Ra Sushi’s happy hour not only is getting longer, it’s spilling over into the weekend.

Starting this week, the Scottsdale-based chain will offer a lower-priced happy hour menu from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Mondays through Saturdays. Previously, its happy hour was 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. weekdays.

Sushi and appetizers will be half-off the regular menu prices. Drinks specials will range from $1 to $5.

“Our new happy hour is just one way to give back to our customers during a tough economy,” Ra Sushi co-founder Scott Kilpatrick says. “We’re bucking the trend of raising prices at a time when costs seem to be spiking everywhere else.”

Ra had 21 locations nationwide, including restaurants in Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa and Ahwatukee.

• Check out Ra Sushi’s new happy hour menu (pdf)

It’s Friday happy hour, and recently opened Blue Wasabi Sushi & Martini Bar in Gilbert is packed. Alex Ortiz is lucky. He and his wife, Leslie, manage to find seats at the bar, where they order one of the stylish SanTan Village restaurant’s signature sushi rolls.

“I’ve had sushi all my life,” says the 45-year-old aerospace products sales manager, who moved to Mesa three years ago. “It’s not real heavy and you don’t get bloated. It’s better-tasting food. We usually go to Ra at Dana Park, but some friends told us about this place last night and we had to check it out.”

For people like Ortiz, who eats sushi once or twice a week, these are boom times in the East Valley. A little more than a decade ago you could count the number of sushi restaurants on one hand. Today, there are more than 100, and new ones are opening every month.

(more…)

Baskin-Robbins stores hold their second annual 31-cent Scoop Night from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday, April 30. The promotion supports the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation.

Participating restaurants in the East Valley: 4970 S. Alma School Road, Chandler; 1229 S. Power Road, Mesa; 4406 E. Main St, Suite 101, Mesa; 3108 S. McClintock Drive, Tempe; 1715 E. Guadalupe Road, Tempe; 5035 E. Elliot Road, Ahwatukee; 6501 E. Greenway Parkway, Scottsdale; and 20567 N. Hayden Road, Scottsdale.

Roka Akor, the world-renowned London sushi restaurant, has announced its Scottsdale location — its first in North America — will open Saturday, Feb. 9. The menu will include small plates, grill entrees, salads, sashimi, sushi and desserts. The 7,500-square-foot restaurant is on the northeast corner of Indian Bend and Scottsdale Road.

Phoenix Suns guard Leandro Barbosa will meet fans and sign autographs 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 13, at the Jack in the Box fast-food restaurant on the northwest corner of Ray Road and I-10 in Ahwatukee.

Barbosa will be promoting the Celebrity Shootout, an annual charity basketball game that will be held 2 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, at US Airways Center in downtown Phoenix. Barbosa’s appearance is free for the public; tickets for the Shootout are $8.

On my first visit, before I even get a menu, the bartender comes over, sticks out his hand and introduces himself. He asks my name, runs through the menu and makes some suggestions.

Although he’s busy with other customers, he frequently checks on me during the meal, always addressing me by name.

On my next visit, there’s a different bartender. Once again, though, the first thing he does is introduce himself and ask my name. Once again, service is friendly and personal.

In neither instance does the behavior strike me as a restaurant policy or gimmick. Judging by the interactions I witness between customers and staff, CK Tavern & Grill is just one of those “Cheers”-type places where everyone feels at home.

The Ahwatukee Foothills restaurant, which replaced Bar Nun in January 2005, is part sports bar — jerseys hang on the walls, and there are lots of TVs to watch games — and part neighborhood tavern — with pool tables, comfortable booths and two dozen beers on tap.

There’s even live music Thursdays through Sundays from well-known local performers such as Shirley’s Temple, Chuck E. Baby and Shelby James.

If all this isn’t enough, there’s some pretty good food, too.

The menu has all the sports bar staples — burgers, sandwiches and wings — but dinner entrees include spicy meatloaf, honey hot-roasted chicken, center-cut sirloin steak and Kansas City-style barbecue pork ribs.

Raspberry chipotle boneless wings ($4.50 for six, $6.99 a dozen) are a must-have appetizer. Lightly breaded and cooked to a crisp, they’re covered in a gooey, delicious glaze that’s sweet and spicy.

Carne adovada, pork braised in a dark red chili sauce, is another CK specialty and available in several forms, ranging from an appetizer pizza ($7.99) to a dinner platter
($9.99).

On one of my visits, the daily special is a huge burro filled with the savory meat and accompanied by rice and black beans ($7.95).

The Cheezy Phil ($7.99) is CK’s twist on the Philly cheesesteak. The onion roll is loaded with sliced beef and topped with provolone cheese, grilled onions, pickled pepperoncinis and mushrooms.

The Bleu Burger ($8.99) is a half-pound patty topped with bacon and just enough blue cheese crumbles to provide a strong flavor but not an overpowering one.

Like the sandwiches, burgers come with a choice of beer-battered fries, seasoned buffalo chips, tater tots, potato salad, jalapeño coleslaw or cottage cheese.

My favorite side? The buffalo chips. They wouldn’t have been my first choice, but they were highly recommended by the bartender.

Turns out, he knows me pretty well.

CK Tavern & Grill
Where: 4142 E. Chandler Blvd., Phoenix
Open: 11 a.m. to 1 a.m. Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 1 a.m. Saturday and Sunday
Prices: Appetizers $3.99-$10.99, soups/salads $2.95-$8.99, burgers/sandwiches $6.99-$8.99, dinner entrees $9.99-$14.99, desserts $1.99-$4.95
Info: (480) 706-5564 or ckgrill.com

If nothing else, you gotta give Rock Bottom restaurant and brewery credit for the imaginative ways it works a selection of quality microbrews into its ambitious food menu.

Pork ribs basted in Stout barbecue sauce. Pizzas made with Honey Brown Ale crust. Jambalaya with Red Ale rice. Even the pretzels are brushed with Brown Ale.

Creativity aside, all this beer has another potential benefit: Consume enough of it and your senses may be sufficiently dulled to handle the food at the upscale Ahwatukee Foothills brew pub.

OK, perhaps that’s a bit harsh. But after a couple of visits to Rock Bottom, I found very little worth recommending.

Let’s start with appetizers. Rock Bottom offers a two-tiered sampler ($14.99). The top platter has four of its signature Titan Toothpicks — taquito-like rolls with chicken, jack cheese, peppers and onions — six buffalo wings and a couple of onion rings. All are ho-hum.

For the bottom platter, you get a choice of nachos or pepperoni-and-sausage pizza. We take our server’s recommendation and get the nachos, and are disappointed. The blue and white tortilla chips have very meager portions of cheese and refried beans, along with tomatoes, jalapeños and onions. The homemade salsa is blah.

The pizza, tried separately, is only slightly better. The crust is light and airy, but the slices are mostly flavorless and have a metallic taste.

Among entrees, the mac ’n’ chicken ($11.89) is a clear standout. The bowl of creamy pasta is loaded with bits of juicy chicken and topped with crunchy Parmesan bread crumbs.

The meatloaf ($11.79), a surprisingly bland mix of Angus beef and Italian sausage, comes with a choice of tomato sauce or mushroom gravy. I choose the former, which our server describes as a mixture of ketchup, barbecue sauce, beer and pineapple. Unfortunately, the meatloaf is practically floating in the pungent, overly sweet sauce.

The basil asiago chicken ($13.49), topped with a mushroom cream sauce, is tough to chew. And there’s no noticeable cheesiness in the accompanying cheddar mashed potatoes.

But the toughness of the chicken is nothing compared with the half-rack of barbecue ribs ($12.99), among the most unyielding I’ve ever had. Fall-off-the-bone meat this is not; in fact, a hacksaw is almost necessary.

The ribs come with McDonald’s-like french fries and a side of coleslaw that, on this night, is a dry mix of shredded cabbage and carrots — no oil, no vinegar.

Our server checks with the kitchen and reports back, “That’s a mistake. When we made the coleslaw this morning, we forgot to add the liquid. You’re the first customers to catch that!”

Considering it’s 8 p.m., maybe that senses-dulling thing is working.

Rock Bottom
Where: 14205 S. 50th St., Phoenix (Ray Road, west of Interstate 10)
Prices: Appetizers $6.59-$14.99, salads $7.99-$11.29, pizzas/pastas $8.99-$13.69, burgers/sandwiches $8.69-$10.99, entrees $8.99-$20.99.
Info: (480) 598-1300 or rockbottom.com