Red Feather Café Indian Route 24, Sacaton If you catch Red Feather Café on one of the few glorious days it’s open beneath the soaring water tower in Sacaton, you can grab homestyle chile on frybread or the O’odham tortilla known as c’emet. Sun beams, wind scours, arid mountains loom on the horizon: The setting is a strong seasoning, giving vitality to the traditional Native foods prepared from scratch by Geri and Jerry Leos. Simple frybread and beans? Divine. On Fridays, you can get bowls of soul-filling menudo with hot, fresh-baked bread. Some food trucks have murals and loud music. Red Feather Café has what your soul needs. amatriciana. As with his take on grilled oc- topus, one highlighting fennel, chickpeas, and Calabrese chile butter, there’s always some nice modern wrinkle. EEEEE Fe La Cubana 5821 North 67th Avenue 623-533-6912 Who eats in this Cuban cafeteria in far west Phoenix? Cab drivers. Quiet regulars. People who know the proprietor and watch TV while they wolf down pork steak and flan. The food awaits in warming tins. It is ladled in its fully saucy glory onto your plate, juices running to the rim. The ropa vieja is excellent, the tender braided strings of long-stewed beef sopping with peppery juices. Oxtails are wildly decadent and so slide-apart that they cave under your fork with the most minimal pressure. Even the black beans are fire. This is the kind of Cuban cafeteria you’d expect in New York or Miami, so we’re thrilled Fe La Cubana calls Arizona home. EEEEE PHX Lechon Roasters 659 East Main Street, Mesa 602-410-8115 phxlechonroasters.com It sounds like a tree breaking in half — rip- ping down the middle with a deafening crack. But it’s just Brian Webb hacking the head off a full mahogany-lacquered pig with a cleaver. Webb’s lechon baboy is seri- ous business. He turns the pig for hours over live charcoal, as he learned to from his wife Margita Webb’s family in Lapu Lapu City, in the Philippines. Lemongrass and garlic perfume the meat, tender but for the pieces with crackly bits of skin. At PHX Lechon Roasters, the Webbs also cook to- go meals (on some occasions), including whole kamayan dinners with edible gems like lumpia rich with pork and fried spare- Glai Baan 2333 East Osborn Road 602-595-5881 glaibaanaz.com Glai Baan, which serves the street food of northern Thailand, isn’t your average Thai restaurant. The menu is fairly small — there aren’t expansive lists of curries and noodles and rice dishes. But what it lacks in size, it makes up for in authenticity and out-of-this-world flavor. Soup isn’t usually a showstopper, but the kao tom moon — a large bowl of rice, chicken broth, ground pork, shrimp, and crispy garlic oil — nearly ribs. Their ube pandesal, soft purple dinner rolls oozing molten cheese, are among the most comforting bites around. EEEEE 3 Regions Vietnamese Kitchen 28325 North Tatum Boulevard, #6, Cave Creek 480-219-7254 3regionsvietnamesekitchen.com Quality Asian restaurants are no easy find north of the 101, but 3 Regions Vietnamese Kitchen is a glaring exception. Chef Jenna Dao, a native of Hue, Vietnam, prepares dishes from the country’s three primary re- gions: north, south, and center. Her spe- cialty is a yawning bowl of bun bo hue, a rice noodle soup fragrant with lemongrass and bobbing with tender sails of beef, sliv- ered onion, and deep red chile oil. Her pho is also very good, if, when craving soup, you can turn from bun bo hue. Her banh xeo crepes are crisp, lacy, and crammed with decadent pork. Even her simple bun — rice noodles dipped in fish sauce, garlic, and citrus — feels pleasantly funky and extra refreshing. EEEEE made us shout with joy the first time we tried it. The kanom jeeb, little pork dump- lings with scallion and ginger soy, is an- other standout dish. The drink menu gets switched up every so often, but it’s filled with creative cocktails with region-appro- priate ingredients like lemongrass and Asian spirits. We highly recommend mak- ing a reservation and/or calling in your takeout order well in advance; Glai Baan is hugely popular with diners who come from all over the Valley to experience this tiny gem. EEEEE Drunken Tiger 1954 South Dobson Road, #5, Mesa 480-755-7555 drunkentigeraz.com What’s on the menu at Justin Park’s rol- licking, black-walled eatery in a Mesa strip mall where the East Asian brews and soju cocktails flow? Korean street food, drunken munchies, classics, hybrids, and whatever the hell he feels like cooking. This place is so freeform and YOLO that Park has been known to hook up water- melon with soju and Pop Rocks. The young chef can cook up a storm. Classics like thin, flavor-bursting bulgogi and chewy tteok- bokki bathed in fiery chile sauce tend to be right on target. So, too, are his remixes, like a Korean take on elote and a KFC (Korean fried chicken) that sees buttermilk-brined dark meat fried to perfect crispness and juiciness — ideal for sidekicking one or many drinks. EEEEE Hana Japanese Eatery 5524 North Seventh Avenue 602-973-1238 hanajapaneseeatery.com For more than a decade, Lori Hashimoto and her family have run a no-frills Japa- nese restaurant with uncommon range. The sushi at Hana is first-rate, especially some of the higher-end options. Uni quiv- ers under a quail egg and vanishes in your mouth with the same briny glory of smell- ing a salt wind off the sea, only far cream- ier. Toro is so gloriously marbled that it looks more like pork cheek than tuna. Hana can finesse traditional dishes like monkfish liver and many kinds of tempura. The kitchen has all the goodness of the su- shi bar, plating bang-up fried oysters, katsu breaded with panko, and even teriyaki that, yes, is well worth ordering. Chou’s Kitchen 1250 East Apache Boulevard, #101, Tempe 480-557-8888 910 North Alma School Road, Chandler 480-821-2888 chouskitchen.com A surefire way to banish all memories of sticky Americanized Chinese food is to step into this Tempe stalwart and embrace the depth of Sunny and Lulu Zhao’s north- eastern Chinese menu. To begin, don’t overlook the drinks. Why settle for water when you can sip plum juice or fresh pa- paya milk? At Chou’s, noodles and clay pots are just the iceberg’s small tip. The main event is the world of dumplings, most fa- mously pan-fried meat pies whose doughy sheaths give way to hot ground beef. Dumplings contain squash and egg, pork and pickled vegetables. You can go with classic potstickers or tuck into steamed mackerel enrobed in dough. Chou’s has the kind of menu that you could order from 10 times and still have 20 more things to try. EEEEE The Tasty Touch Flavors of India 4727 East Bell Road, #5 480-499-2737 thetastytouch.com You never know when you’re going to stumble on a gem. One night, we were in the mood for Indian food and wanted to get takeout from a place nearby. The Tasty Touch came up on the Google search, and the rest is history. We’ve been back plenty of times to this strip-mall eatery, where the service is uncommonly friendly and the food is always spot-on. The lamb biryani with caramelized onions and saffron rice is a frequent go-to, as is the chicken saag, chunks of dark meat chicken swimming in a puree of spinach, onion, ginger, and gar- lic. We love to dip Tasty Touch’s incredible garlic naan into the liquid of the saag, too. There’s so much to explore on Tasty Touch’s menu that we know we’ll be mak- ing trips there for a long time to come. EEEEE Haji-Baba 1513 East Apache Boulevard, Tempe 480-894-1905 facebook.com/hajibabatempe How to make a lifelong Haji-Baba fan: Bring them to the restaurant one time. That’s what happened to us, and decades 179 SEPTEMBER 30, 2021 | WWW.BESTOFPHOENIX2021.C0M | BEST OF PHOENIX 2021 B E S T CHINE S E R E S T A UR A NT f B E S T F O OD T R UCK o o d & dr i nk B ES T RES T U K RO AN REAN A T B E S T INDIA N R E S T A UR A NT B E RES S T VT IETN A A U R MET AN S E B ES T C U B AN RES T A U R AN T B ES T J A P AN ESE RES T A U R AN T B E T MIDDL S RES T A E EAN R A T S U T ERN B B E S T FILIP IN O F O OD E S T TH AI R E S T A UR A NT
