On Comfort

I know.

Nothing feels less important right now than how tasty your dinner may or may not be. And that’s mostly because very little is. But I’m going to keep these rolling for two reasons.

First, the restaurants and the people who run them are still out there and need our support. I’m done fighting over the best and most responsible way to do so (I think), but the need hasn’t gone anywhere. And even if that shouldn’t be our responsibility, well... there’s another one for the list.

Second, we all need comfort food. And by that, I don’t mean the American Anglocentric definition of comfort food (though hey, if meatloaf and tuna melts are your comfort food, awesome). I mean whatever food brings you comfort.

Take care of yourselves, is all I’m saying. It’s okay to enjoy things. Even now. Especially now.

turmeric chicken thigh claypot with garlic, shallots, ginger, chiles, scallions, lime and mint

Some Trendy Vietnamese...

Oh, hey, speaking of non-Anglocentric comfort food, anybody check out Belly yet?

Belly is a relatively new Uptown joint. (Uptown? Midtown? Can we get a ruling on this?) And it was freshly minted when I tried it in late November, even if a backlog of stuff to write about and general holiday-induced laziness conspired to keep it out of the newsletter until now.

The chefly brains behind Belly are contained within the head of Michael Babcock, who I single out not to slight his capable partners in crime (Wayne Coats, Robert Cissell and Paul Waxman), but simply because I've always enjoyed his food. Though he's no longer involved with any of these spots, he's left a long trail of happy tastebuds, from the new Welcome Diner to Welcome Chicken + Donuts to the old Valentine-style Welcome Diner and all the way back to Old Dixie’s.

His previous trajectory followed a very distinct stylistic thread: a kind of homey, comforting amalgam of Louisiana and broader Southern fare infused with a dose of diner culture and a bit of sneaky refinement... fried chicken biscuits, fancified meatloaf, silky étouffée and the like.

Belly still trades in big bowls of comfort, but this is full-on Vietnamese fare.

crispy spring rolls with ground pork, jicama, woodear mushroom, mung bean noodles, herbs, nuoc cham  |  cha lua 'pan mi' with house cha lua, house pate, spicy mayo, hoisin, cilantro, jalapeño, pickled radish and carrot on telera

I’ve long complained that for the incredible breadth of Phoenix’s Vietnamese restaurant scene, we’re kind of mired in a shallow, formulaic com/bun/pho rut. Which isn’t to knock the excellence of the better spots that follow that formula (hold that thought), but it sure is nice when a place with a different angle on Vietnamese cuisine saunters along.

This is certainly that.

Babcock plays some greatest hits. Crispy spring rolls filled with jicama-studded ground pork are on point and while the iconic pork/shrimp goi cuon were 86ed for my drive-thru visit, I dug a veggified version built on tofu, cabbage and mushrooms.

For the most part, however, in contrast to the generally very light, bright and nimble Phoenix-Viet template, Belly delves deep into the braised and the bold.

clockwise from top left: pork belly and egg claypot with coconut juice, garlic, fish sauce, cilantro, chiles, scallions and pickled mustard greens  |  steamed zucchini and cauliflower with mam kho quet  |  crispy white fish with turmeric, ginger, garlic, shrimp paste, fish sauce, yogurt, dill-scallion butter and peanuts

Hook me up. I’m ready to mainline the mam kho quet. “Steamed seasonal veggies” may conjure images of flavorless spa food, but do not make the mistake of sleeping on this one. Yeah, the veg is plain and naked as can be, but that’s because this dipping sauce has the potency of everything else on the menu combined — syrupy sweet with a deep, deep seafood funk, all kind of aromatics, dark and dank and crazy intense in all the best ways. That elixir is magical.

Ooo, these chicken thighs are stewed to a deep, soy-infused intensity, laden with earthy turmeric and brightened with aromatics like ginger, lime and mint. Slurpy pork belly brews in coconut juice and fish sauce, then gets a smattering of piquant preserved mustard greens and some hard boiled eggs on top. One of the meal’s massive winners for me was the lamb shank claypot. This is the small version of the dish, ladies and gentlemen, a dino-sized bone-in beauty, heady with fishy funk and not too sweet. What really got me swooning, though, was the degree to which the shank leaned into fresh bird chiles. Not so much for the heat, though the dish is fairly hot, but for the flavor — a rare reminder that there’s a whole fruit wrapped around that capsaicin that actually tastes of something more than just fire.

braised lamb shank with coconut juice, garlic, fish sauce, chiles, scallions, lime and mint

Torta crossovers seem to be a trend (Killer Whale Sex Club’s Italian Beef torta springs to mind, though I know I’ve seen others), and I dug on a pillowy “pan mi” stuffed with a smear of house pate and a thick slab of cha lua, though I’m still trying to decide whether I’m pining for a baguette’s crispy crust. No reservations whatsoever about a crispy white fish special, though, dusted with turmeric and ginger, funked up with shrimp paste and sporting some belligerent dill. (Can we talk about how underrated dill is, BTW?)

Bonus: Whether by happenstance or design, braised dishes travel well. And the fellas are running an easy-peasy makeshift drive-thru just outside the front door.

I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of Belly once they can get back to the original vision rather than the temporary COVID variant, but no need to wait. This is good stuff.

steamed pork and shrimp roll with peanut sauce

...and Some Not-So-Trendy Vietnamese

Speaking of the com/bun/pho template...

It needs to be said, in the interest of context, that Vietnamese in Scottsdale is a low bar. A very, very... very low bar. Dude. The bar is low. (“But... but...” NO. I know the places you are going to tell me about and they are not good.)

All of which is the long way of saying that I don’t want to oversell Hello Vietnam Pho & Roll.

The original launched a little over a year ago, inhabiting the kind of ‘hood that can only be found in Arizona — a chunk of Peoria smack-dab in the middle of mini-mall and subdivision suburbia that is a ten minutes’ brisk walk from open desert. (If we walked, that is, which we don’t, so yeah.)

clockwise from left: shaking beef with garlic, onion, butter and soy marinade | 
fish sauce wings  |  caramelized pork belly banh mi with an egg

Mea culpa, I never managed to get out there. (In my defense, even when it was my professional duty, the annual number of com/bun/pho openings is... not small.) But lo and behold, location the second opened up close to home last year, taking over the space vacated by the dearly departed Pig & Pickle, and I’m... not at all mad to have it close by?

Caveats apply. First, see: Scottsdale, above. Secondly, this is definitely a situation where you need to focus on the strengths. Namesake or no, I’m pretty sure the pho wouldn’t pass a test for performance enhancers. It has an oomph that feels... heavily fortified. And there are a lot of things I thought the Vietnamese chicken salad might be, but strips of pre-grilled boneless skinless chicken breast arranged atop chopped romaine with a spicy mayo dressing was definitely not among them.

rare tender steak and meatballs pho  |  special bun bo hue

BUT, I’ll tell you what... the bun bo hue is light and flavorful and explodes with lemongrass and actually packs a punch. Crispy fried chicken wings bathed in a syrupy fish sauce glaze are off the salty-sweet charts and traveled surprisingly well. “Caramelized pork belly” banh mi was more like a chopped-up pork chop (meat substitution?), and the sandwich was a touch clumsy, but that was some nice, crisp bread, big flavor, fresh veg — nothing not to like here. And while it definitely leans sweet, the shaking beef I tried was just flat-out delicious. Skewing a little American, perhaps, but juicy and tender and beautifully caramelized.

Definitely worth a nod. And an order. And a stop if you’re in the ‘hood. (Later this year, natch.)

Tuna Melt Manifesto

What, you thought I was dissing tuna melts?

Please. When it comes to comfort food, I don't discriminate.

Those who frequent Phoenix Eats: Extra Helpings may have already caught this one, but someone recently asked — if I may paraphrase — what constitutes the Platonic ideal of a tuna melt?

Now, I love non-traditional tuna melts. (Chula’s green chile tuna melt with kimchi chimichurri certainly springs to mind.) And I don’t like to get into “right” and “wrong.” I may grumble and squawk from time to time, but look, if it tastes good, you should eat it. That said, I fucking love a no-compromises classic tuna melt. So let's record this here, for posterity:

• Rye. Put it on something else, and I ain't mad. But I feel like a hardcore classic tuna melt belongs on rye.
• Simple tuna salad. Not too busy — let that tuna be tuna. Onion, celery, mayo, a little seasoning... but keep it simple, and not too wet.
• No sweet. Apples? Raisins? Get outta here. Not on a classic.
• American cheese. Unfussy with a nice, smooth melt. But cheddar is a noble variant, as well.
• If you go anywhere near my tuna melt with that bottle of Miracle Whip, I will cut you.
• Tuna's gotta be hot. If the tuna's cold or lukewarm, that isn't a tuna melt. It's a tuna sandwich on toast.
• I think there's room for an optional slab of tomato, but that's it. Nothing else. (No, bacon, not even you.)
• Most important, get that bread dark, dark golden and griddled to a killer crisp. It should sizzle and crunch. And mayo may be the short-order cook’s secret weapon, but butter is best.

Dreaming of Restaurants

I know there are some who read this and scoff at the notion that I’m not doing so already, and I’m not going to get into it. I don’t have the energy anymore. (Especially this week.) But suffice it to say that Dr. Doux, by virtue of her doctorly position, has received dose one and is scheduled for dose two. And while the rest of us are going to be a while, it seems, the act of actually sitting down to eat in a restaurant is at once feeling so close and so far away. Not going to rush anything, but damn, it can’t come quickly enough.