolve into tribal mudslinging. But all other considerations aside, there’s one reason absolutely everybody should be eating here first:
Casa Terra is freaking delicious. Details: 6835 N. 58th Drive, Glendale. 623-680-7468, casaterra.com.
Xian Fusing Café
On the other end of the world — or at least on the other end of the Valley — one of the long-standing titans of the local Chinese restaurant scene is trying his hand at something new.
Chef Michael Leung launched Gourmet House of Hong Kong in 1984, then left to open Asian Café Express in 2006. Now, in a space at Mekong Plaza that previously housed a string of Taiwanese restaurants, the Hong Kong native has opened Xian Fusing Café.
Focused on Sichuan and Xi’an-style cuisine, it’s a shift that reflects the neighborhood. Driven by interest in regional Chinese fare and demographic changes among the Chinese immigrant and expat communities, the Valley’s collection of Cantonese stalwarts is dwindling while new restaurants featuring the foods of China’s northern and western provinces are popping up every month.
It might be fair to say Leung’s dishes at Xian Fusing Café — true to the restaurant’s name — blend a little of both eras of regional Chinese cuisine in the Valley.
Cumin lamb over noodles ($8.99) doesn’t quite have the aggressive punch of local Sichuan restaurants, but they strike an understated balance, a tangle of thick lo mein in a (relatively) subtle sauce with a little sweetness.
If you want to go that direction, however, the braised cumin lamb shank ($16.99) might be a better bet. Deeply spiced and not-so-subtly sweet, it pairs a tender chunk of meat that still has a little chewy pull with sweet cracklings of sugared skin.
Mix-and-match noodle soups comprise a large share of the menu, with dishes like Xi’an-style beef with herbs ($8.99), a light broth with a fresh chile punch and lumps of tender beef.
A soup with tender swai fillets ($13.99), however, is a must-order, a brash broth balancing herbs and an abundance of pepper with tender, wilted leaves of spicy sour cabbage. Simple stir-fried cabbage ($8.99) is also a standout dish with a pronounced wok-blistered char and a light ginger- and garlic-laced glaze.
Given Leung’s roots, however, Hong Kong classics like creamy curry beef ($8.99), thick and saucy with an abundance of golden potatoes, are some of the strongest on the menu.
Details: Mekong Plaza, 66 S. Dobson Road, Mesa, 480-809-6780.
Little Rituals
While chef Leung draws from different regions of China with his new venture, chef Bob Tam casts his net even wider at Little Rituals.
The new cocktail collaboration between Ross Simon of Bitter & Twisted Cocktail Parlour and Aaron DeFeo, who migrated north from Tucson for the project, has launched in the Residence Inn/ Courtyard by Marriott Phoenix Downtown. It’s off to a fine start, with Tam’s global bites supporting Ross and DeFeo’s libations.
Little Rituals isn’t a total departure from its hotel home. Looking more like a swanky takeover of the Marriott’s fourth floor, a trail of deep-purple wallpaper and beaded curtains lead the thirsty from a bank of elevators to a quiet, well-spaced room that feels less like a nighttime hot spot and more like a dark place to chill with some good drinks.
The drinks are Little Rituals’ primary focus, and they are excellent, sporting a hefty complement of fruit flavors and warm spice during these chilly (for Phoenix) months.
Evil has never looked so pastel as it does in the Touch of Evil ($12), a refreshing “soda-lengthened” mix of pisco and absinthe heavy with cucumber and mint. The Big City Nights ($14) will be the most Instagrammed of the lot, its egg-thickened foam decorated with a full color printed version of Little Rituals’ Arizonathemed mural. While the edible paper gets a little clumsy in the bottom of an almostfinished drink, it’s a tasty concoction — a gin and Suze-based sour with a touch of warm cinnamon. The “daiqurry” ($12), a curry-laced spin on the classic, is a perfect transition into Tam’s menu.
The kitchen hasn’t quite yet found a consistent rhythm, but Tam’s dishes are much more compelling than your average cocktail bar fare.
It’s tough to go wrong with a good bowl of fries, and the hurricane umami fries ($11) deliver. Seasoned with a sweet and salty blend of furikake, shichimi and pecorino cheese, they’re crisp and tasty and punched up with an abundance of pickled serrano chiles. Caramel claypot wings ($13) are similarly difficult to skip, a mostly straight-laced version of the Vietnamese classic, crisp fried chicken wings swimming in a no-holds-barred sauce-based caramel that takes sweet and salty to 11.
Tam’s grilled cheese sandwich ($11) is punched up with Mexican rajas and a green tomato “dip.” The “pho” French dip ($14) — sliced brisket and oxtail with melted Swiss on tender bolillo with a double-strength pho broth for dipping — is a stroke of genius. And desserts courtesy of High Spirited Desserts are strong, including “What Pie?” ($8), a gooey salty-sweet filling with an excellent oat cookie crust.
Details: Fourth floor of the Residence Inn/Courtyard by Marriott Phoenix Downtown, 132 S. Central Ave. 602-6032050, littleritualsbar.com. fish both