Dmnkly wrote:So glad to hear it is missed!

Temporarily gone, but not dead. Total server meltdown, but the folks who are now running the board have a timely backup and are working on getting it back up and running on a new server. Should be alive before too long.

Thanks for the update; I'm not nearly as active as I once was, so I wasn't sure if I missed an announcement.

I actually had to cancel my Vegas trip, and of course the LTH thread more than sufficed for my purposes, but I do enjoy reading both boards. Plus, I had updates planned for the sous vide thread.

jlawrence01 wrote:Across the street from the Mekong Plaza are two more interesting restaurants that are worth a try.

Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle shares the name with a very famous noodle shop in Philadelphia. I am not sure that they are related. I will say that they make their own noodles in house and they have a wide variety of dishes and soups'

Nan Zhou Hand Drawn Noodle - Mesa
111 S Dobson Rd #108
Mesa, AZ 85202
Phone: (480) 275-5352
http://www.nanzhounoodlemesa.com/

I was in Scottsdale this afternoon and decided to stop here again on my way back home.

I had the Lamb Soup with Wide hand drawn noodles. I must admit that it was my best meal on 2017 thus far. The lamb soup was very flavorful with chunks of lamb on the bone. It was topped with cilantro and baby spinach. There was another green in the bottom of the bowl that looked and tasted like mustard greens.

Geo wrote:You're right Dom that Unphogettable is "kinda sanitized", but when you're taking your sister and niece out for their very first Viet in their lives, it fills the bill perfectly: a 'clean, well-lighted place', with good, friendly, alert, helpful waitstaff, and food that is correct, if not inspiring.

The Thai place is a couple points better.

Geo

I finally made it to Unphogettable. The food was very good and the service was very attentive and it was a great experience. I would agree that there is nothing on the menu that is tremendously different from most Vietnamese restaurants.

As for Thai Spices next door, the food was good. However, the servers that night were not very attentive to the few people who were dining there.

For those attending the Cactus League games in March, there is a new Korean market - Asiana Market that has opened on South Dobson Rd, approximately four miles south of the Cubs spring training facility.

This place is rapidly becoming one of my favorite places to shop. The produce section offers a good variety of fruits that you generally don't see in most Asian markets. The meat pricing is absolutely bizarre. I went in there this weekend and 1# in-store ground beef and ground pork were $0.99 # and they are better quality than most supermarkets. I prefer that they flash freeze the meat after grounding as I have two hour drive home.

They offer a good variety of prepared foods in the grocery area and four restaurants in their food court area.

The restaurants include:

Asiana Grill which serves a wide variety of Korean dishes and focuses a lot on dishes served in hot stone pots. I am NOT very knowledgeable about Korean cuisine but I will say that the Bipbambop and the Bulgogi del-sot were very good.

Across from the Asiana Grill is Paik's Noodles which is a Korean noodle shop. I have only had the opportunity to try two dishes and I enjoyed the beef jjamppong which was a rather bland dish similar to a beef pho and Jjamppong which is a spicy seafood soup. Both were pretty good.

Also in the food court is Katsu which does the usual Katsu dishes as well as bulgogi tacos.

And there is a Korean-French bakery calls Tous les Jours which serves some of the flakiest bakeries that I have had. I would compare the bakery to those in Mitsuwa in Arlington Heights. I am really impressed with the wide variety of pastries and the excellent service in the place.

Asiana Market
1135 S Dobson Rd,#104
Mesa, AZ 85202

I have spent most of the last two years eating up and down Dobson Rd largely due to this post. I must say that I have never been disappointed at any of these places.

Prepping for the food portion of my upcoming Spring Training trip to a city where food has been largely an afterthought for me (other than Bianco), I found two useful guides that are game changers: This top 100 list from the OP of this thread and this fantastic report from Bill Addison that just popped up on Eater last week.

Cubs and White Sox Fans, Eat Like Your Still in Chicago at these Phoenix restaurants during Spring Training
List by Dominic Armato, who used to live here, post here and knows what he is talking about.