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I'm not sure how I missed this, but it looks like the 2008 Tempe Greek Festival is this weekend at Tempe Town Lake. Festival hours are 11-11 on Friday, May 2nd; 11-11 on Saturday, May 3rd; and 11-7 on Sunday, May 4th. Admission is $2 for adults, $1 for senior citizens, and free for children under 12. Admission is also free between 11am and 2pm.

There will be live music, performances by Greek dancers, wine tasting, carnival rides, and of course, Greek food.

For additional information, call 480-899-3330 or visit www.atasteofgreeceaz.com.

I'm a little late with this post, but it looks like Udupi Cafe has once again ran afoul of the Maricopa County Health Inspectors. This is the second time in about a year (last time they had 13 violations) that Udupi has had problems. This time, they racked up 8 new health violations, resulting in the county filing papers to revoke their license to operate.

It's a real shame because the food at Udupi was really good. I just don't understand why they find it so hard to keep the place clean and practice good restaurant sanitation. There are plenty of other small restaurant operators that don't seem to have the problems Udupi does.

Google recently released a new feature of their popular Google Maps application called My Maps. Essentially, it's a way to create customized Google Maps without any programming. In about 10 minutes, I was able to create a map of all Sushi restaurants in the Phoenix Metro area. Check it out:

Phoenix Metro Sushi Restaurants (Google Maps)

Driving down Elliot Road the other day, Pere and I noticed that Sonoma Chicken Roasters had gone out of business and been replaced by a Guamanian restaurant called Island Roots Guam Cuisine. I made a mental note, and decided to give the place a visit soon. Soon came sooner rather than later. Today, Moody and I headed there for lunch.

The interior hadn't changed much from when the place was the Sonoma Chicken Roasters. It had the same bright, clean interior with lots and lots of space, the only real change being the addition of island memorabilia adorning the walls and counter. We were promptly greeted at the door and seated at a table right in between two other tables of diners. This seemed a little odd given that the place is huge and was otherwise empty. Before we had even sat down, our waiter asked if he could bring us anything to drink. Not having had a chance to look the menu over, we both ordered waters.

I think it's hard to say that Guamanian cuisine has a distinct identity of it's own. Given it's location (lying in the Pacific between Japan/Korea, Hawaii, and the Philippines), it borrows heavily from those countries as well as Spain and Mexico. The menu at Island Roots reflects this with dishes like lumpia, pancit, and adobo (Filipino); kalbi and bulgogi (Korean); and Spam musubi from Hawaii. Before we had a chance to look the menu fully over, our waiter returned with our waters and asked if we were ready to order. A few minutes more, and we were.

We started things off with an oder of the lumpia. They came out piping hot and were well fried. The sauce was tangy sweet and offered a nice balance to the meat and veggie filling. For entrees, Moody went with the chicken adobo while I had the Portuguese sausage with fried eggs. Moody's adobo was authentic Filipino and contained several pieces of chicken thigh and leg still on the bone, with skin as well as two scoops of red rice. When Moody asked the waiter what red rice was, his reply was that it was just more flavorful. I think it would have helped if he had mentioned that it was colored with annatto. Moody said the adobo was very good, although there was a fairly high ratio of scraps to meat. The Portuguese sausage plate I had was really tasty. The sausage was nicely grilled, and went perfectly with my over-medium eggs. The annatto in the rice gave it a nice orange color (more so than red), and the rice had good flavor, although I wasn't able to determine where it came from (perhaps bacon?) as annatto is relatively flavorless. Next time, I'd like to try out the Spam musubi. I also hear they have Poke on the weekend, a Hawaiian favorite of mine that I'd like to try their rendition of.

Overall, the meal was decent, and I would definitely recommend Island Roots - especially to Filipinos who find the options for authentic Filipino dishes in the valley to be lacking. I would, however, like to see Island Roots work on their service. I know it's a family run business, but there's just no excuse for lax and uninformed service these days. Given the large size of the restaurant, and the relatively emptiness of the place during the lunch rush, I have to wonder how long they'll be able to stay in business. If Island Roots is going to survive, they are going to have to polish things up a bit.

Saturday night, Pere and I had dinner with our friends Tim and Camille at Udupi Cafe, a vegetarian South Indian place in Tempe. Tim and Camille had been there before and raved about it, so I figured that it was about time we give the place a try.

I eat Indian quite a bit, but I have to admit, most of my experience has been around dishes prepared in the North. When we arrived, the place was busy, but not completely full. We were seated right away at a table in the center of the restaurant that looked like it used to be part of a booth. Udupi doesn't have a liquor license, so that made the beverage choice easy for me. When our waiter stopped by, I ordered a mango lassi, a sweetened mango drink made with yogurt. Tim ordered one as well.

The menu at Udupi is pretty extensive, covering a wide range of dishes. We started our meal with an assorted appetizer plate consisting of medhu vasa (fried lentil donuts), masala vada (dahl with onions and spices), vegetable samosas (crispy dough stuffed with potato, onion and peas), vegetable cutlets (breaded and fried), and pakora (deep fried chickpeas). The appetizers were served with sambar and chutney. They were all very good, but I'm glad we split the plate between the four of us because it would have been too much fried food for two people.

While we ate our appetizer, we placed our main order. Indian food lends itself to sharing, so we decided to each pick a dish and serve them family style. We opted for a cheese dosai (rice crepe stuffed with chickpea paste, cheese, and vegetables), gobi manchurian (cauliflower that's been dredged in flour and sauteed with soy, garlic, ginger, and chilis), palak paneer (indian cheese cooked with spinach, onion, and tomato), makhni kofta (cheese balls in tomato cream sauce), an order of garlic paratha (whole wheat bread stuffed with garlic), and an order of basmati rice.

When the food arrived, I knew it was going to be good. Everything looked really good, and I was starving by that point. We quickly started passing plates and dishing out the food. The first dish I sampled was the gobi manchurian. I swore that the first bite I had tasted like it was chicken. It had a strong resemblance to the chinese-american dish General Tso's Chicken, only the sauce was not nearly as thick and was actually much better. It had excellent flavor that made this one of the best cauliflower dishes I've had.

Next up, I tried the makhni kofta. The balls of cheese reminded me of meatballs, but with a much smoother texture. The taste was very mild, which still seemed to be ok when combined with the richness of the tomato cream sauce. Everyone at the table agreed that they loved the sauce, with more than one person cleaning their plates by using the garlic paratha as a spatula. The paratha was also good, and tasted heavily of roasted garlic. I still prefer nan to paratha, but with the makhni, it was hard to really complain.

The palak paneer had quite a few big chunks of cheese in it, which I appreciate. Too many indian restaurants skimp on the paneer. Udupi is not one of them. The spinach stems were still crispy, which tells me they used fresh spinach, not frozen or canned as is sometimes the case. Although I prefer saag paneer as a spinach dish, the tomatoes in the palak version proved to be tasty as well.

I had never had a dosi before, which are basically Indian crepes. The cheese dosi we ordered was huge and easily split among four people. It looked almost like a quesadilla. The first bite happened to taste like a quesadilla too, which I found an odd experience. I'm not sure what spices were used in the cheese dosi, but they weren't strong enough to give the dish a distinct Indian flavor. That's ok, though, as I enjoyed the dosi just the same.

By the time we all finished, we were way too full for a heavy dessert, so we opted to skip. I'm not very fond of most of the Indian desserts that are typical at most places, but Udupi had quite a few that I've never seen before. If I have more room on a later visit, I'll definitely give them a try.

Overall, I found Udupi to be an excellent Indian restaurant, and refreshing in two ways. The fact that it's purely vegetarian is a nice change of pace as is the fact that it serves Southern Indian. They are also open for lunch, where they serve a buffet. I can't wait to come back and sample more of what the South has to offer.

Last night, Catherine, Moody, Pere and I had dinner at the Cornish Pasty Company in Tempe. We had been talking about going there together for quite some time, so it was nice to finally be able to do it. If you've never had a pasty (pronounced pass-tea), it's basically a half moon shaped pasrty stuffed with any number of savory ingredients (traditionally beef, onion, potatoes and rutabaga). It looks a lot like an Italian calzone, but they are worlds apart. Pasty's originated in Cornwall, England, where they were eaten by miners.

We arrived at the restaurant around 8pm. It's a tiny space that reminds me of the rail bars typical in Philadelphia and other cities. There was a long bar long the left, and a long row of two-top tables on the right. We took a seat in a specially constructed corner "booth" in the back.

The waitress came by pretty quickly and took our drink order. I went with a Boddington's on draught while Pere opted for her favorite Bushmills and Coke. Moody started with a Strongbow cider, something I like attribute to his years living in the UK Catherine, our designated driver for the evening had iced tea. Something about this struck me as funny, probably because she's originally from the UK and now living in Phoenix.

Once our drinks arrived, we were all set to order. There are about two dozen different pasties on the menu which you can choose from. Moody and I had been talking about the chicken tika masala pasty all week, so that's what we went with. Catherine ordered the bangers and mash (sausage and mashed potatoes) pasty, and Pere went with the lamb and mint.

All of the pastys were served hot from the oven and wrapped in paper. Although traditionally eaten with one hand like a sandwich, we all opted for knives and forks as the pastys were pretty heavy, and we thought they might not hold up when handled. The chicken tika masala pasty was stuffed with a generous amount of filling. Although it wasn't listed on the menu as an ingredient, I swear it had both potatoes and rutabaga in it. Overall, my pasty was very good, although some bites were overly salty leading me to believe that they salted the rutabaga and potatoes with a little too heavy a hand. Pere and Moody thought the same of their pastys. I tried Pere's lamb and mint pasty and thought it was good, although I still liked mine better. Catherine's bangers and mash pasty was really tasty. The sausage was very flavorful. I'll probably order one next time I'm there.

By the time we all finished our pasties, we were stuffed. They are much more filling than you would think. Catherine decided she still had room for dessert and ordered an apple caramel pasty. When it arrived, the waitress handed us four forks, so there really wasn't any way we weren't going to at least try it! The dessert pasty came with whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, and caramel sauce. My first bite of the pasty was good. The second bite, however, left me with a mouth full of cinnamon. The third and final bite I had suffered the same problem. Moody remarked that there was way too much cinnamon as well, so I know it wasn't just me.

Overall, I really liked the Cornish Pasty Company. I tend to like English comfort food. The overall atmosphere was nice too. They were playing a lot of 80's and 90's music with a leaning toward metal - but the volume was at a reasonable enough level that you could easily hold a conversation without having to raise your voice. On this visit we sat at a table but next time I go back, I'll probably sit at the bar as this is where all of the action is. With the small kitchen right behind the bar, I'd like to watch as the pasties are made, which is a continuous operation. One other thing worth mentioning. Any of the pasties on the menu can be ordered par-baked to go. This allows you to take them home and finish the cooking process or freeze them for later use.

Last night, I had one of my most disappointing dining experiences in a long time. So many things just went wrong that it became comical. It all started a few months ago when Moody and I were having lunch somewhere over on the ASU campus and spotted a new restaurant caddy-corner to Sun Devil Stadium. Named Saffron, for some reason, we assumed it was a Spanish or Tapas restaurant.

Looking to eat out last night because our kitchen wasn't usable (back splash remodel in progress), I gave our friends Moody and Catherine a call to see if they might be interested in joining us out. Moody suggested we finally get around to trying Saffron, so the location was set.

The night we ate there just happened to be the night before the Fiesta Bowl, so downtown Tempe was an odd mix of pre-game college football fans, and city and school staff preparing for the game. I was worried that the restaurant might be packed, but that wasn't the case when we got there. Upon entering, the first thing we noticed was that there was no real indoor seating. Not that there weren't any tables available inside - there wasn't really an "inside" to speak of. Being the end of December in the Phoenix area, it was chilly outside, but not at all brutally cold. With the patio heaters going, it was relatively comfortable to be eating outside. It looks like the place had sliding glass doors that they could close and possibly have a handful of tables inside, but we weren't sure if that was the standard procedure or not.

Other than the four of us, there were two people sitting at the bar, and a private anniversary party of about 15 people or so setup with their own buffet seated next to us. There was a single waitress on duty. She promptly dropped off menus, which were designed like paint deck fans - so that each page rotated around a spindle through the corner. The design told me that regular menu changes probably weren't in the cards for Saffron. The waitress asked if we would be interested in a wine list, which we were. She headed off to get the list while we looked over the menu.

The first thing I noticed was that the menu was neither Spanish nor Tapas oriented. There was a separate page for appetizers, salads, Asian bowls, entrees, and desserts. The menu was all over the map. Some items were Asian, some India, there was Italian, French, and "American" as well. I couldn't find a unifying theme. What was really bizarre (at least to me) was that there was only a single dish on the menu that even mentioned saffron in the ingredients.

Before we had decided on anything, the waitress returned with the wine list. She mentioned they were out of a few wines on the list, but not which ones. The list was very small, consisting of about a ten or so each of red and white varieties. We were all in the mood for red, so Moody chose something I can't remember from the list. The waitress was sure they had it, but when she returned a few minutes later, she informed us that she was mistaken and that they were actually all out. Moody made another selection, which this time they had.

She came back a few minutes later with the wine, poured us each a glass, then took our orders. I asked what the soup of the day was (the menu said ask your server). The waitress said she would have to check and headed over for the bar. She was back a minute later to inform me that they had no soup today. My initial idea of appetizers and soup was shot. So instead, we started off with an order of samosas. Pere, Catherine and I all ordered the grilled pork tenderloin with smashed potatoes, creamed spinach and almond saffron curry sauce. Moody opted for penne with chicken, bacon, basil and marinara. Not two minutes after we ordered, our waitress returned with a scared look on her face. I was about to make a smart-ass comment about them being all out of the pork when she beat me to the punch. Apparently, they had no pork. This was strike three for the evening, and we hadn't even gotten our food yet. We all went back to the menu to come up with alternatives. Pere opted for chicken breast with corn and pepper over potatoes, Catherine went for fried tofu something or other, and I decided on the same penne Moody had ordered as I really couldn't find anything else that interested me.

The samosa arrived a few minutes later. There were four pieces to the order, which was great since there were four of us. One of my biggest restaurant pet peeves is when you order an appetizer and it's not evenly divisible by four people. I can understand needing to order two orders when you have a larger party of six or eight, but when you have four people and the appetizer has three pieces, it drives me crazy. We were all pretty hungry by this point, so we made quick work of the samosas. They were well prepared and tasted very good.

A few minutes later, our entrees arrived. The first look I had at my dish told me I had better brace myself for disappointment. The bowl contained a generous portion of penne smothered in red sauce. There was nothing else discernible (by sight) within the dish, except for a little parmesan which was quickly becoming absorbed into the mass of marinara sauce. The first bite didn't prove any better. There was barely any chicken to be found, and I was never able to find any bacon, nor even a hint of the basil from the description. The dish was completely ordinary. It tasted like jarred sauce, dried pasta, and parmesan that had been thrown together in one big glob. There was way too much of the red sauce, and (I can't believe I'm saying this), it had way too much garlic. The excess of the red sauce caused all of the parmesan to congeal resulting in something that was just barely edible. Moody had similar comments about his dish. Pere and Catherine were less than thrilled with theirs too.

In the end, we skipped dessert and headed back to Moody and Catherine's for after dinner drinks. I was really bummed that Saffron disappointed the way it did. I was hoping we were onto something and had discovered another interesting independent restaurant, but alas, all we found that night was indigestion.

Yesterday for lunch, I had a real craving for Ethiopian food. I had been wanting it for a while now, but just couldn't seem to get myself over to Cafe Lalibela, my favorite Ethiopian in the Valley. Moody was feeling the same way (perhaps it's the NPR sponsorship commercial we heard in the morning), so we headed on over for lunch.

If you've never had Ethiopian, you don't know what you're missing. Traditionally, Ethiopian food is eaten with your hands, using a spongy bread called injera. Injera is made from teff, a grain popular in Ethiopia. The injera usually serves as a liner for a large communal tray containing the various meet and vegetable dishes ordered for the table as well as a utensil for picking up the food and eating it.

One of the best deals going at Cage Lalibela is their lunch special. You get your choice of soft drink or iced tea, three items from the menu, and your choice of injera or 1/2 injera and half rice. The menu items you can choose from are broken up into meat dishes and vegetarian dishes. From the meat side, you have your choice of Kye sega wat (spicy hot beef), Alicha sega wat (mild beef), and Doro wat (spicy chicken). Each of these is simmered in a different sauce with various spices. The vegetarian dishes you can choose from include Misir wat (red split lentils in hot sauce with herbs), Fosolia (lightly spiced string beans with carrots and onion), Tikil gomen (lightly spiced cabbage, carrots and potato), Gomen (chopped collard greens with garlic and onion) Azifah (brown lentils with onion, jalapeno and spices served cold).

It's always hard for me to choose, which is why I really like coming for dinner as well where you can order a larger sampler for 2-4 people which includes additional items not on the lunch menu. That said, I ended up ordering the Kye sefa wat, the Doro wat, and the Tikil gomen. The beef was especially good as I scooped up pinched finger full after fingerful with pieces of injera. The Tikil gomen was also really nice. Of all the cuisines I've had, I have to say that Ethiopian has to be one of my favorites for vegetarian. The chicken was good too, although in retrospect I wish I had ordered a second vegetable. Next time.

I really need to remind myself to eat Ethiopian more often. It's relatively healthy, especially given all of the vegetable options, inexpensive, and just plain good. As loaded with corporate chain restaurants as the Phoenix area seems to be, I'm really glad we have a gem like Cafe Lalibela around to keep things interesting.

For lunch today, Moody, Nathan and I decided to try out Capistrano's Italian Deli on Warner Road in Tempe. We hadn't been there before, and had been interested in trying it out ever since spotting the place a few weeks ago. We're always up for trying something new, and a good sandwich shop is always a plus.

Unfortunately, Capistrano's turned out to be one big disappointment. The deli is housed in what can only be described as a warehouse. While this works fine for brewpubs, it doesn't really seem to work for a deli. The space was industrial and felt, well, like eating in a warehouse. Moody remarked that he kept waiting for a forklift to drive on through.

Decor aside, the food wasn't any more impressive. Deli is a loose term here. The place consisted of a small counter for ordering where they had a very small selection of Boar's Head meats and cheeses on display. We all opted to try the soup and 1/2 sandwich combo. I was in the mood for a turkey and Swiss on marble with a little mayo. While they had turkey, Swiss cheese, and mayo, they did not have marble bread. In fact, they didn't have any bread at all. They only had a choice of white or wheat rolls for all sandwiches. The rolls aren't made on site, and they were pretty small to boot. What kind of deli doesn't have bread? When I opened my sandwich, there was barely any meat on it - certainly not what I would expect from a deli sandwich. It tasted ok, but then again, it's pretty hard to mess up a simple turkey sandwich.

The soup of the day was tomato basil with ravioli. Both Nathan and I had the soup. I didn't detect any basil. The ravioli tasted just like Chef Boyardee from a can. In fact, the soup tasted like a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli from the can with some water added to thin it out. Totally tasteless.

Nathan had a three cheese sandwich. When I asked him what cheeses it had, he replied that as best he could tell, it had three colors of cheddar. He wasn't impressed either.

Moody opted for a hot pastrami sandwich with a side of coleslaw. Again, the sandwich was served on a roll, and was stingy on the meat. He described the coleslaw as the worst he had ever had - as if it had been made with Crisco instead of mayo.

There is absolutely nothing to distinguish this place from the deli counter at your local grocery store. In fact, there isn't anything about the place that distinguishes it from my refrigerator. We were trying to figure out how they stayed in business with such disappointing fare when a perfectly good alternative, Jason’s Deli, was less than 2 miles down the street. The only thing we came up with was Moody's suggestion that having a large Honeywell plant directly across the street was probably the answer. I guess people will eat crap when it's right in front of them rather than seek out a better alternative only a short drive away.

Moody and I met up with Adam and his son for dinner the other night at a Pizza place Moody had spotted and wanted to try out. From the outside, Picazzo's looked just live every restaurant in strip-mall sprawl laden Phoenix. Once inside, however, I was pleasantly surprised. The restaurant was nicely decorated and well laid out. For a Wed night around 8pm, the place was doing a brisk business. Almost every table was filled.

I'm pretty tough on pizza places in Phoenix. I find that the majority of them make pizza's that are difficult to distinguish from cardboard, or the assembly line pies that come from the likes of Domino's and Pizza Hut. Knowing from the sign out front that Picazzo's bills itself as a gourmet pizza place was setting me up for disappointment. I fully expected to be handed a menu with 5 or 6 "gourmet" pizzas, followed by all of the standards. I was completely surprised and delighted when I open the menu to almost two full pages of what I would consider true gourmet pizzas. The menu was divided up into categories. In addition to appetizers and salads, the pizzas were split out into Meat - Red Sauces, Meat White and Peanut Sauces, Vegetarian Red Sauces, and Vegetarian White Sauces. In addition, there was a section for create your own pizza with over a dozen sauces and cheeses, and close to three dozen toppings. Picazzo's also features Collazzo Grande, described as "homemade pizza dough stuffed with toppings and baked into a moon shaped grande croissant". This sounds like a calzone to me, but I'll take their word for it.

Besides the food, Picazzo's also has an extensive drink menu and wine list. Moody and I opted for cocktails while Adam stuck with water. I ordered a Lemonade Cooler, made from fresh lemonade, Chambord and Absolut Kurant. It was good, but a little too heavy on the Chambord. Moody went with a Prickly Pear Rita. I had a sip, and thought it was ok, but nowhere near as good as the version at the Roaring Fork.

Deciding on exactly which pizza's to try out was tough as there were more than a few interesting ones. Some of the highlights included Chipotle and Beef (Barbacoa and chipotle peppers), Leaning Tower (alfredo sauce, mozzarella, chevre, fresh spinach, mushrooms, Roma tomatoes, and homemade Italian sausage), and Spicy-Spicy Veggie with Glazed Walnuts (olive oil, fresh and roasted garlic, broccoli, spinach, jalapeños, red chile flakes, red and yellow bell peppers, and candied walnuts). In the end, we decided on three smalls so we could all sample. We chose the Anchovy Lovers (olive oil, fresh garlic, red sauce, parmigiano, anchovy filets, and Roma tomatoes), the Mykonos (hummus, olive oil, fresh garlic, French feta, artichoke hearts, Kalamata olives, Roma tomatoes, and oregano), and the Thai Chicken (Bangkok peanut sauce, mozzarella, chicken, red and yellow bell peppers, green onions, red chile flakes and sesame seeds).

All three pizzas had an excellent crust. The crusts were crisp on bottom, and had just the right amount of chewyness, without having a raw dough taste. The Anchovy Lovers came with a decent amount of anchovy that balanced well with the cheese. My only complaint here is that they kept the anchovy filets whole, while I would have preferred them coarsely chopped, but that's just my personal preference. The Mykonos was interesting. We wondered how hummus would play out on pizza, and to our surprise, it was quite good. There were a few sections of the pizza where the hummus was a little thick, but otherwise, it was very good. The Thai Chicken was my least favorite of the three. I'm very partial to my own version of this pizza, so I find other restaurant versions usually lacking. It wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, I just like mine better. Picazzo's was very light on the peanut sauce, which I find is one of the key elements in a good Thai Chicken pizza.

Overall, I was very impressed with Picazzo's and am already thinking of coming back to try out some of the other offerings. They also have a lunch combo (slice and salad) that may be worth checking out.

Last night, I had planned to take Pere and the in laws to dinner at the new Havana Cafe that was supposed to open on April 1. I love their North Scottsdale (Bell Road) location, and was really looking forward to having a nice Cuban restaurant in my own neighborhood. Alas, it wasn't to be. When we arrived, the restaurant was still dark. Signage was up, and the interior looked to be about done, but the application for the liquor license was still hanging above the door. I guess they are waiting for that to come through before they officially open. That left plan B - Yupha's Thai Kitchen in Tempe.

Pere and I have eaten at Yupha's a few times now, and find their food to be pretty good. My favorite Thai in town is Sawadee Thai, followed by Malee's on Main, so Yupha's comes in a strong third.

The first thing that got me excited when we walked in the door was a small sign announcing the availability of mangos and sticky rice for desert. This is one of my favorites, and most of the decent Thai places in town will only serve it when mangos are in season. Even though you can get mangos year round in Phoenix, they are only in season for about four months of the year.

Pere's parents hadn't had much Thai, so were looking for recommendations. Yellow curry is one of my favorites, and even though I always want to try new Thai dishes, I find myself always wanting just one more yellow curry. So, both Pere's dad and I ordered the yellow curry with chicken. He had his medium, I asked for mine Thai hot. In my past experiences with Yupha's, the only problem I had with the food is that it doesn't seem to come consistently spiced. When I asked for Thai hot, it's supposed to be as hot as they can make it. Full on make me sweat like a monkey hot. That's the way I like it, and that's exactly how it comes at both Sawadee and Malee's. My yellow curry came out, and while it was spicy, it was only what I would consider medium hot. I even made a point of telling the waitress that I wanted it so hot it would melt my face. I guess they probably get a lot of people who ask for it really hot, and then end up complaining because they can't take it, so they're overly cautions when someone orders their meal Thai hot. Spiciness issues aside, the flavor of the yellow curry was great. It had a good balance between the sweetness of the coconut milk and the chilis, but without being sickeningly sweet. The potatos were cooked just the way I like them, so that there is still a bit of crunch left in them.

Pere's mom had the Pink Diamonds, lightly battered salmon fingers with green beans, bell peppers and kaffir lime leaves in a panang curry sauce. I didn't try them this time around (Pere had them last time we were there), but her mom seemed to like them.

Pere went with the Himalai, sauteed shrimp and chicken with cashew, celery, mushrooms, scallions, bell peppers and fried tha with a chili paste sauce. I had a few bites and found it to be pretty good, although not something I would likely order as it seemed a bit ordinary compared to many of the other dishes on the menu.

We all left just enough room for desert and decided to split two orders of the mango with sticky rice. The dessert came out well presented with a scoop of the sticky rice in the center of the plate, fanned by slices of fresh mango with what looked like a pansy as garnish. The sticky rice was nice and warm, and the sweetness of the coconut milk combined with the delicate flavor of the rice really popped. A bite of the rice on a piece of the mango really reminded me of why I love this dessert so much.

One of the things I really like about Yupha's is that the owner, Yupha Duquenne, is always out in the dining room talking with patrons. I like when an owner or chef takes the time to talk with you. It's a personal touch that I feel goes a long way, and it's something that sticks in my head when I'm trying to decide where I want to spend my time (and money) eating.