Bambule, Washington, D.C.

Leo and I headed up to Friendship Heights on the Metro this afternoon for some shopping at the Mazza Gallerie, and other neighborhood stores. The Metro was packed like sardines this afternoon--what was going on? It made us so hungry, we had to wander in to Bambule, a Spanish tapas bar, for a late lunch.

We stood forever at the door waiting to be seated, but the staff seemed to be preoccupied with setting up the patio deck for a big wedding reception. Eventually, one of the waiters went back to the kitchen and yelled at one of the waitresses in Spanish, and she eventually breezed out and told us to sit anywhere we wanted. We found a table in the middle of the dining room, which was actually a nice looking place, with burgundy draperies and ceiling hangings on stucco colored walls with dark woodwork. We sat and sat with no menus, no water, and no wait staff coming over to greet us. Eventually, Leo got out his cell phone to see the clock and announced that if they weren't out by 2:55 (ten minutes from then), we were leaving.

About 2:52. a waitress wandered out to pour water, but I asked her to bring us fresh glasses that didn't still have lipstick on them. That, of course, delayed things even more. After the water arrived, she wandered off again before eventually bringing us menus. After yet another wait, a different, older waitress came out to take our orders. Once we ordered the food, we tried to order sherry, and she said they didn't have any! I can't imagine a tapas bar without sherry!

Anyway, we started with gazpacho, which was cold, crisp, flavorful, and really good. The vegetables had been coarsely ground, rather than diced. The soup had a nice lemon zest to it. We had six tapas plates, including a lovely cerviche, a cheese plate, sliced sausages in sauce, a couple of veal slices, a pork dish wrapped around a potato, some nice calimari, and some sausage roll like things. Leo had some kind of round puff pastry filled with apples for dessert and I had an interesting cheesecake like thing which was freshly baked in flaky pastry (and still warm!), kind of like a small burrito. It was a tasty meal.

Unfortunately, I doubt I go back to Bambule again, since the service was so inattentive and disinterested.

Sassi, Scottsdale, AZ

Way, way out in the far northeastern part of Scottsdale is a grand Italian villa nestled in the shadow of Pinnacle Peak which houses a Southern Italian restaurant recommended by the America West (soon to be U.S. Airways, they announced on the news this evening) in-flight magazine called Sassi. "Sassi" is an Italian word for rocks or stones. The building is fairly new, but it has a definite grandeur and molto lussuoso design. Three of us—a solicitor, a judge, e io—made the lengthy trek tonight for our last dinner in Phoenix, and what an experience it was!

We were seated at a large, round table in the corner of the west side veranda for our al fresco dining experience, with a glorious view of the Arizona sunset awaiting us. With the sun going down behind Pinnacle Peak, the dusk was prolonged, and gave us nice silhouettes of the numerous saguaro cacti in the landscape. Our waiter, who is actually Italian, was very professional and helpful.

As we started with various aperitifs, I chose the DeFaveri Prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine. For antipasti, we nibbled on fiori di zucca, fresh squash blossoms which had been stuffed with a goat cheese and herb mixture, battered in a tempura-like coating, then deep fried to delicate crispness.

My first course (remembering that Italians don't count any of the appetizers, soups, salads, or what have you served before this as "courses") was a very tasty bowl of gnocchi al funghi. They found some very exotic mushrooms for the "funghi" that went with the semolina and ricotta gnocchi dumplings, bathing them in a rich mushroom cream sauce, and garnishing the plate with large shavings of pecorino romano cheese.

Scottaditi di agnello made a wonderful second course, with three good-sized grilled lamb chops from the local Niman Ranch perched on a plateful of saffron artichoke hearts and green Italian olive ragu. The chops were perfectly cooked and had such a fine woodsy taste to them I was strongly tempted to gnaw the bones! One of the other guys also got the lamb chops, and the other the pesce al cartoccio, a halibut steamed in a paper bag with diced vegetables and white wine that looked and smelled absolutely divine. I also got a chance to sample some of the zucca con noci, or slices of butternut squash baked in a wood oven with walnuts and honey, plus some other taste in the dish I couldn't quite place.

In lieu of dessert, I opted for i formaggi. The waiter didn't say what the cheeses were, so I'll have to guess that I had a fresh ricotta, pecorino, and a taleggio (though I'm a bit uncertain about the taleggio). The cheese came with a sliced green apple and another basket of the restaurant's very good assortment of Italian breads, including my favorite, pane pianto, some very thin, crispy, flatbread wafers. Other desserts at the table included a chocolate gelato topped with a layer of toasted hazelnuts and a tartufo, which I can probably best describe as a chocolate ice cream snowball.

I really liked Sassi. The environment was calm and luxurious (I've seen restaurant bathrooms smaller than the toilet stalls in this place!), the staff was attentive without hovering, and there was no pressure at all for us to vacate our prime table once we had finished eating. If one asked for directions to the facilities, a staff member actually escorted one to the room, instead of giving oral directions. (I suppose this also helped keep diners from getting lost in the large villa!) Prices were typical of a restaurant of this high caliber, so they weren't really out of line at all, though a diner should factor in the Italian tradition of what amounts to two "main courses." There is also an extensive, reasonably priced (reasonable is a relative term....) wine list which is heavy on the Italian reds, all categorized by Italian wine region. I give Sassi four and a half stars.

The Willows, Phoenix, AZ

The three "Alaska girls" from the meeting dragged me out to the casinos, claiming they wanted my company and the chance to show me around. Of course, the real reason they wanted to hang out with me wasn't my charming company, but the fact that I had a rental car. Nevertheless, we went to the Pima Tribe's two "Casino Arizonas," starting at the newer casino, since they had the nicer restaurants there. This casino had a buffet, a fancy steakhouse, and a 24-hour moderate restaurant called The Willows, which was where we dined. The food was simple and good, particularly the shrimp martini I had as an appetizer. This "martini" had eight smoky, grilled shrimp hanging from the rim of a big martini glass that was filled with cocktail sauce, lime wedges, and frisee.

Zest, Phoenix, AZ

After a long, long day of non-stop meetings, three of the solicitors from the D.C. office and I ventured out to dinner at a place called Zest Spirited Dining, another of the highly recommended new restaurants from the Arizona Republic review. Our young environmental lawyer even dressed "up" for the occasion, throwing a long-sleeved dress shirt over his t-shirt and jeans, and wearing black dress shoes to replace his highly decrepit Birkenstocks.

Zest is a dark but very open restaurant with the kitchen fully open to the main dining room and a bar by the main entry. The walls were covered by a temporary display of striking neo-Dadaistic art by a local painter. The menu is surprisingly simple, with just one page of appetizers and one page of entrees, and that was it.

Two of us ended up ordering appetizers, but everyone shared. One of the dishes was the house specialty, an eggplant cheesecake, a tender, cheesy, custardy dish served on a pool of roasted garlic tomato sauce. The other dish was the grilled scallops, with the scallops dusted in Jamaican "jerk" seasonings before being seared on the grill. While I like seared seafood, those who prefer their food thoroughly cooked may wish to specify that to the kitchen ahead of time. The scallops came with a tomatillo chipotle tartar sauce (tasty!) and a cilantro cabbage slaw with red chili oil and avocado. We washed all of these down with some very interesting beers. Mine was an "orange blossom ale" with a distinct, but delicate, orange water taste that made the beer seem almost sweet, and it had a pleasant orangy aftertaste that wasn't cloying or overpowering at all.

While we waited for our entrees, a pleasant young woman was bright magenta hair surprised us when she rolled a cart up to the table an announced she was there to make our salads. Turns out the salad course came with the entrees. She started with a base of assorted young greens in a citrusy vinaigrette (a salute to the restaurant's name??), then asked if we wanted any gorgonzola crumbles, dried cranberries, pecans, or orange wedges. The combination of all made quite a nice salad.

There were so many intriging entrees it had been hard for us to choose just four. Our vegetarian almost got the eggplant ratatouille, but chose the angel hair pasta instead. He seemed to like it, but I noted that it came with a rather thin garlicky balsamic vinegar sauce in great quantity which I'm not so sure I personally would have liked. One guy got the panko-breaded pork chop, another of the house specialties. "Panko" is the word for a special kind of Japanese bread crumbs. That dish came with mashed potatoes and a cranberry-orange chutney, and when queried about the entree, his considered analysis of the dish was that it was "good." I love verbose attorneys. The other guy selected the ahi tuna, which was seared on the grill with fresh cilantro, then served on a bed of lime-scented pearl couscous and topped with quite a lot of the tomato-pineapple pico de gallo. He said the tuna itself was very good, but it was rather overpowered by the pico de gallo.

I had a harder time picking a main course. There was a filet mignon topped with gorgonzola cheese with roasted sweet potatoes that looked yummy at another table. Osso bucco--one of my favorites--was also on the menu. I finally decided upon the domestic lamb shank. After all, the Navajo Indian Reservation takes up a huge block of the northeastern corner of Arizona, and sheep is what the Navajos herd. It was a fabulous choice. An absolutely enormous lamb shank had been wrapped in grape leaves and braised in a Syrah wine and tomato sauce. The lamb was fork-tender, juicy, and full of flavor, and clearly it was lamb rather than the "young sheep" that so many places try to sneak in. The lamb rested on a plate full of fusilli (corkscrew) pasta cooked to a perfect al dente that had been tossed in a delicious cream sauce with goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, fennel (adding an interesting crunch and a faint anise taste), and artichoke hearts with a grape and feta cheese relish on top. I was totally stuffed, but the pasta was so good, I forced myself to eat every last piece.

Regretfully, none of us ordered dessert. I thought maybe we'd get one single dessert to split four ways, but everyone was too full to commit to the decision. I think all of us were still a bit jet-lagged, too (at this point, our bodies thought it was after midnight).

Everyone said Zest is a place they'll try again on future trips to Phoenix. I'll give Zest four stars.

Durant's, Phoenix, AZ

Durant's is one of those old steakhouses, much like old steakhouses all over the country, that has been a fixture in downtown Phoenix for decades, and that is where we headed for dinner tonight. It was a trip back in time, as we were greeted by a gaggle of tuxedoed waiters and a flock of bar waitresses with their hair up and with a frilly apron over their clothes. The mezzalunar banquettes were upholstered in a deep red vinyl that almost matched the red flocked wallpaper. We half expected to hear a Rat Packer start crooning.

Our meal started with "Durant's Debris," a dreadful name for a delicious starter of small tips and pieces of beef marinated and broiled on a skewer. They were quite tender and tasty, and several of them would have made a fine meal. After a salad course of iceberg wedges and cherry tomatoes topped with a very chunky Roquefort dressing, we got to our main courses. I had a thick ribeye steak with garlic mashed potatoes and my dinner companion had the chicken "Oscar" (quotation marks were the restaurant's), which was a grilled chicken breast topped with a layer of grilled asparagus spears, then a layer of melted provolone cheese, and then a layer of grilled shrimp. We also shared a side dish of mixed sauteed mushrooms.

With barely room for more food, we decided to split something and ordered a strawberry shortcake. It's a good thing we were splitting, cause as it was, we only ended up eating about two-thirds of it. It wasn't that we didn't like it, it was just unconscionably huge! This tower of dessert had three big rounds of shortbread in graduated sizes with full serving quantities of strawberries and whipped cream in between each layer and on top. I do believe that this tower must have stood nine to ten inches tall!

Mezcal, Phoenix, AZ

Mezcal is touted as one of the "Five new restaurants not to forget about" by The Arizona Republic, Phoenix's main daily newspaper. Mezcal is nestled on the edge of Kierland Commons, a shopping center filled with very expensive stores and other restaurants. The restaurant has a very modern look to it, with sleek lines and darker desert colors. Art on the walls is large, simple, abstract, and limited. Mini-halogen spotlights float around the room on exposed wire tracks. In the center of the room, a huge spiral staircase goes around a series of large, rough-hewn lodge poles to Cobalt, Mezcal's bar. Cobalt targets a younger demographic and features a pianist after restaurant hours. Meanwhile, I noticed that the background music being played on the sound system in the dining room was largely pop hits from the early 1980s.....not exactly targeting a "young" demographic!

Menu items place great emphasis on "eco-friendly" food items, from organic vegetables to line-caught fish to antibiotic-free beef. The waiter seemed a bit annoyed with me when, after his eco-friendly litany of how humanely they killed their animals, I remarked that if I wanted to be truly eco-friendly, I'd be vegan, wouldn't I? The wine list, which was heavy on the California vineyards, also included several lables using organic grapes.

Dinner looked like it was going to be a pricey undertaking (especially on a $47 per day per diem, and on our "travel day," we only get 3/4ths of that!). with most entrees falling in the mid-$20 range and everything a la carte, so I opted for the four course prix fixe "summer tasting menu" and a wine flight with three half-pours, which I let the waiter select.

For the starter, I opted for the Big Sky bruschetta instead of the chicken and brie quesadilla. The bruschetta's toast was surprisingly thick and thoroughly dried before being "rubbed" with a layer of Stilton cheese and topped with diced tomatoes, red onions, garlic, and capers in a balsamic vinegar reduction. The bruschetta was tasty, but very hard to eat due to the thickness of the toast and the quantity of topping made eating with fingers messy. The four bruschette were arranged on a large plate with a huge mound of dressed assorted field greens in the middle. This was curious, as the only available second courses were salads, rather than soups. Wine for this course was a 2003 Bonterra Viognier, from Mendocino County, California. It was a nice, full white with a lot of spiciness that stood up well to the tomatoes and Stilton, and it was probably my favorite wine of the three.

My second course was the salad of baby organic field greens and herbs with pico de gallo, queso fresco, and aged red wine vinaigrette, which I thought would be more interesting than the alternative Arizona version of a Caesar salad. The salad was huge (enough for two!) and was heavily sprinkled with little cubes of freshly made Mexican white cheese. The pico de gallo had quite a kick to it, and its jalapeño content really overpowered the accompanying wine. That wine was a 2002 Markham Merlot from Napa Valley, and it was a classic example of an insubstanial merlot that wasn't even exciting when drunk by itself but, sadly, probably very popular with the masses as a cocktail party beverage.

I was excited about my main course, the highly-talked about Mezcal paella. The alternative choice was a lime-marinated flank steak. The paella was accompanied by a 2003 Wild Horse Pinot Noir from the Central Coast of California. It was a very nice pinot noir, but this particular vintage was not sufficiently acid or tannic to compete with the full flavors and spiciness of the paella. The dish included Florida white shrimp (which were very spicy!), half a dozen Penn Cove blue mussels in the shell, Chinese scallops, Monterray Bay calamari, Maverick Ranch chorizo (also a bit spicy), roasted Maverick Ranch free range chicken, and an unusual quantity of French-style haricots verts, plus the usual herbs, onions, sweet peppers, and saffron with rice. The mound of paella was presented with a large sprig of fresh rosemary stuck in the center like a proud flag. This course was very very good, but I can't say that I was ecstatic about it.

Another thing I should probably mention is the complimentary bread provided with the meal. They served a lovely herbed foccacia that was delicious when warm, but totally nondescript when it got cold (so eat it warm—it's good). It came with an unusual sauce of tomatoes and sweet red peppers whipped into an aioli with just a touch of olive oil.

Dessert was an enormous, quadruple serving of bread pudding topped with a big scoop of vanilla ice cream and a slightly Jack Daniels-infused (I actually couldn't taste it) creme anglaise, then dusted with cinnamon. The pudding was mixed with chocolate chips that I couldn't quite tel if they were cooked in or added prior to serving, or both. It had a custardy texture with a few spots that seemed undercooked, and on the whole, I was not impressed with the dessert. I ate less than half of it, and possibly should have opted for the alternative menu dessert, a chocolate gelato.

On the whole, Mezcal is a nice restaurant with a lot of potential, but I have to say that I was just not wowwed by it. The paella was excellent, but the other courses seemed rather ordinary and the dessert was merely mediocre. Similarly, the wine list was interesting, but not terribly fabulous, or even particularly geared to the menu. Out of five stars, I would give Mezcal a 3.5.