Chris Malloy Dining Guide from p 37 own. Quietly, Balkan Bakery’s bourek is one of Phoenix’s finest baked goods. 1107 E. Bell Rd.; 602-996-4598; facebook. com/balkanbakery. ($) Café Chenar: The Bukharian food plated, bowled, and served hot and doughy in lidded bamboo baskets at Café Chenar is Bukharian — the food of a Jewish minority of Uzbekistan. This is the native country of the Uvaydov family, whose matriarch, Mazel, presides over the cooking of Café Chenar. The family also runs LaBella Pizzeria and Kitchen 18 in Scottsdale, but Café Chenar is where the Bukharian wonders live. This central Asian restaurant of soups, dumplings, kebabs, and Cornish hens is a return to family roots after catering to other palates. Diners sit in a spare, sleek modern dining room chatting softly over porcelain teapots, green tea issuing warming steam from deeply blue, gold-rimmed cups. From one angle, to eat at Café Chenar is to embrace a vast world of dumplings. Dough pockets come large and small, pan-fried and deep-fried, steamed and souped. They come as manti, pelmeni, and hanum. But this is just one angle through which to see Café Chenar. There are other enclaves of the menu, plenty of sub- categories to hungrily roam. Don’t miss the extensive selection of kebabs, flat metal skewers ripe with, ideally, sweetbreads and lamb ribs. Or a section of well-priced savory hand pies, like beef-rich samsa. You can also enjoy larger-format plates, like Cornish hen and molded-rice mountains of plov. The way to best experience this food at the crossroads of European, Asian, Russian, and Jewish traditions is to order small, widely, and to share. Café Chenar is an important cog not only in our kosher restaurant scene, but in our food culture as a whole. 1601 E. Bell Rd., Suite A-11; 602-354-4505; facebook. com/Cafe-Chenar-332809414128775. ($$) Chino Bandido Takee-Outee: This Chinese-Mexican-Caribbean mashup was established in 1990 by husband-and-wife team Frank and Eve Collins and boasts a loyal cult following in the Valley. The kitchen yields a blend of Mexican and Asian cooking, creating multitudes of different mix-and-match food combina- tions, thanks to Eve’s Chinese background and the couple’s Arizona roots. Over the decades, the restaurant has grown into a 5,000-square-foot, 150-seat space, offering dine-in as well as takeout. The deep-fried, spicy-sweet Jade Red Chicken is practically legendary, while the slow-cooked carnitas dish is perfect next to a pillowy bed of steamed, white rice. If you’re trying to get wild, opt for a burrito filled with egg foo yung or jerk chicken, or a quesadilla jammed with Chinese barbecue pork. And save room for dessert: Each takeaway order comes with a complimentary snickerdoodle cookie. 15414 N. 19th Ave.; 602-375-3639; chinobandido.com. ($) Confluence Restaurant: This restaurant’s riverine name refers to the fluid joining of culinary influences. Chef Brandon Gauthier pulls from traditions across southern Europe, Asia, and North America, combining them with impressive skill and vision. Victoria Gauthier manages the dining room and beverage program. Brandon’s food is seasonally sensitive fine-dining New American with technical chops and creative charm. He effortlessly toggles between acoustic (fried chicken, carnitas tacos) and electric (confit wagyu beef cheek, watermelon soup). The electric dishes — characterized by imagination and flavor detonations — can be spectacular. That watermelon soup, yellow, reaches distant realms of fruity flavor with apricot and pickled cherries, spoonfuls cold, bracing, and wildly refreshing come 114 degrees. Brandon also, for instance, poaches pear in sake, fans slivers around angel food cake, adds candied pecans, then jolts the airy desert with small peaks of vibrant yuzu curd. Simple dishes, those of a few experimental touches rather Confluence Restaurant. than many, also hit the spot. Sunchoke soup is rich and nutty. Iberico pork shoulder is rich and nutty in a wholly different, more animal way, dissolving on the tongue in a rush. Fennel and lion’s mane mushrooms anchor a sandwich that satisfies more than seems possible. Brandon cooked for Kevin Binkley for roughly a decade. In February 2018, mentee bought the space that would become Confluence from mentor. Today, the Gauthiers’ Carefree restaurant is one of the most underrated in the Valley. 36889 N. Tom Darlington Dr., Carefree; 480-488-9796; restaurantconfluence.com. ($$$$) Seydi’s Pupuseria & Grill: Fast-casual north Valley eatery Seydi’s Pupuseria & Grill has Phoenix hooked on El Salvador’s most famous dish: the pupusa. This mother-and-son-operated pupuseria is run by Jose Flores and the Usulután, El Salvador- born Seydi Flores. At the straightforward ordering counter, you can choose from 12 pupusas — some with shrimp, with green peppers, with jalapeños, beans, melted mozzarella — all tucked inside a soft, grill-kissed, handmade enclosed sandwich the size of a compact disc. We recommend the pupusa heavy with loroco — an edible flower common in El Salvador and Central America, sourced from a Spanish market in Los Angeles. Before you envision a weed, we’re here to tell you it’s more like artichoke, which vibes well with the cheese, jalapeño, and corn dough. Other menu items are already favorites at Seydi’s, like the fried yucca, banana-leaf tamales, and coconut water. 2625 E. Greenway Pkwy., #107; 602-404-7634; seydis-pupuseria-grill.business.site. ($) SOUTH PHOENIX Carolina’s Mexican Food: This south Phoenix staple is a true come-as-you-are restaurant. It is almost shockingly bare bones. There’s no decor on the paint-chipped walls, no music. The stark white building’s entrance leads straight to the ordering counter just above a scuffed wall. But those shoe-marked baseboards speak to the many over-eager diners running up to place their order. That’s because the food here — catalogued on the wall above the register — is exceptional. It’s nothing a Mexican food fan hasn’t seen before — burros, tacos, enchiladas, tostadas — but all those specimens are basically perfect. Need proof? The parking lot is usually full, and the booths of the cafeteria-style dining area are almost always occupied. More proof? Order the red chile burro, the super-soft beef wrapped with precision in a handmade flour tortilla. Get a tamale, even if it isn’t Christmas. Go for the machaca enchilada. Arrive on Saturday for the menudo. And order a bag of tortilla chips just to try the famous, bright-red hot sauce. Carolina’s has been around since 1968, when it was opened by Carolina Valenzuela, and it has held on at this location since 1986. There are several Carolina’s locations around the Valley, but the Mohave Street spot will always be a Phoenix favorite. 1202 E. Mohave St.; 602-252-1503; carolinasmex.com. ($) Little Miss BBQ: Little Miss BBQ is a popular barbecue restaurant — a very popular barbecue restaurant. It is the kind of joint where, while waiting in line, a piece of tape may get slapped over an item on the large, displayed menu, exacerbating your order anxiety. But that’s all part of the experience. If you’re not on your feet, standing with strangers waiting patiently to order, your nose filled with the fumes of grilling meat, your stomach sucking up against your spine — well, you’re not doing it right. Little Miss BBQ was started by a competitive barbecue team inspired by the barbecue joints of the Texas Hill Country. Sides range from the expected to the inventive — anything from creamy mac and cheese and coleslaw to jalapeño >> p 40 39 phoenixnewtimes.com | CONTENTS | FEEDBACK | OPINION | NEWS | FEATURE | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | FILM | CAFE | MUSIC | PHOENIX NEW TIMES JUNE 24TH – JUNE 30TH, 2021
