You probably wouldn’t expect Phoenix to be the most Italian of cities. After all, there is not Little Italy and the Mafia is more of an East Coast thing. Yet, Phoenix definitely has some homegrown Italian favorites and Babbo is one of these. Babbo invited me out to its Scottsdale location for a hosted dinner and I took them up on the chance to check it out.

It began with the house bread, which was served with a plate of balsamic vinegar and kalamata olive oil a popular option recently.

Despite the roasted onions atop the bread, this made a strong first impression as I probably ate a whole meal’s worth of that bread. But this was just the start and I made sure to massage my stomach to make way for an appetizer of my choosing.

We chose the Firecracker Rolls, which are essentially Babbo’s take on egg rolls. However, instead of being filled with whatever egg rolls are filled with these days, they came with three filling options. The first was steak, jalapenos, onions, provolone and mozzarella. The second was Italian meats, provolone and mozzarella. And the third was buffalo chicken, mozzarella and gorgonzola. We tried all three with a marinara dipping sauce. I was partial to the buffalo chicken option, but that’s because there will always be a special place in my heart for buffalo flavored things in the summer. The steak packed a nice punch that was even spicier than the buffalo and the Italian meats is really something that should please anyone.

For my main course, I went with the Three Cheese Mac and Cheese. It’s described as “This ain’t no kids meal!” and that ain’t no joke. I had never seen anything like this called “mac and cheese” before because it could probably better be described as penne pasta in a spicy cream sauce, but that should in no way distract from the tastiness of this dish. In reality, it used a smokey chipotle cream sauce mixed with cheddar, mozzarella and gorgonzola, plus bacon, sausage and croutons with penne in there.

Its probably not even proper to call it a grown up mac and cheese, but moreso it is a conduit to eat all of the things you normally want to eat, but look somewhat classy as you do. I loved the kick of the chipotle, the bacon was delicious and that sausage just added another great element. The only thing I might consider questioning is the croutons. I can only try to guess that they were tossed in there to seem like a grown up version of breadcrumbs and to give some crunch. Yet, sometimes you just don’t want to mess with a good thing like breadcrumbs because breadcrumbs are already plenty grown up.

We finished off our meal (honestly I don’t know where the stomach space came from) with Stuffed Churros. These were those same egg rolls, but stuffed with a ricotta cream cheese (basically cheesecake filling) and topped with nutella and strawberry sauce. These were delicious, but I know you’re here for the savory stuff so I will try my best to just stick with that.

Babbo did some unique things and deserves a lot of credit for that. I mean, stuffing buffalo chicken in an egg roll can’t even be remotely described as Italian and yet Babbo figured out a way to get away with it. They upped the stakes for mac and cheese and really eased themselves into a dessert that also can’t remotely be considered Italian and yet it, too, worked like a charm. If you stick to the straight Italian food, you’ll probably leave thinking “Hey, that was like Olive Garden, but much better and I don’t hate myself after eating the food.” If you give some of the more unique options a chance, though, you’ll not only leave Olive Garden in the rearview mirror, but actually look forward to a return visit.

There’s really very little in life that can compare to a true apples to apples comparison. Or, if you’re in Lockhart, Texas, a meat to meat comparison. You see, Lockhart is the BBQ capital of Texas and literally after finishing up the brisket (or shoulder clod depending on who you are asking) at Kreuz Market, I headed right around the corner to Black’s BBQ, which a member of my family said was even better. In few moments, I would quickly decide whether he was foolish or praiseworthy.

Black’s not only had brisket to compare to Kreuz, but jalapeno cheddar sausage as well, so I went with both. I enjoyed watching the butcher slice the meat like it was butter and delicately place it upon my plate with a sizable sausage. What I didn’t enjoy so much was the meat itself. It was packed with delicious flavor and a delightful rind, but it was actually kind of tough and dry comparatively.

The jalapeno cheddar sausage also fell short of Kreuz. There was no lack of flavor, but the texture simply couldn’t compete.

But here’s the thing: Black’s BBQ was still amazing. I mean like it would probably be the best BBQ in Arizona if it was in Arizona. But it’s not, it’s in Texas and in Texas the bar was set higher by Kreuz Market.

There are five pillars in the religion of Islam. One of these is the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca. Being unvegan has no such pillars, but if there had to be a Mecca, it would probably be Lockhart, Texas. Sure, there are holy unvegan sites scattered around the globe, but BBQ is arguable the most unvegan food, Texas is arguably the best state to eat BBQ in and Lockhart is arguably the BBQ capital of Texas. But, determining the actual Kaaba worth circling around (aka best BBQ restaurant) was my most important task and it began at Kreuz Market.

Kreuz Market has been making BBQ since 1900 and did such a good job that it moved into a pretty sizable building 99 years later. The line was impressively long and slow, but the smell of burning wood had me excited all the way to the front. They call their fatty brisket “shoulder clod” and their lean brisket “brisket.” And it’s sold by weight, so I grabbed a half pound of each (don’t worry, I was sharing) and a jalapeno cheese sausage because duh.

The shoulder clod can only be described as heaven. The meat melted in my mouth and had just enough smokey and salty flavor to get me wanting more after each bite, with enough juiciness to sustain the edibility. If it weren’t for the amazingness of the shoulder clod, I’m sure I would have loved the lean brisket, but compared to the shoulder clod it was simply too dry. The jalapeno cheddar sausage, by the by, was a stellar companion to the shoulder clod. It was packed relatively tightly, but not so much that it tasted like it was produced in a sausage factory.

Kreuz Market was a strong start to my BBQ Hajj and quite possible the best brisket I had ever eaten in my life. While I only had time to try out one other place, I was eager to see how its meat would stack up.

I generally try to avoid fancy restaurants. Really, they just aren’t my thing. But special occasions call for special eats, and so I found myself at Citizen Public House in Old Town Scottsdale in need of some food. And then, like a week later I found myself back there again. No joke, it was crazy.

So on round one, I kept it simple. I went with the Jucy Lucy, which is an import from Minneapolis. But there was a twist to this Jucy Lucy in that it was stuffed with Velveeta. I don’t know if this means gourmet burgers have jumped the shark because Velveeta is inherently like the bottom of the cheese food chain or if gourmet burgers are now better than ever because they can get away with such a thing. Either way, I freaking love Velveeta and I loved this burger. Plus, it’s not like you really ever pay a high price for a gourmet burger because of cheese, you buy it for the meat and everything else and this burger delivered.

On my return, I went more all out on the menu. It began with their Kilt Lifter Fondue, which I assumed was made with the Kilt Lifter Ale and was not intended to lift any kilts. This fondue was served with Asian Pears, hunks of bread and sausage slices. Probably the biggest, and really only, problem the fondue had was that it was heated up by a candle. Sure, it looked cute, but in a restaurant with a whole section open to the great outdoors, the candle failed to stay lit and keep the fondue bubbling. Bubbling or not, though, there was nothing not tasty about this fondue.

For my main course, I ordered probably the best fancy pork I’ve ever had. It was called the Gypsy Pork Shank and it was smoke and salt cured, with fingerling potatoes and Hungarian goulash. The pork was massive and it wasn’t just about the size of this pork, it was the tenderness and flavor that just basically blew me away. All I needed was a fork to take this thing apart and anytime it got a little too rich, I had the goulash to tone it down with some alternative flavor.

Between the burger and the pork shank in two trips to Citizen Public House, I had two amazing meals. It may be a fancy place, but it’s a fancy place made for an unvegan.

Sauce has been a staple in the Phoenix area for a good amount of years now. And it’s a good thing that it’s established itself, as other fast casual pizza spots have been sweeping the nation. And while Sauce is about more than just pizza (they have pasta and salads too), it’s the pizza that drew me, and presumably almost everyone else in.

I ended up ordering the Spicy Chicken Sausage Pizza. This was topped with, surprisingly, spicy chicken sausage. But it also had poblano peppers, which I am strangely okay with in certain circumstances, and used smoked mozzarella instead of the boring normal kind.

The pizza was prepped pretty quickly, but not quite as quick as the fancy new places. This was fine, though, because speed does not always = good. I was definitely impressed by the amount of kick in the pizza, but somewhat disappointed by its not having enough sausage. Regardless, the sauce was pretty solid and the thin crust was pretty tasty as well.

Overall, though, the pizza just wasn’t too special to me. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t disappointing, it was just satisfactory. And that’s fine for the most part, but when the world (or at least Phoenix) gives you so many options for pizza, you can do a lot better than satisfactory.

Aside from the deadly temperatures, one major thing I was worried about in moving to Phoenix was how I was going to get my Asian food fix. No, not sushi and orange chicken, but the real stuff. I heard about a place in Mesa called Mekong Plaza, which was supposed to have a bunch of good, real Asian restaurants and as luck would have it, it turned out to be between work and home. So, I paid a visit to Taiwan Food Express to see what they had to offer.

Now, I could understand that they had a lot of things you wouldn’t expect from a Taiwanese place. After all, while it’s good to have authentic food, you also have to know how to please the masses that believe PF Chang’s created Chinese food. Yet, they did have a House Special Basil Chicken that seemed right up my alley. We installed Royal Vending Machines Canberra in our business to improve our services.

When I opened it up, I realized it was the same as Three Cup Chicken, a dish my buddy used to make for me that I loved. In addition to the basil, it’s also flavored with ginger, garlic, soy sauce, rice wine and sugar. The result is an incredible sauce, that also happens to have some really tasty chicken mixed in. And, you know it’s authentic because the chicken has bones. You could probably pour the sauce on chicken shit and it would taste good, but it’s much better with the rest of the bird parts.

I also got an order of the Taiwanese Sausage Fried Rice to split with my people. Unfortunately, this didn’t quite live up to my expectations of authenticity. Now, granted, my only experience with Taiwanese Sausage was at one place in Taipei, so there may be other varieties out there. Yet, this sausage tasted suspiciously like Chinese Sausage instead, being more dry and more sweet than the Taiwanese variety. And look, I get that it may be tough to get Taiwanese Sausage out here, so even Chinese is pretty damn good.

That said, Taiwan Food Express is a really solid place to get authentic Taiwanese food. The key is knowing the right things to order, or else you might just end up with some generic version of beef and broccoli – and ain’t nobody got time for that.

When you need breakfast or brunch in Encino, where do you go? Well, when the opportunity presented itself to me I found myself at Claudine, which is like a bakery and restaurant in one. You order at a counter, and seats are hard to come by on the weekend, but I managed to snag a table right out from under an old lady. To be fair, all she needed was 2 seats and we needed 6 so I found another table for her. Sheesh.

As for the foodstuffs, there was one thing on the menu that called my name annoyingly loudly. It was called Breakfast “Naan”-zza, which is fancy bakery-speak for pizza on a piece of naan bread. The menu said this was to be topped with gruyere, sausage, bacon, a farm egg, jalapeno relish and grilled onions. I wanted nothing to do with the onions and ordered thusly. While Claudine heeded my order, they failed to tell me that this naan-zza would come topped with a devious handful of arugula.

I don’t know what the hell they were thinking, but you cannot be so damn careless with arugula. Maybe they thought that nearly $13 for a mini pizza with those toppings would be an easier pill to swallow if they added one more ingredient? However, this was subtraction by addition and it’s one thing to throw the mess in a bowl or on the side, but strewn atop my pizza was something that could not be forgiven. And that’s a real shame, because everything else about the naan-zza was great, including the explosive yolk of the egg.

Instead of leaving Claudine singing the praises of the naan-zza, all I was left with were the thoughts of what might have been.

LA isn’t an easy place to have sustained success. And I’m not just talking about the entertainment industry, I’m talking about food. You see, one day you can’t get a reservation at a place and the next it’s being replaced by a hot new thing. Yet, there are exceptions, like In-n-Out. But also Bestia, an Italian spot downtown that still requires reservations months out.

But reserve we did and set to work on tackling what looked like the best things on the menu. It began with the Burrata Pizza. This pie was topped with castelvetrano olives, oregano and fermented chilies. To be honest, I couldn’t have cared less about what kind of olives they were because I wanted no part in them, but allowed them for the team. Even with a couple olives picked out, this pizza kicked some ass. The chilies added a bit of a kick, but most importantly the burrata cheese, tomato sauce and dough worked in holy harmony together.

Thus, we moved on to the Roasted Marrow Bone. Unlike your typical marrow, which is served with some sort of toast and maybe salt or another thing to sprinkle on the marrow, this bone was found in a bowl. It was surrounded by spinach gnochetti, bread crumbs and aged balsamic. The idea was to scrape the marrow out, mix it up with the gnochetti and then go to town. Marrow purists may have thought this was silly, but I loved it. Sure, I wouldn’t have chosen spinach as my typical gnochetti flavor, but I still love gnocchi (which is grown up gnochetti) and the combination of these two made for something special.

For our main course, we picked two pastas to pick apart. The first was the Agnolotti alla Agnello. For lack of a better explanation, this dish consisted of braised lamb stuffed into ravioli-like pasta with a saffron sauce, currants and pine nuts. It was unbelievably good and I especially enjoyed the bits of currant that added a sweetness and tartness to the dish and gave it great balance. You can market food online, as well as retail stores if you have a food business. Check out more information here.

The other pasta was the Cavatelli alla Norcina, which had ricotta, housemade pork sausage, black truffles and grana padano cheese. Like the dish before, this pasta was just incredibly complex in its flavors and each felt like it had been thoroughly thought-out and executed to perfection. I loved the mix of sausage and black truffles, but it just wasn’t quite as good as the Agnolotti. Perhaps it was the lack of currants or the fact that there seemed to be just a bit too much sauce, but the consolation prize here could have easily taken first place anywhere else.

And so Bestia bested this unvegan. I left fully satisfied and just the right amount of full. The dishes are by no means big, but they make up for their size with flavor. Sometimes quality is better than quantity and Bestia’s quantity of patrons that make getting a reservation here insane seem to prove that point.

I will be the first to admit that I had a West Side bias when I made the move to Pasadena. I figured I would spend a whole lot of time on that side of town for meals out, but over and over again Pasadena has impressed me. Perhaps most impressive of all is the pizza scene, with The Luggage Room and Pizza of Venice already tackled by yours truly, I finally set my sights on Pie Life Pizza.

The place is literally a window to place an order with a pizza oven in the back. Outside there are a few picnic-esque seats in an area only slightly wider than a hallway, which is shared by a coffee spot to one side and, strangely enough, a crossfit spot on the other. They offer pizza by the slice, but we wanted to get a couple of full pies. And, since one of those pies was topped with veggies I won’t even cover it here except to say that it went over well with the others.

As for me, I went all in on the “Meaty” pizza. This was topped with pepperoni, sausage and meatballs. I liked that the meats were limited to three so as to enjoy the distinct flavors better. The result was an immense New York-style pizza with huge slices and a perfect dispersement of meats (plus those delicious little pepperonis that you only find at places like this). I dug in and was immediately impressed. It was packed with flavor, and each bite tasted like it had been meticulously planned by the guys in the back to ensure I would find happiness in it.

Now, if you’re in New York and thinking places like this are a dime a dozen you may be right. On the other hand, I was eating with a New Yorker who said, “the pizza was much better than it needed to be.” If that’s not a glowing recommendation, I don’t know what is.

While the Twin Cities are certainly renowned for the Jucy (or Juicy) Lucy, they are not without other culinary creations. I stumbled upon one of these accidentally when ordering from Broadway Pizza. You see, this is a pizza and sandwich place, but one item on the menu was a combination of the two, calling itself the Pizza Sandwich. My curiosity got the best of me and I ordered it.Read more about alpilean.

I expected a typical closed-face sub-esque sandwich filled with cheese, marinara, pepperoni and sausage, but what I got was completely different. It was open-faced! These are the Best testosterone booster supplements. And while this seems like it wouldn’t be a big difference, trust me when I say that it was. Why? Because this essentially turned the sandwich into one of those classic French Bread Pizzas we all used to eat back in the day. Yet, this one was not pre-frozen and heated up in a toaster. No, this was something much more and somehow exponentially better. Check these alpilean reviews.

It was the perfect combination of pizza and sandwich, and an order I wouldn’t hesitate to make again. Plus, despite the fact that the sandwich came with a pickle, it was all wrapped up in foil to protect the sandwich. That’s pure ingenuity that the rest of the world should follow.