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Given the limited selection of French restaurants in the area, a follow-up visit to La Vigne seemed a fitting choice for lunch with friends on Bastille Day. Unfortunately, my impression of La Vigne has not changed much since our initial visit last summer. In fact, the experience was so similar – flubs with service, disappointing food, and lots of empty tables – that to detail my experience at lunch would sound like plagiarism of Rob's review.

Instead I'd like to point out my own pet peeve with La Vigne, which Rob touched on briefly in his review, which is the lack of authentic ambience and culture. As a once-fluent French speaker and an interior designer, these facets of a dining experience for me weigh equally with the quality of food and service. In addition, the French are fiercely protective of their language and culture, so it's particularly disappointing that this French restaurant fails to capture either.

The decor of southern France does sometimes include heavy stone walls and iron gates, but these adornments to La Vigne's generic strip-mall location could be improved upon with some truly French touches. May I suggest some traditional Provençal fabrics? Or some rustic turned-wood chairs, instead of that corporate lobby-looking furniture? Maybe a couple of live lavender plants?

Perhaps the staff could have a brief training on the French language, or at least on the few words which are relevant in this case. One of the hostesses consistently mispronounces the name of the restaurant. I know the "gne" combo can be difficult to pronounce, so I'd love to suggest that using the last name of a certain pop star, Avril, might be closer, or maybe the name of the town on the southwestern outskirts of Phoenix. When asked what the vin du jour (wine of the day) would be, as advertised in French on the specials leaflet, our server corrected me, "You mean the vin?," which he pronounced like "bin." Sure. Whatever gets me a glass of fermented grape juice.

La Vigne is celebrating their one-year anniversary. I had hoped after our visit last year that it would improved over time, but unfortunately it's more like plus de la même chose – more of the same thing.

Last night, Pere and I met friends for dinner at relatively new French "Bistro" in Ahwatukee called La Vigne French Bistro & Wine Bar. La Vigne opened in May and I had been dying to try them out. I always have high hopes for new independent restaurants in my area, and the addition of a new French restaurant was irresistible.

When we arrived at the restaurant, it was practically empty. The place was huge, with a very large patio to boot. For a small intimate space, that might have felt ok, but for a 5000 square foot restaurant, it had an off-putting feeling. In such a busy shopping center, with Ra Sushi right next door packing people in, why was La Vigne so empty? I put aside my initial impression and decided to just let the experience speak for itself. On the La Vigne website, the restaurant owners state that the restaurant was conceived after a trip to the French countryside and that they wanted to bring a slice of France back to Ahwatukee. Having been to France several times, I can't say that the interior had the desired effect. Although it was nicely appointed and tastefully done, Pere remarked that the interior was much more Tuscan than French, and it certainly didn't look like any bistro we had ever been to.

We took our seats and started to look over the wine list. There were several French varietals on the menu, but none that I particularly recognized. Our server wasn't at all knowledgeable about the wine list, so I decided to play it safe and only go with wines I recognized. It's a shame, because I really like French wine. But without the advice of someone who can offer an informed opinion, I wasn't going to spend $50 on a random wine I may not like.

When our server came back to take our drink order, Pere ordered a gin and tonic. I was in the mood for gin as well, so I went with a gin martini, up, with a twist. Our friends Bill and Leorna ordered splits of Mumm "Napa Cuvée M sparkling wine. When our server arrived with the drink order, she was a little flustered. Apparently, she had bumped into the bartender on the way out and spilled the drinks all over herself (which she told us). That explains the high-water mark on my martini, which subsequently wasn't topped off. Leorna took one look at her champagne and immediately remarked to the server that it was completely flat, and to please bring her a new glass. At about the same time, she also realized that the waitress had brought out the champagne in a glass, but the split bottle was nowhere to be seen. When the waitress returned with new glasses of champagne, she apologized for the first round and remarked that the bartender had poured off the last of an open bottle, and that's why it was flat. That's when Leorna informed her that she had ordered splits, not by the glass champagne. After some looking over the wine list, the server acknowledged the mistake and headed off back to the bar. A few minutes later, she returned with two splits and once again apologized. She popped the corks (loudly) on the splits and told Bill and Leorna to go ahead and keep the other drinks on the house (too bad they were all flat).

As we settled in with our drinks and began to look over the menu, our server returned and asked if we were ready to order. We politely told her we had just started to look at the menu, and would need a few minutes. She took that literally, and returned about three minutes later. We let her know a few more minutes would be necessary to make our selections. I hate feeling rushed, and usually do a good job at setting the pace I want by slowing down the ordering, or ordering appetizers and waiting for them to come before making entree selections, but none of that really seemed to be effective here.

The entree selection was pretty sparse. One thing that I found a bit irritating was the steak selection. It took up almost an entire page on the menu, but made no sense to me at all. The menu listed three different steak options, all for $29.99: Steak au Poivre w/ cognac and red wine sauce, Peppercorn Steak (isn't what Steak au Poivre means?) w/ peppercorn cream sauce, and Steak Grillé with no sauce, although you could add either of the two previously mentioned sauces, or a béarnaise sauce for an extra $1.49. All three came in either a 9oz fillet or a 4oz New Your Strip for that same price. So essentially, the could have just listed it as a pepper crusted steak with your choice of sauces, in either a 9oz fillet or a 14oz New York Strip for $29.99, and the same steak, just without peppercorns. It certainly didn't have to take up an entire page. Beyond the steak options, other choices included Duck a L'orange, three chicken dishes, a salmon dish, and a scallop dish. All entrees came with soup or salad, choice of potato, and wither asparagus or green beans.

At this point, we decided on a few appetizers - Pate, and endive spears with apple and Roquefort salad, and a bowl of French onion soup for Bill. We also took this opportunity to place our entree orders.

A few minutes later, the appetizers arrived. The pate was good, although given the generous amount a few more pieces of toasted baguette would have been appropriate. The endive with apple and Roquefort that Leorna ordered was particularly good. Bill's French onion soup was well received too.

While we were still eating our appetizers, our dinner salads arrived. Instead of seeing that we were still working on our appetizers, our server dropped off the salads right along side of them and headed off back to the kitchen. We could tell that timing was starting to become an issue. Little did we know just how much of an issue it was going to be, though. About five minutes after dropping off the salads, our waitress returned with our entrees. That's when she had the "a-ha" moment and realized just how off the kitchen timing was. She apologized and offered to take the entrees back and hold them there until we were ready. At that point, Leorna let her know that yes, that's what we wanted her to do, but if our meals came out overcooked, we would be sending them back. With Leorna's steak starting out as medium rare, and Pere having scallops, not to mention Bill and I having chicken breasts, we were worried we would be eating shoe leather after the food came back from being under a heat lamp.

The moment we finished our salads (literally), someone was there to clear our plates, and our server was back out with our entrees. I had ordered the Poulet à la Moutarde (chicken w/ mustard), with fries as my potato. What I was served, though, had mashed potatoes instead. This actually worked out ok for me. When I told our server that I had ordered fries and not mashed potatoes, she quickly let the kitchen know to whip me up a batch of fries as they had gotten the order wrong. Instead of soggy fries that had been under a heat lamp for 15 minutes, I had a nice piping hot plate of frites fresh from the fryer, and they were excellent! Our server felt bad enough about everything that had gone wrong up to this point that she offered to comp us two desserts.

Pere's scallops ended up being slightly overcooked, but not enough that she felt she had to send them back. My chicken had just passed the perfectly done state and was a little on the dry side, but the mustard sauce, although a tinge too acidic, did a good job of adding necessary moisture to each bite. I was happy with the dish. Leorna sliced a piece off the end of her steak, and I could tell from her facial expression that she wasn't happy. She had the waitress take it back because it appeared to be well done. She also sent the cognac red wine sauce back because she thought it tasted tinny. A few minutes later, the server returned with the dish and explained that upon returning it to the kitchen, the chef had cut open the steak (in the center), and it was indeed still medium rare in the center. They offered to make her a new one if she still wanted one, but she declined and took the returned entree, this time with the béarnaise sauce.

Since our desserts were being comp'd, we decided on the crème brulée and a chocolate soufflé along with a bottle of Cuvée Rouge Champagne (I don't remember what house as it was Leorna's pick). A few moments later, our server was back to inform us that they were all out of he Cuvée Rouge "because the wine guy didn't come today". She then informed us that the wine list was arranged from sweet to dry (funny, it seemed to be arranged in order of price to me), and we could just pick one above or below our initial choice and it would taste about the same. We declined and instead decided to go with 4 more splits of the Cuvée M. A few minutes later she was back out with the four bottles, letting us know that she had to dig around in the back to find them. Four more loud pops, and we were all sitting back laughing about how disastrous the meal had been so far. It's then that the desserts arrived. The sugar on top of the crème brulée was actually perfectly caramelized. The custard underneath was a bit too warm, and could have used a little more vanilla, but it was still good. The chocolate soufflé that Bill ordered was anything but. Besides the fact that it was yellow, the first bite confirmed it to be a strawberry soufflé. Oh well. At that point, we had finally had enough and asked for the check. Bill also asked if we were the worst table she had that evening. She completely missed the point and replied that actually the table next to us was worse because they had kids, and she doesn't like kids (other than her own)!

I wanted to like La Vigne, I really did. There aren't enough good neighborhood spots in Ahwatukee, and I was really hoping La Vigne would help fill that niche. I can't chalk it up to opening week jitters now that they have been open for a few months. I realize they are still new, but as large as the place is, if they don't start filling tables soon, I don't see how they'll be able to afford to stay open. Given the execution and service issues, they have some serious work ahead of them to counter experiences like the ones our friends and we had. I'm not trying to bash La Vigne. Had the owners been in that night, I would have been happy to talk with them about our experience as I really do believe in offering restaurants constructive criticism, and a chance to redeem themselves. Unfortunately, though, I don't think I'll be going back to La Vigne anytime soon. If they are still around six months from now, maybe I'll give them another shot.

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.

When I was in Taiwan a few weeks ago, I wanted to see Taipei 101, the (current) world's tallest building. Before I went, I asked Pere to email her brother and his wife Iris to ask for suggestions on what I should try to see and do while in Taiwan. Iris is Taiwanese, so I was hoping for some inside information. What I got turned out to be a whole lot better. As it happened, they replied to Pere's email about 5 minutes later to say that they were actually in Taipei! They gave me a call at my hotel, and we made plans to meet the next day.

After an afternoon of sightseeing, we were all getting hungry and needed to find somewhere to eat. My brother in law David was in the mood for steamed buns and dumplings, so Iris suggested a place called Din Tai Fung that was "world famous" for their soup dumplings. It sounded good to me, so we grabbed a cab and headed off for the restaurant.

When we arrived at Din Tai Fung, it was a little after 5:30 pm. It was on the early side for dinner, but Iris said that the place we were going to often gets very busy, so arriving early was actually in our favor. After checking in with someone behind the counter, we were immediately taken to a 2nd floor dining room and seated. Although the restaurant was relatively calm on the outside, inside, it was bustling and hopping with lots and of waitresses carrying around a seemingly endless stream of bamboo steamers.

After looking over the menu (it was in both Mandarin and English), we all decided to just let Iris do the ordering for us. Everything on the menu looked great, so we knew we were in good hands. When our waitress returned, Iris ticked off a list of dishes for the table, and ordered some tea as well.

It wasn't more than five minutes before our first dish arrived - steamed soup dumplings (xiaolongbao or xiao long bao). What makes Xiaolongbao different from other types of steamed buns and dumplings is the filling. In addition to meat, the dumplings are also stuffed with gelatenous stock before being steamed. Once steamed, the gelatin melts and becomes the soup inside the bun. When you eat a xiaolongbao, you get a nice combination of meat, soup, and wrapper. The soup buns at Din Tai Fung were awesome. The soup was very hot, and it was easy to scald yourself if you didn't let them cool just a bit before eating. Wait too long, though, and the soup wasn't quite as good. What also makes the xiaolongbao unique at Din Tai Fung is the number of pleats in each dumpling. Apparently, the buns at Din Tai Fung have more pleats than most other places, which is a result of years of experimentation by the owner.

About two seconds (literally) after we finished the xiaolongbao, our waitress cleared the steamer basket from our table, and another waitress showed up with our shrimp dumplings. The shrimp dumplings had the familiar dumpling shape, and were also good, but not quite as exciting as the xiaolongbao.

Next up was a pot of wonton soup. The broth was very mild, yet had enough chicken favour to keep it interesting. Like all of the buns and dumplings we had tried so far, the wontons were perfectly prepared, making for a nice accompanyment to the rest of the meal.

After the wonton soup, we had more steamed buns. This time, they contained a mixture of crab and pork. They didn't quite have as much crab flavor as I had hoped for, but they were still good. Each one was expertly crimped and steamed.

Our next dish was another soup. It had pork dumplings, rice noodles, and bean curd skins in it. I really enjoyed this soup. One thing I found interesting in Taiwan is that it's quite common to have two, three, and even four types of soup in a single meal - each with a completely different flavor and character.

The tofu soup was followed by a round of steamed shrimp buns. By this point, I realized I was starting to get a bit full. however, as good as everything was, I couldn't help myself, so I just kept eating. The shrimp buns were also tasty, but I really wish we had ordered two orders of the xiaolongbao because they were simply outstanding.

After finishing off the last of the shrimp buns, we decided to take another look at the menu and pick out something for dessert. After looking everything over, we settled on two items - red bean buns, and steamed cake.

The red bean buns came out looking just like al of the other buns we ordered. However, when I went to pick one up with my chopsticks, I could tell right away the were different. The first giveaway was how sticky they were. The stuck to my chopsticks, and them to the roof of my mouth. The red bean filling was delicious. I helped myself to three of them before I had to call it quits.

I had just enough room left to try a bite of the steamed cake. We had one big piece to split between the four of us, and without a knie, it was a bit difficult to cut with chopsticks, but we managed. I was expecting a fairly light sweer dessert when I took my first bite. The cake turned out to be fairly light, but it only had a hint of sweetness. In fact, it had a flavor similar to white sandwich bread that didn't particularly do anything for me. I finished things off with a bit more tea, then sat back to let everything settle.

Once we had all rested up for a few minutes, we headed back downstairs to pay the bill. I don't know how I missed it on the way up, but there was a huge window into the dumpling and bun making room. It was like a mini-factory in there with a bunch of people mixing dough, rolling out dumplings, getting them into steamer baskets, and steaming them up. It was an incredible sight to watch.

After we paid the bill, we headed back outside to do some more sightseeing. This is when I saw the crowd that had gathered outside the restaurant to wait for a table. There was an electronic take-a-number sign hanging on a post that displayed the number of the next lucky diners to be granted admission. I later came to learn that once inside, you have 40 minutes to complete your meal before being asked to leave. No wonder our waitress and servers were so efficient!

I have to say, the Din Tai Fung turned out to be one of the best meals I had in Taiwan. Their steamed soup buns certainly live up to their reputation. If you ever find yourself in Taipei, definitely get on over to Din Tai Fung - it's an experience you won't want to miss.

The other night, my co-worker Adam and I decided to hit the streets of Chungli in search of something differnt than the usual Cantonese and Taiwanese food we had been having most of the past week. We spied a little restaurant off of a side street that looked appetizing, so we decided to go for it.

We were greeted with a hearty "Ni Hao" (hello), to which we replied "Ni Hao" back. We were immediately shown to a table and handed two menus. Issue number 1. We don't speak Mandarin, and no one at the restaurant spoke English. No problem, we've gotten by as some places have English menus, while others have pictures, or plasticized models of the various dishes. Problem 2, Shu Shan Chuan had neither. Our menu was entirely in Chinese, and there were no pictures to be found. Problem 3, we didn't bring a phrase book with us, so our communication was limited to a few key words: Hello, how are you, thank you, beer, numbers 0-10, etc.

With this in mind, imagine the scene that unfolded when our waiter approached and started asking us what we wanted in Chinese, and all we could do was look at him, smile a lot, and laugh. Then he laughed. Then we laughed again too. Before you knew it, we were all laughing and smiling, and it was just plain silly. In the end, we just sort of shrugged our shoulders, pointed at the menu, and pointed back at the waiter and made a gesture that we hoped translated to "please sir, we have no idea what we're doing here. Please choose something both tasty and nutritious for us to eat this evening". We could tell that the place served hot pots, so we hoped that was what we had just ordered.

It must have worked, because a few minutes later, a woman showed up at our table with a huge bowl with two types of broth in it. She placed it on a burner in the middle of the table and brought it to a boil. Meanwhile, other people started showing up at the table with plates containing all sorts of items for us to add to the pot. We had lettuce leaves, bok choy, mushrooms, lamb, thin sliced beef, dumplings, tofu, some sort of thing that looked like tofu, but was made from blood, and several other items that I couldn't identify. Someone else motioned us over to a little stand behind our table where about two dozen different pots and dishes were setup. The grabbed us an empty bowl and began mixing items from the pots and dishes - obviously mixing up a dipping sauce. We were handed the completed sauce and encouraged to go ahead and make our own. It was fun, even though I was only able to identify about half of the ingredients by sight.

The food itself turned out to be really good. Sometimes, it was a little messy to eat, but we really enjoyed the cook it yourself experience with ingredients we weren't normally used to working with.

As one friend suggested, next time we are in a situation where we can't easily communicate what we want to eat, we should try to act it out using charades. Given how our first experience went, I think it might actually be fun(ny) to give this a try sometime.

On my first night back in the Philippines for business, my co-worker Adam and I headed over to Greenbelt 2 to check out the restaurants. After walking up and down the row of restaurants, checking out the various menus, we decided on Mezze Restaurant and Bar, a small plates restaurant I had seen on previous trips to Manila, but had never tried.

All of the restaurants in the Greenbelt area are tastefully modern in their decor. Mezze was fairly empty when we arrived, with only two other small groups having dinner. We were a bit early, so the lack of a crowd didn't worry me. After being seated, our waiter brought by the menu. The page of small plate dishes was pretty extensive, and reflected a wide variety of ethnic dishes (Spanish, Greek, Mediterranean, Filipino). We decided to stick exclusively to the small plates, and ordered up a selection for our meal which included patatas bravas, a croquetta sampler, a gambas sampler, spanakopeta (note the generally accepted spelling should be spanakopita) , stuffed squash blossoms, salpicao, and a Mediterranean sampler called hors d'oeuvre mezze. The waiter asked if it was ok to bring out each plate as it was ready, which we agreed would be a good idea.

First up was the hors d'oeuvres mezze, consisting of hummus, baba ganoush, and a roasted pepper dip served with toasted pita chips. The hummus was unremarkable, as was the roasted pepper dip. The baba ganoush, however, was an excellent standout. It was much smoother than most baba ganoush I've had, and it had an excellent roasted eggplant flavor.

Almost immediately after the first dish arrived, our waiter returned with a large plate full of spanakopita, topped with parmesan cheese. The phyllo was light and crispy. My first bite, however, was also my last. In addition to spinach and feta cheese, Mezze also stuffed their pies with basil, which added a strong bitter taste to what would otherwise have been decent spanakopita. Basil isn't typically an ingredient in spanakopita, and a little might have added an interesting twist to the dish, but Mezze went overboard with it, ruining the dish completely.

The third dish to come out was the patatas bravas, consisting of crispy fried potatoes with herbs and a garlic-mayonnaise (ajo) sauce drizzled on them. These were great. The potatoes were perfectly browned and crispy as advertised. The ajo sauce added a nice balance to the potatoes, providing some additional moisture to the starchy potatoes.

After the potatoes came the croquetta sampler - two each of croquettas tres quezos (three cheese), croquettas jamon (ham), and croquettas chorizo (sausage). The three cheese croquettas contained swiss, edam, and cheddar cheese. They were steaming hot on the inside, and very cheesy. The cheeses blended well together, making it hard to identify the individual flavors. The ham croquettas also had mushrooms and truffle oil. The ham and mushroom went well together, but I couldn't taste the truffle oil. The third croquetta was stuffed with three types of sausage, bilbao, barbacoa, and pamplona. This was by far the best of the three, with the sausages really adding a nice punch to the croquettas.

Our next dish was another sampler. This time, it was shrimp. Four small bowls containing shrimp swimming in various sauces were presented to our table. They were shrimp in coconut curry, shrimp sauteed in spicy chili, garlic, and olive oil, shrimp cooked in pesto, and shrimp in crab caviar. The curry shrimp were good, but the other three varieties were not as exciting - it tasted as though the shrimp were undercooked. Further, the sauces overpowered the shrimp. A few more shrimp in each dish, or less of the sauces would easily solve the problem.

The second to last plate we ordered was squash blossoms stuffed with chicken sausage, and mozzarella, then breaded and deep fried and served with a romesco sauce. The breading and frying was well executed, but unfortunately, the chicken sausage had an overly livery taste that proved too distracting.

Our final dish of the evening was the salpicao oriente - sauteed pork tenderloin with garlic and spring onions. The pork was succulent and flavorful, although a bit salty. That's typical for salpicao, though, so I thought it compared well to other salpicaos I've tried.

All in all, our meal at Mezze was ok, but not spectacular. It started off fairly well, but there were enough poorly executed dishes spread throughout the meal that I probably won't be coming back during my next visit. There's definite potential in the menu, so I do hope that the chef comes to the same realization and makes some adjustments in the future.

David Bruce is one of my favorite California Pinot Noir producers. The man really knows his pinots. Last night I tried his 2004 Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast ($30). The wine was fairly fruit forward with notes of berry, black cherry, and plum. It felt full bodied and finished very smooth without overly agressive tannins. Overall, I liked the wine a lot. I currently have David Bruce pinots from two other regions that I'm looking forward to trying. I'd really like to use them in a tasting together - now I just need to figure out who to invite over!

Available locally at BevMo as well as the Wine Rack.

Every Friday, I meet up with a couple of work friends for breakfast before heading into the office. We try to keep our breakfast meetings central to where we live and also close to our Chandler office, which doesn't leave a whole lot of places to choose from. While I was surfing the web a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a restaurant I had never heard of before - the Hangar Cafe. Even more interesting than the fact that it was previously unknown to me was its location, the Chandler Municipal Airport. This Friday, we finally got a chance to pay the Hangar Cafe a visit.

Turns out that the cafe is actually located right out near the flight line, with a great view of the planes and helicopters both on the tarmac and in flight. When we arrived, the place was almost packed inside. There were a few people out on the patio, and with the temperature still fairly cool, we decided to sit outside so we could better take in the view. I had just seen the movie Flyboys the previous night, so I was pretty excited when a replica French Nieuport rolled out of the hangar next to us with two parachute clad pilots ready to take it for a spin.

The menu at the Hangar consisted of typical American breakfast items including bacon, eggs, sausage, pancakes, several omelets, a breakfast burrito, corned beef hash, and chicken fried steak, among others. I opted for the chicken fried steak with eggs over medium, hash browns, rye toast, and coffee.

The wait staff at the Hangar Cafe was super friendly and the service was prompt and competent. I never had to ask for a refill on my coffee. When my food arrived, it was cooked as ordered. Breakfast at the Hangar Cafe is nothing fancy, but the food I had tasted great. The chicken fried steak was one of the best I can remember having. The gravy was a standout. The hash browns were good, but I would have preferred them a bit crispier - something I realize very few breakfast places can pull off successfully.

I really enjoyed our outing to the Hangar Cafe and plan to keep it in my regular rotation of breakfast spots. It's also open for lunch, which presents another opportunity for a repeat visit. In addition to the good food, friendly service, and relatively cheap prices, the fact that you can relax and watch the planes take-off and land is n added bonus.

Where I work, we maintain a long list of local lunch spots we regularly eat at, as well as a list of places we've never been but want to try. We make it a point to try at least one new spot a week. A few weeks ago, Moody and I attempted to try out a new Korean restaurant in downtown Chandler called Chodang, but unfortunately, they were closed at the time (it was a Tuesday). It wasn't until the other day that we finally got another chance to give them a try.

From the outside, the restaurant didn't look like anything special. Many of the restaurants on Arizona Avenue in Chandler are housed in buildings that have been there for quite a while, and many of them are a bit rundown, so I wasn't setting my expectations very high. Imagine my surprise when we stepped off the street in Arizona and into what can only be described (by Moody) as the most authentic looking Korean restaurant he's seen in Arizona. The place was extremely clean, well lit, and pleasantly decorated with hardwood floors and partially wood paneled walls. Tasteful pictures and paintings of Korea hung on the walls. Each table was outfitted with a call buzzer, another touch popular in Korea. Ringing the buzzer activates an LED panel behind the service area, alerting the wait staff that you require attention. Moody gave it a try, and sure enough, about 30 seconds later, our waiter appeared.

Our meals started out with small salads, which were fairly plain and dressed with a sweet, soy based dressing. Shortly after, we placed our orders. While we waited for our entrees, the waiter showed up with a tray full of side dishes (banchan). My favorite thing about Korean food isn't the entrees; it's the side dishes that typically accompany them. In almost every Korean restaurant I've been to, you get between five and six small dishes of various types of kimchees and other items to go with your meal. The side dishes at Chodang were excellent - I really could have made a meal from them alone.

Both Moody and I opted for tofu soups. I ordered the beef version. Korean soups are served boiling (literally) hot, and this one was no exception. When the waiter served the soups, he asked us if wanted egg. Most Korean restaurants add the egg to the soup automatically, so I thought it was a nice touch that Chodang offered the option, especially since I wasn't in the mood for the egg anyhow. The soup itself was very flavorful and contained a healthy amount of beef and a ton of tofu. There was certainly no skimping on quantity. Chodang's beef tofu soup was easily the best I've had.

Of all the Korean restaurant's that I've eaten at in the valley (Hodori, Takamatsu, GoMo, Korean BBQ), I'd have to say that Chodang is my new favorite. The combination of interior aesthetic, tasty food and good service place them a notch above their competition.

My recent visit to Sassi (irritating website alert) can be summed up in one simple sentence. Great surrounds, inconsistent food, and mediocre service. I had high hopes for Sassi, I really did, but I digress... You see, yesterday was my 8th wedding anniversary. Since we do so much cooking at home, Pere and I almost always go out to celebrate really special occassions. After last year's relatively uninspiring experience at T. Cooks, we decided we were going to go back to Kai, but unfortunately, they are closed until September for renovations. We were just about to book dinner at one of our other favorite spots, Vincent's on Camelback when I remembered that I had been meaning to try Sassi, a Southern Italian restaurant next to Pinnacle Peak in Scottsdale. Forgoing a sure thing at Vincent's, we made reservations for Sassi.

Not knowing how traffic was going to be, we left our place a little early and ended up arriving at Sassi about 20 minutes ahead of our 7pm reservation. It wasn't a problem at all as the place was huge and there were only a few other diners that we could see. The hostess greeted us warmly and lead us back to a large table for two in the garden terrace room, with a nice sunset view. At the time, there was only one other table occupied in our small dining room.

Our waiter came by with menus and asked if we would like water, as well as if we wanted anything from the bar. Their drink menu had a few interesting "martinis" on it, so we decided to sample. I chose a limoncello martini while pere went with the "Bella Berry". Both of us chose to have our martini's "slushy". Each drink came in a martini glass with three round snowballs. Think of this as an adult version of the snow cone. When the waiter arrived with our cocktails, he accidentally started pouring my drink into Pere's glass. This wouldn't have been a problem except Pere's drink had a different garnish, and her rim wasn't sugared. Instead of correcting the problem, the waiter simply said "ooops", changed shakers, and filled the rest of her glass with the correct drink. Both drinks were pretty good, although next time I would probably order sans the slush.

While we looked over the menu trying to decide what to order, our waiter returned with a basket of fresh breads and a bottle of olive oil for dipping. The basket contained several breads including a crusty loaf, olive, walnut, focaccia, and flat bread. All were quite good.

While we were enjoying our cocktails, the hostess showed back up with a party of four and sat them at the table right next to ours. Why she did this in a mostly empty restaurant, when we were practically the only other people there escapes me. To make matters worse, they were obnoxious - typical Scottsdale hipster wannabe's with too much money and not enough taste. Our waiter only compounded the issue when the other party was trying to decide on drinks and he pointed out that we were drinking the martini specials. This prompted a lot of staring and attempts at humor. Normally, this wouldn't have bothered me so much, but we specifically chose to come to Sassi because we wanted to celebrate our anniversary in a romantic, intimate setting, and let the staff know this in advance. Pere summed it up pretty well when she remarked that she really didn't appreciate the overly familiar attitude our waiter had. When you're dining at a place like Sassi, you expect a certain level of professionalism that just wasn't on display during our visit.

There were so many interesting items on the menu that Pere and I decided to share a few in order to have more variety. We started our meal off with Sassi's calamari. Not to be confused with it's deep fried cousin, Sassi's version is made from small squid slices, celery, spicy peperoncino oil, almonds, and lemon zest. We also tried the barbabietola, a small salad of wood roasted beets and mint dressed with Agrumato tangerine olive oil and 20 year old balsamic vinegar.

For a pasta course, we shared a bowl of the gnocchi al funghi. Pillowy ricotta gnocchi with a wild mushroom ragu and shaved pecorino romano. The pasta was perfectly cooked. The mushroom ragu was excellent as well. There was one small problem. For some reason, the pasta and the ragu just never came together. That is to say, the "sauce" just wouldn't stick to the pasta. It was like oil and water. It didn't ruin the dish, but it did detract.

To accompany our meal, we chose a bottle of 1999 Selvamaggio Villa La Selva, a Super-Tuscan Cabernet. The wine was dark ruby in color, and was fairly fruity, with a long finish. Being bottle aged for so long, I think the wine would have done better had it been decanted (my fault for not asking). Overall, we both enjoyed it.

For an entree, Pere selected the Pesce al Cartoccio. In this case, the fish was salmon and was prepared by steaming in a paper bag with lemon, sage, ginger, and scallions. The presentation of the dish was very nice. Unfortunately, the filet was awfully thin and came out a bit overcooked. It was also overly lemony. We really liked the concept of the dish, but unfortunately, the execution just wasn't there.

The only other entree on the menu that really caught my eye was the stravaganza di agnello. The menu described the dish as Browns Orchard naturally raised lamb served three ways with local ratatouille. When the dish arrived, the "three ways" were a lamb chop, lamb rib, and shredded lamb mixed in with the ratatouille. The lamb chop was extremely flavorful, although a bit salty. The lamb rib was mostly fat, but still had good flavor. The shredded lamb with the ratatouille was good, but didn't stand out.

We declined dessert as we were both stuffed by this point. Our waiter wouldn't hear of it, though, and brought out an order of custard with fresh strawberries for us to share - on the house.

All-in-all, our meal at Sassi didn't live up to my expectations. That isn't to say that I'd never eat there again, but I think they still have a long way to go before I'd consider them a really great restaurant. In the meantime, I'm more likely to pay a return visit for happy-hour and either dine at the bar, or perhaps try the patio and make a meal of the excellent antipasti.