The most impressive thing about Bourbon Steak, part of celebrity chef Michael Mina’s national restaurant empire, is the size of the dent the Fairmont Scottsdale resort’s trendy steakhouse will put in your bank account.

Some of Mina’s culinary offerings are very good; others are disappointing. But all are expensive.

During one of my visits, for example, dinner for three — two small appetizers, three entrees and two small desserts — results in a gulp-inducing bill, after tax and tip, of $411.

No, the meal doesn’t include Bourbon Steak’s much-publicized $190 Japanese “A5” Kobe steak (which is no longer on the menu). It doesn’t even include a bottle of wine.

And as we leave the restaurant, one of my companions accurately sums up the evening, “That was good, but not great.”

For $400-plus, shouldn’t a meal be great?

• Previous: Bourbon Steak launches Sunday brunch (Sept. 14, 2008)
• Previous: Top new E.V. restaurants of 2008 - so far (July 16, 2008)
• Previous: Get your rebate check? 6 places to splurge (May 7, 2008)
• Previous: Tough economic times vs. a $190 steak (Feb. 13, 2008)
• Previous: Bourbon Steak opens at Fairmont Scottsdale (Feb. 11, 2008)

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Until the United States lifts its restrictions on travel to Cuba, most Americans can’t dine in Havana. Fortunately, East Valley residents can experience the next best thing: Havana Cafe.

The three-year-old Ahwatukee Foothills restaurant, one of three locations in the Valley, is the most recent from husband-and-wife owners Gilbert and B.J. Hernandez. (He’s from Cuba, she runs day-to-day operations.)

Although it may look like a neighborhood sports bar from the outside, what with its neon-painted windows advertising drink specials and live music, there’s a whole different vibe once you step inside.

Soft yellow and frothy green walls contrast the hard, reddish-brown floor. Plantation shutters and artificial greenery extend the illusion of a tropical hideaway. Latin-inflected jazz plays softly.

It’s a relaxing and casual atmosphere, one where you can take your time perusing Havana Café’s voluminous menu, which features not just Cuban food, but branches out into Spanish, Argentine and Chilean as well.

• Check out the lunch menu for Havana Cafe (pdf)
• Check out the dinner menu for Havana Cafe (pdf)

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Miele’s Italian Bistro bills itself as “a taste of Italy in your neighborhood,” and it’s hard to think of a more accurate description of this unassuming but enjoyable south Tempe restaurant.

Its Italian bona fides come courtesy of Giuseppe (pictured on right) and Sergio Miele, brothers from the old country who had restaurants in New York before moving to the Valley and opening Miele’s in March 2005.

Their cozy, square space in a Fry’s shopping center is simply adorned with framed retro posters and Murano glass light fixtures imported from Venice. Two tiny televisions hang in opposite corners.

A seven-seat, L-shaped bar offers a dozen wines and four beers on tap. It also serves as staging area of sorts where Giuseppe, simply known as “Joe,” personally inspects the southern Italian dishes emerging from the kitchen.

If you’re a newcomer looking for guidance, Joe is quick to point out that “unlike most places, everything on our menu is good.” Since he looks a bit like an extra from “The Sopranos,” you’re inclined to believe him.

• Slideshow: See more photos of Miele’s Italian Bistro

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For the first time in my 22 years living in the East Valley, I see people drinking wine in downtown Mesa. Not out of paper bags, I mean.

It’s opening night at De la Cruz Bistro, downtown’s first wine bar. A few people are sitting at the copper-colored concrete bar. About two-thirds of the dining room tables are occupied.

Almost everyone has a glass of wine or bottle of imported beer while munching on everything from chicken wings to filet mignon.

This is exactly what Omar de la Cruz hoped for. Since the $100 million Mesa Arts Center opened in 2005, he’s seen well-dressed people standing in line to order at the counter of his tiny Mangos Mexican Café before shows.

If only there was someplace in downtown Mesa where people could enjoy a nice, sit-down meal, they’d say. Someplace where people could enjoy a glass of wine, either before or after a show.

• Check out De la Cruz Bistro’s menu (pdf)
• View a slideshow of De la Cruz Bistro
• Previous: De la Cruz Bistro opening soon in downtown Mesa (Aug. 12, 2008)
• Previous: Paperwork snafu postpones bistro opening (Aug. 12, 2008)
• Previous: De la Cruz Bistro set to open Friday (Aug. 28, 2008)

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I can’t tell whether Don Carson is a restaurateur who loves sports, or a sports fan who loves food. His 27-year-old Scottsdale landmark, Don & Charlie’s, is equal parts old-school chophouse and sports memorabilia museum.

From outside, the low-slung, stand-alone building Carson’s father purchased a half-century ago looks a little like ‘60s motor lodge. But step inside and you feel like you’re in Cooperstown or Canton.

Glass cases of autographed baseballs — more than 800 in all — line both walls of the entryway (pictured below). In the spacious dining room, photos and magazine covers, many signed, completely cover the walls and continue across parts of the ceiling.

In the lounge hang dozens of autographed NFL and NBA jerseys, from Michael Jordan’s to Joe Montana’s. There’s even a golf bag signed by all the players from the 1995 Phoenix Open.

• View a slideshow of Don & Charlie’s
• Check out Don & Charlie’s menu (pdf)
• Previous: Don & Charlie’s launches burger bar (Aug. 1, 2008)

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Long Wong’s isn’t dead. It’s just grown up and moved to the suburbs.

The legendary Mill Avenue club — Bohemian hangout extraordinaire and ground zero for the local music scene for two decades — was leveled in 2004, but not before passing along its comfortable-casual genes to owners Scott and Cheri Magill’s other venture, Teakwoods Tavern and Grill.

The Gilbert Teakwoods, located in a Fry’s strip mall on the southeast corner of Williams Field and Gilbert roads, is typical of Teakwoods’ five locations in the Valley: welcoming, laid-back, loud and usually packed.

T-shirts and ball caps are de rigeur, and there are a dozen or so TVs showing sports. Patrons square off in Golden Tee golf and Lucky Strike bowling, but the overall vibe isn’t so much sports bar as family-friendly neighborhood grill.

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If you go to Olive & Ivy, skip the appetizers.

Sam Fox, the Scottsdale entrepeneur who’s launched a dozen successful Fox Restaurant Concepts, no doubt would wince to hear my advice about his stylish eye-candy emporium nestled between Scottsdale Fashion Square and the Arizona Canal.

Not that there’s anything wrong with its California-meets-Mediterranean starters. But trust me: You’ll want more than one slice of Olive & Ivy’s hearty bread. Fresh from the oven and sliced thick, it comes with pesto-infused olive oil and, best of all, it’s free.

On my first visit, I don’t discover how tasty the bread is until after I order an appetizer. I don’t make that “mistake” on subsequent visits. The only challenge is not to spoil the rest of my meal, because most of the entrees I sample at Olive & Ivy are just as impressive.

Take the braised short rib ($27, pictured below), a flavorful and impossibly tender square of beef resting on a creamy bed of mascarpone polenta. The following day, I still can’t get it out of my mind.

• See a slideshow of more Olive & Ivy photos

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A chic-looking restaurant serving Mediterranean-style cuisine with Spanish and Italian touches in downtown Mesa? Sounds almost too good to be true.

That’s what I thought when Café Azul opened eight months ago at the Marriott Mesa Hotel just north of Main Street.

Café Azul’s appearance certainly turned out to be as advertised. The polygon-shaped building on the northeast side of the hotel has a couple walls of tall windows that look out on a fountain, waterfalls and a multi-level courtyard.

Inside, a large fountain dominates the center of the restaurant. Blue mosaic tiles create a “stream” in the concrete floor. Orange mosaic tiles glisten on round columns.

Dramatic light fixtures — huge, inverted pyramids — hang from the ceiling. Back-lit glass panels with grass silhouettes provide a backdrop for the polished granite bar.

It seems like a perfect setting for dinner before a show at the nearby Mesa Arts Center, or a nice place to enjoy a glass of wine afterward.

But while the décor has remained unchanged over the course of my four visits this year, the same can’t be said of the menu.

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August. The month of two-a-days. The time of year when football players of all ages — from Pop Warner to the NFL — strap on their helmets and pads to prepare for the fall season.

The time when veteran players begin glancing over their shoulders to see who among the latest crop of newcomers might challenge for a starting position.

The same might be said for sports bars, those television-laden watering holes that vie for East Valley football fans on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, a competition no less fierce than that on the field.

The newest rookie on the East Valley’s roster: The Double Overtime Sports Grille, a promising player that made its debut two weeks ago on Power Road, just south of Baseline Road, in east Mesa.

Like any heralded rookie, Double Overtime, the younger sibling of a Fountain Hills sports bar by the same name, boasts some impressive stats, most notably 35 high-definition TVs.

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Once upon a time, downtown Tempe’s Mill Avenue wasn’t over-run with million-dollar condos and overpriced chain restaurants. You actually could park for free on the street, get a good meal for less than $10 and listen to the best bands in Arizona while drinking $2 beers.

Over the past two decades, though, most of the legendary Mill Avenue hangouts — Long Wong’s, 6 East, Edcel’s Attic, Chuy’s — have faded away, replaced by soul-less corporate entities that today dominate the Valley’s most famous strip of pavement.

One of the last vestiges of what once made Mill great is Restaurant Mexico, a no-frills café that’s been serving good but inexpensive tacos, enchiladas and beans for more than 30 years.

Riding out the commercial seachanges on Mill hasn’t been easy. The tiny restaurant has been tossed about — occupying four different locations on or just off Mill — finally settling in to its present digs on Mill just north of Fifth Street a little over a year ago.

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Scantily clad young women roll giant dice and dance suggestively to American pop songs. A small man is pulled out of the audience and starts to sing — badly. But he’s given a wad of cash as the crowd and dancers cheer.

This is “Wowowee,” the No. 1-rated television show in the Philippines, which — no matter the time of day — always seems to be on the big-screen TV at Gingerroot, a new Filipino restaurant on the northwest corner of Alma School Road and Chandler Boulevard in Chandler.

The zaniness of the show stands in stark contrast to the almost chic dining room, an intimate space where nine tableclothed tables are carefully arranged in three perfect rows. Still, the evening’s 10 other diners, all of whom appear to be Filipino, are watching with rapt attention.

Now, I must admit, I’m not experienced with Filipino food. But I like Asian cuisines — Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Korean, Vietnamese — so I’m excited to try Gingerroot, which replaced the Boracay Grill, another Filipino place, and still has some of the same staff.

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Nick Haddad maybe should have chosen a different name for Sautee. Whenever I mention his nearly year-old Chandler restaurant to someone, the reaction usually is the same.

“Sautee? Never been there. I don’t like French food.”

Well, forget about foie gras and frog legs. Sautee mostly serves good ol’ American favorites like steaks, chicken and burgers, albeit slightly fancy versions.

For the most part, Sautee is a casual, comfortable place. The industrial-like interior is energized by an infusion of primary colors, courtesy of lights, glass panels and modern artwork.

It also can be a fairly noisy place, especially if you’re seated next to the open exhibition kitchen, which is dramatically framed with a broken mosaic of red and orange tile.

Calamari ($10, pictured below) is a must-have appetizer. Six-inch-long strips of squid are soaked in buttermilk for hours and then flash-fried. Slightly crunchy on the outside yet tender on the inside, it’s one of the best preparations I’ve tasted.

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Randy Schoch is somewhat of an expert on chain restaurants. Over the past two decades, he’s owned five Ruth’s Chris Steak Houses, three Roy’s and a Romano’s Macaroni Grill.

So when the Valley restaurateur decided to create his own casual Asian restaurant, is it any surprise it would take pages from two of the Valley’s most successful Valley-based chains?

The result is Ling & Louie’s Asian Bar & Grill, which opened in January on Shea Boulevard east of the Loop 101.

It’s hard not to compare its Asian-inspired menu to that of Pei Wei, the fast-casual spinoff of P.F. Chang’s China Bistro. The two aren’t exactly the same, but there’s a lot of similarity in their rice, noodle and speciality dishes.

And Ling & Louie’s playful attitude — right down to the servers’ T-shirts with corny slogans like “Rice to Meet You” — will remind a lot of people of Oregano’s, if somewhat more strained in its attempted humor.

The combination apparently works, at least for the mostly neighborhood crowd that fills Ling & Louie’s during the lunch and dinner hours, enjoying sumo-sized Kirin beers ($5.25) or two-person Frozen Thai Mais ($9.99)

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“Oxtail, huh?” one of my lunch companions says as he suspiciously eyes a small piece of the bony meat I’ve offered to share. “Uh, no thanks. I think I’ll stick with what I ordered.”

It’s his loss. The beef medallions (pictured at right), braised to draw maximum flavor from the bone and marrow, are delicious.

Then again, I suspect many East Valley diners are unaware of the remarkable diversity of Caribbean food, which counts French, African and Indian among its many influences.

It’s not entirely their fault. There isn’t exactly an abundance of Caribbean restaurants in the East Valley.

Fortunately, Damian Muir (pictured below) has increased that small number by one. The Jamaican-born chef and his wife, Elisa, recently opened their first restaurant, Caribbean Fusion, in the former Scottsdale Road strip-mall space vacated earlier this year by Twisted.

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Present-day Caffe Boa bears little resemblance to Jay and Christine Wisniewski’s original shoebox-sized eatery that opened on the south end of downtown Tempe’s Mill Avenue in 1994.

Back then, its sophisticated sandwiches and pasta dishes seemed out of sync with a no-frills décor and college-hangout vibe. And there was always a challenge in getting one of the five indoor tables, especially when hot weather rendered a tiny patio inhospitable.

Thankfully, the Wisniewkis were able to move a couple blocks north in 2005 into a much larger space that formerly housed Mill Landing. Its covered front patio, a shaded oasis of green plants and red brick, alone provides more seating than the entire former location.

Inside, dramatic floral photography and colorful murals contrast the dining room’s greenish-gray and wheat walls. Weathered, butcher-block-like tables and dark hardwood floors soften exposed brick.

It’s an atmosphere — slightly upscale yet still casual and comfortable — that perfectly complements Caffe Boa’s mostly European-style cuisine, which emphasizes high-quality organic ingredients.

Meals begin with fresh breads (pictured at left) from Mesa’s Breadsmith bakery, presented in large baskets by servers who also deliver trays of olives and oil from the Queen Creek Olive Mill.

Handmade pasta dishes remain menu mainstays. Ricotta and spinach tortellini ($18.95) is one of my favorites. It comes with broccoli florets, sweet peas and mushrooms in a wonderful brown cream sauce that leaves a garlicky reminder on my lips for hours afterward.

Almost as good is goat cheese ravioli ($18), made with artisan goat cheese from Black Mesa Ranch near Snowflake and served with a sage-tinged butter sauce and toasted hazelnuts.

If you prefer variety, spinach ravioli filled with artichoke and ricotta ($17.95) provides two different tastes: Half the pasta is covered with a tomato basil sauce, the other half with a not-as-flavorable white garlic cream sauce.

Aside from pastas, the dinner menu offers a half-dozen entrees. The highlight is the poularde ($23, pictured at right), tender pieces of poultry in truffle oil and a mushroom cream sauce, with Forbidden rice, almost black in color and nutty in flavor. It’s an earthy and incredibly rich combination.

The free-range filet mignon ($25), perfectly cooked, comes on a chevre tart that’s a tad too crusty, but a side of delicious root vegetables and porcini mushrooms more than makes up for it.

I’m not a huge fan of blue cheese burgers, but I’d definitely have Caffe Boa’s version ($13) again. A half-pound of American Kobe beef holds its own against the sharpness of the Point Reyes blue cheese. I just wish accompanying Yukon gold potato wedges could do the same.

Desserts — such as a praline pyramid with caramel and Gianduja chocolate ($9), a triple chocolate mousse cake with chocolate ganache ($9) or tiramisu ($9, pictured at left) — are decadent but all surprisingly light.

Wine lovers may want to study Caffe Boa’s wine list on its website before visiting; it’ll take some time to get through all 25 pages detailing the Wisniewski’s impressive 2,500-bottle cellar.

Bottles are a little pricey because of the quality. Most reds and whites are north of $50, and more than a few exceed $500. But there also are two dozen selections available by the glass for $10 or less, so almost any budget can be accommodated.

Caffe Boa
Where: 398 S. Mill Ave., Tempe (northwest corner of Mill and Fourth Street)
Open: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday through Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.
Prices: Appetizers $7.25-$15.50, salads $6.95-$14, panini $7.95-$13, pasta $14.95-$18.95, entrees $18-$36, desserts $9.
Info: (480) 968-9112 or cafeboa.com.

• View a slideshow of Caffe Boa
• Check out the menu for Caffe Boa
• Check out the wine list for Caffe Boa

Azhar Began couldn’t have picked a harder-to-find spot for his Classic Italian Pizzeria. I’ve driven by the aging Lake Country Village shopping center along Tempe’s Baseline Road hundreds of times, completely forgetting about the intimate eatery hidden within.

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Most good barbecue joints share certain cliched characteristics. A well-worn, rural-themed decor. A casual, laid-back atmosphere. A large, sweaty man in a sauce-stained T-shirt running the show.

Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, which opened last week in Scottsdale, doesn’t fit that image. There’s an undeniable fast-food feel to the Texas-based chain, which boasts “slow cooked, served fast.”

The strip-mall space, brightly painted in red and pistachio, is open and airy. High-def TVs are tuned to soccer games. Energetic teenage staffers are decked out in polyester shirts and baseball caps.

You order at the cash register, choosing from a half-dozen types of meat available in sandwiches or by the plate.

Smoked turkey and chicken are the highlights of my visit. The turkey breast is cut into thick slices with no traces of skin; the chicken breast is cut across the grain like fajitas. Neither has much smoky flavor, but both are incredibly tender and juicy.

Barbecue sauce comes on the side in a small dish. Dickey’s standard sauce is tangy and on the thin side. Surprisingly, it’s served cold. But a warming unit next to the soda fountain offers two piping-hot sauces, labeled “spicy” and “sweet,” that are slight variations.

Among other meat options, good-sized pork ribs, devoid of visible fat, yield plenty of tender meat, and sliced Polish sausage is flavorful. Pulled pork and beef brisket both are a bit dry, which easily is compensated for by adding sauce.

Sides — plates come with choice of two — include small crocks of ho-hum barbecue beans and macaroni and cheese. Waffle fries, which have a hint of garlic, are better. Baked potato casserole, a chunky version of mashed potatoes, also would be a winner it wasn’t room temperature.

My favorite part of the meal are Dickey’s large dinner rolls, which also come with the plates. Dense but soft, they’re buttery and slightly salty. On my next visit, I’ll definitely order extra.

A soft-serve ice cream machine provides free, do-it-yourself cones for dessert. Unfortunately, it breaks down during my visit so I’m out of luck. Oh well, another thing to try next time.

This is Dickey’s second foray into Arizona. A couple of previous franchises, including one in Chandler, closed a couple years ago. I’ll bet this franchise stays around.

If you’re looking for authentic, down-home barbecue, Dickey’s probably won’t appeal to you. The food has a certain mass-produced sterility. For a fast and fairly inexpensive meal, though, it’s surprisingly enjoyable.

Dickey’s Barbecue Pit
Where: 7337 Shea Blvd., Scottsdale (just east of Scottsdale Road)
Open: 10:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily
Prices: Sandwiches $4.29, one-meat plate (with two sides and bread) $8.59, two-meat plate $9.99, three-meat plate $10.99, desserts $2.59
Info: (480) 368-5569 or dickeys.com.

First Tastes offer “first impressions” of new East Valley restaurants. Full reviews, based on multiple visits, aren’t written until restaurants have been open at least a couple months.