Michel Wall (pictured) of Chandler won Z’Tejas Southwestern Grill’s annual Chile Fest dessert contest, for which yours truly got to be one of the three judges.

Wall’s dessert — a chipotle chocolate torte topped with peaches, raspberries and cinnamon vanilla whipped cream — will appear Sept. 2 through Sept. 21 on the menu of all four Z’Tejas restaurants in the Valley.

The limited-time menu also will include four chile-infused entrees. A dollar from every item will benefit the Foundation for Blind Children.

Z’Tejas also will be selling roasted chiles from Glendale’s Crooked Sky Farms during the 20-day fest.

Z’Tejas’s Valley locations include restaurants in Tempe, Chandler and Scottsdale. Info: ztejas.com.

Last summer, just after I became the Tribune’s dining writer, I wrote a brief on an East Valley restaurant winning an “Award of Excellence” — signifying it as “one of the world’s best wine restaurants” — from Wine Spectator magazine.

This month, the magazine sent out a media release noting two Valley restaurants had won “Awards of Excellence” for 2008. But this time, however, I decided not to write anything about it — not even a brief.

Why? Well, frankly, something didn’t seem right. After a year of eating at some of the East Valley best restaurants, I realized: 1) Yes, the two local restaurants honored have very good wine lists, but 2) there are others in the East Valley just as good.

So I began to wonder how Wine Spectator was choosing its honorees. Apparently I wasn’t the only one. Robin Goldstein, author of a new book called “The Wine Trials,” also was curious.

So Goldstein made up a fancy-sounding restaurant (”Osteria L’Intrepido”), fabricated a fake wine list and nominated it for an “Award of Excellence.” Of course, to nominate a restaurant required paying a $250 fee to the magazine.

Lo and behold — I’m sure you’ve already guessed this — “Osteria L’Intrepido” is one of the 2008 “Award of Excellence” winners in Wine Spectator.

• Read Robin Goldstein’s story and see the fake wine list

I just tried one of Jack in the Box’s new breakfast bowls, a task I wasn’t looking forward to. But I not only lived through the experience, I actually — dare I say — kinda enjoyed it?

The bowls come in two varieties. The Denver bowl, the one I tried, has hash browns, scrambled eggs, ham, red and and green peppers, white cheese sauce and shredded yellow cheese. (Jack’s PR photo is on left, my actual bowl is pictured on right).

The other option, the hearty breakfast bowl, comes with hash browns, sausage, bacon and the two kinds of cheese.

The bowl I tried was nowhere near as salty or heavy as, say, KFC’s bowls (maybe, in part, because the portion seems a little smaller). The eggs weren’t as synthetic-y as McDonald’s eggs. The hash brown sticks were crisp, the white cheese sauce had a smooth flavor, and there was just a sprinkling of yellow cheese.

I did notice the whole mixture started to congeal after just a minute or two, so I suspect the bowls won’t travel well. And the nutritional aspect isn’t pretty: 720 calories, 53 grams of fat and 1,310 milligrams of sodium for the Denver bowl, and 780, 60 and 1,350 for the hearty bowl.

Still, if fast-food breakfast is your thing, Jack in the Box’s bowls, which cost $2.99, are worth checking out.

The Summer Olympics are underway, and the eyes of the world are focused on Beijing. If you’re like me, that means you’re now craving Chinese food. So here are a half-dozen of my favorite Chinese restaurants in the East Valley — our gold medal winners, you might say.

Asian Cafe Express: Owner-chef Michael Leung’s restaurant lacks amenities, but the inexpensive food is first-rate. Skip the Americanized versions in favor of the Hong Kong-style dishes, such as ground pork soup or black bean sauce squid. 1911 W. Main St., Mesa, (480) 668-5910.

C-Fu Gourmet Restaurant: This strip-mall restaurant boasts the East Valley’s best dim sum, while traditional dishes like Peking duck, Mongolian beef and spicy pork chops are served family-style for dinner. 2051 W. Warner Road, Chandler, (480) 899-3888, cfugourmet.com.

Tott’s Asian Diner: The East Valley epitome of fast-casual Chinese offers heaping plates of orange chicken, black pepper beef and walnut shrimp with choice of rice. Most dishes are less than $8. 1817 E. Guadalupe Road, Tempe, (480) 897-7928, tottsasiandiner.com.

• Read my July 2007 review of Yao’s Fine Chinese Cuisine
• Read my December 2007 review of Red House

(more…)

After several months of remodeling, Dunkin’ Donuts is opening nine Valley stores Friday, including eight in the East Valley. The chain is celebrating by offering customers a free medium coffee Friday through Aug. 21.

It also will hold a “Midnight Madness” preview 7 p.m. to midnight Thursday at its new store on the northeast corner of Stapley and Baseline roads in Mesa. Free food samples and prizes will be given away, and there will be a “Rock Band” competition on a 20-foot screen.

On Friday, Mesa mayor Scott Smith and the Phoenix Suns dancers will appear at 5 a.m. at the Stapley and Baseline store. Scottsdale mayor Mary Manross will serve customers from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. at the Scottsdale and Shea store.

Other E.V. locations hosting festivities Friday are at University and Priest in Tempe, Hayden and Thomas in Scottsdale, McKellips and Power in Mesa, Lindsay and Warner in Gilbert, Alma School and Germann in Chandler and Power and Rittenhouse in Queen Creek.

Beside a new look, Dunkin’ Donuts is introducing new beverages and food items, including oven-toasted flatbread sandwiches. Info: dunkindonuts.com.

More than 80 Valley restaurants have signed up to participate in the first-ever Arizona Restaurant Week this fall, more than double what organizers hoped for.

The restaurants will offer special three-course menus of signature dishes for $29 per person from Sept. 20-26. The price excludes beverages, tax and tip.

Restaurant Weeks have become popular annual events in nearly 100 U.S. cities — from San Diego to Dayton, Ohio, to Bethesda, Md. — in recent years.

“I was like, ‘Why isn’t this happening here?’” says Scottsdale-based restaurateur Sam Fox (pictured at left). “We’re the fifth-largest city in the country and we don’t have this?”

Fox operates 11 restaurants in the Valley, including Olive & Ivy (pictured below), North, Bloom and The Greene House. He also has three in Denver, where he’s participated in several Restaurant Weeks.

“It’s one of our better weeks there,” he says. “Not only is it good for business that week, but it’s bringing in a lot of people that normally wouldn’t come into the restaurants.”

In Denver, the week features dinners for two for $52.80, a reference to the Mile High City’s altitude of 5,280 feet.

“We talked to a few people (in the Valley) and nothing really got going, so we decided to talk it upon ourselves to make it happen,” Fox says. “Our goal is to be the catalyst and make it happen this year.”

(more…)

Richard Blais will have an unusual way of staying cool when “Top Chef: The Tour” stops in the Valley Saturday.

“I did (a tour stop) in Columbus, Ohio, a few weeks back and this one’s gonna be even more amazing,” the 36-year-old Atlanta chef says. “We had a blast but I didn’t bring any of my toys with me.

“For the Phoenix one, I’m actually bringing one of my toys. It’s a big toy; it’s a 600-pound toy. I hear it’s pretty hot out there so I’m bringing the second-coldest substance on Earth with me.”

The substance is liquid nitrogen, one of the more unusual kitchen tools Blais (pictured at left) employed on the just-completed fourth season of the Bravo reality television show, “Top Chef.

“It’s one of those things not too many people have seen applied to food,” Blais says. “We’re definitely going to give the fans who come out to the show a good effort.”

The fauxhawk-sporting chef, who narrowly lost to Scottsdale Culinary Institute graduate Stephanie Izard in the show’s finale, became a fan favorite with his mad-scientist approach to cooking known as molecular gastronomy.

He joins Betty Fraser, a 45-year-old Los Angeles chef who competed on the second season of “Top Chef,” for the downtown Phoenix stop of the show’s 20-city tour.

(more…)

I know from the comments I receive from readers that a lot of you follow the health inspections of Valley restaurants posted on Maricopa County’s website. Now the Tribune has just launched its own searchable database of health inspections, which has a few extra bells and whistles.

Much like Maricopa County’s version, you can search for restaurants by name or city. But you also can search by ZIP code, type of restaurant or inspection date. Another neat feature is you can click on different inspection dates without having to go back to previous screens.

• Check an East Valley restaurant’s health inspections

Thursday is National Piña Colada Day, which got me to thinking: What restaurant or bar makes the East Valley’s best piña colada? I’m certainly no expert on the drink, but I enjoy tropical libations of all types. So where do I go?

(more…)

If you love nacho cheese, you’ll probably want to check out two new sandwiches at Jack in the Box. The national burger chain has introduced a nacho cheese burger and a nacho cheese chicken sandwich to its “value menu.”

(more…)

To help ease the pain of high gas prices, Jack in the Box is giving away free tacos Thursday at participating restaurants nationwide. Anyone who presents a gas receipt will receive two regular tacos. No purchase is required. Info: twofreetacosday.

Florida-based Tropical Smoothie Café, which has 11 locations in the East Valley, is celebrating the officiaal start of summer Saturday with its second annual National Flip Flop Day.

The first 500 people wearing flip flops to visit stores will get a free Jerry Punch smoothie blended with strawberries and bananas. Info: tropicalsmoothie.com.

A&W restaurants are giving away free root beer floats today. No purchase is necessary.

“We want to give people a great start to their summer and a little economic relief by treating America to one of their favorite sweets, the A&W root beer float,” says A&W president Ben Butler.

The free floats are available at the chain’s nearly 700 stores. To find the nearest location, go to awrestaurants.com.

Our competitor in downtown Phoenix hasn’t even run its annual Readers Choice Awards in print yet, but the online version already is prompting quite a backlash from Valley diners. (Check out the discussion on Chowhound’s forum here.)

At issue: One local chain, Oregano’s Pizza Bistro, wins more than one-third of the restaurant awards.

Yes, Oregano’s is very good. I love the place and frequently visit its numerous Valley locations, including one just last week. But Oregano’s obviously benefitted from some type of stuff-the-ballot-box hijinks that pretty much destroys any credibility these “awards” might have had. It’s too bad, because I’m sure some people cast legitimate votes.

Newspapers (as well as magazines, radio stations and TV stations) all are trying to cultivate “reader interaction” nowadays. Some methods work fairly well - allowing readers to leave comments on online stories, for example - while others are of dubious value - think TV polls (”We want to hear what you think! Turn in at 10 p.m. to see the results!”).

(more…)

McDonald’s is giving away free Southern-style chicken biscuits and chicken sandwiches on Thursday, May 15. All you have to do is buy any medium or large drink, and you’ll get a free chicken biscuit between 7 and 10:30 a.m. or a free chicken sandwich between 10:30 a.m. and 7 p.m.

Although the Southern-style sandwiches - not to be confused with the chain’s $1 Hot ‘n Spicy chicken sandwich - have been available at Valley McDonald’s since last year, the menu item only recently was introduced nationwide.

Tuesday is National Teacher Day, and Chipotle Mexican Grill locations throughout the Valley are celebrating by giving any Arizona teacher who shows a teacher or staff ID free burrito, bowl, tacos or salad from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

More than 30 of the Valley’s top restaurants will be featured next weekend at Taste of the Nation Phoenix 2008. The outdoor event, which runs 7:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday, April 25, at The Phoenician, includes food, wine, auctions and live entertainment.

Participating restaurants include Elements, Lon’s, Methode Bistro, Roka Akor, Sol y Sombra (pictured above), T. Cook’s, Talavera, Tarbell’s and Zinc Bistro.

Tickets are $150 for general admission and $300 for VIP. All ticket sales benefit Share Our Strength, a non-profit group dedicated to eradicating childhood hunger.

The Phoenician is located at 6000 E. Camelback Road, Scottsdale. Info: (480) 941-8200.