Crackers & Co. Cafe, 535 West Iron Avenue, Mesa, 898-1717. Hours: Breakfast and Lunch, 7 a.m. to 2 p.m., seven days a week; Dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 9 p.m. You want affordable housing and good schools? The East Valley’s got them. You want low crime rates and conservative…

Holding Serve: I got a long, angry note from a waitress who’s put in eight years on the job. According to her, “It’s getting rugged out here.” She wants to remind the public that the server-diner relationship is a two-way street. “Everyone on this planet,” she says, “upon adulthood, should…

Little Saigon, 1588 West Montebello (Christown Mall), Phoenix, 864-7582. Hours: Breakfast, lunch and dinner, Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. A hundred years ago, in America’s biggest cities, new neighborhoods with names like Little Italy and Germantown sprang up, home…

Bugged: Remember the old joke? Diner: Waiter, there’s a fly in my soup. Waiter: Lower your voice! Or everyone else will ask for one. It’s not a joke anymore, at least according to an enormously entertaining new book. It’s the Eat-A-Bug Cookbook, by David George Gordon (Ten Speed Press, $12.95)…

Santisi Brothers, 2710 West Bell, Phoenix, 789-7979. Hours: Lunch and dinner, Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Sunday, noon to 10 p.m. I moved away 26 years ago, but my family and friends back East still haven’t come to terms…

Taking Stock: I was intrigued to learn that P.F. Chang’s, the oh-so-trendy Chinese restaurant, is considering going public. Its operators have filed for an initial public offering, looking to raise almost $60 million from stock to finance expansion. The restaurant has been extremely successful from the get-go, five years ago,…

When people meet me and discover what I do for a living, they invariably ask two questions: 1) What’s your favorite restaurant? 2) With all the eating you do, how do you keep yourself in such magnificent physical condition, so lean, muscular and fit? Actually, nobody ever asks me the…

Coronado Cafe, 2201 North Seventh Street, Phoenix, 258-5149. Hours: Lunch and early dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. What’s the highlight of your workday? For most working stiffs, it’s the lunch break. When that noon bell rings, we reclaim our autonomy–for a little while, at least, our…

Home on the Range: I’m not sure if “Cowboy Ciao” is the kind of restaurant name that’s going to lure many customers. It sounds a little too cutesy, doesn’t it? Initially, I imagined someone named Rocco in the kitchen, jangling the spurs on his boots and wearing a fringed shirt…

Cheese Wiz: A few weeks ago, I had a problem I rarely run into: deciding where to take out-of-town friends and their three kids to eat, on our own nickel. We wanted a nice place, not too fancy, but not a dive. The menu had to offer interesting food for…

Coco Pazzo, 4720 North Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, 946-9777. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Sunday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. The old Roman Empire ran out of steam about 1,500 years ago. But it looks like two ambitious restaurant operators want to…

Norman’s Arizona, 4410 North 40th Street, Phoenix, 956-2288. Hours: Lunch, Tuesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dinner, Tuesday through Saturday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Sunday, 5 to 9 p.m. Christopher. Vincent. RoxSand. Franco. Razz. Eddie. The Valley has a first-name relationship with a number of outstanding chefs known…

Late-Night Dining: After the big hand hits the 12 and the little hand reaches the 10, there aren’t too many eating-out choices in the Valley that don’t end in “. . . berto’s.” One particularly good one: Carlsbad Tavern. It moved a few months ago, driven out of its Scottsdale…

Gordon Biersch, 420 South Mill, Tempe, 736-0033. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, 11 a.m. to 1 a.m., seven days a week. It’s hot. It’s sticky. It’s August. How do you find relief this time of year? If you’ve got some vacation time and disposable income, you can get a cabin in…

Occidental Tourist: About six weeks ago, I gave Silver Dragon (8946 North 19th Avenue, 674-0151) an exceptionally good review. I praised the Hong Kong-style fare, but noted that, unless you were Chinese, you’d probably never get a chance to sample it. That’s because Silver Dragon tries to banish us gweilos…

Bombay Palace, 5775 West Bell, Glendale, 547-1000. Hours: Lunch, Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.; Dinner, 5 to 10 p.m., seven days a week. What kind of diners go to the Valley’s ethnic restaurants? I’d say there are four types:…

Over the Cracker Barrel: A few weeks ago, I wrote a favorable review of Cracker Barrel, a Tennessee-based chain with some 350 branches across the country. The company is currently moving into the Valley in a big way. I thought the down-home fare was cheap, ample and tasty. But correspondent…

Desert Moon Grill and Saloon, 15415 North 65th Place, Scottsdale, 607-1811. Hours: Lunch and Dinner, Monday through Wednesday, 11:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.; Friday and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. to midnight; Sunday, 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,”…

Tempe Eats: People do weird things. Some collect string. Others follow baseball batting averages. Roisan Rubio obsessively wanders over every square inch of downtown Tempe. From First Street on the north to 10th Street on the south, from College Avenue on the east to Ash Avenue on the west, he…

Christopher’s, 2398 East Camelback, Phoenix, 957-3214. Summer hours: Thursday through Saturday, 6 p.m. to close. The enormous floral centerpiece at Christopher’s–large enough for a gangland funeral–looked way past its prime, the flowers worn and faded. But my nose picked up the scent of a metaphor: Perhaps, I thought, the tired,…

Name Game: What’s in a name? Does arroz by any other name smell as sweet? That’s the question at Mayan’s. For years, this popular west-side Mexican restaurant was called Minga’s. But now that the old proprietors have teamed up with new partners and hired a new chef, they’ve decided the…

Mancuso’s, 6166 North Scottsdale Road (The Borgata), Scottsdale, 948-9988. Hours: Dinner, 5 to 10 p.m., seven days a week. Arizona has its share of ancient wonders: the Grand Canyon, the Petrified Forest, Meteor Crater. I suppose you could add Mancuso’s to the list. After all, it’s nearly as old. When…