It’s no secret that birria-ramen has mad buss status, slaps the street food scene, and is as hot as the scorching streets of La Phoenikera. And it’s fucking crazy ’cause even if it’s raining fire outside, this culinary lovechild, born from the succulent affair between Mexican birria and Japanese ramen, it’s still taking over people’s […]

No, the burrito from one of the Berto’s at 4 a.m. doesn’t count. What we’re talking about here is the first thing that comes to mind after you’ve been macerating inside the covers ’till noon because you couldn’t restrain yourself from drowning your inadequacies the night before. If your first instinct involves micheladas, mariscos or […]

When did you last sit down to have a meal without compulsively checking your phone for your social media fix? How long ago did you experience a chill time around a table and have genuine conversations with those you were sharing it with? Posts rule our lives. Salience is our drug. Push notifications, celestial verses. […]

Edson Madrigal and Pete Salaz got together last year to form Céntrico, one of the new Mexican-inspired food joints in dwntwn La Phoenikera. Pete worked in the nightclub industry for many decades, co-owning Bar Smith and Monarch Theatre. He decided to stay on as an owner but leave the management part to work on a […]

In a partnership made in heaven, during the month of February four Latinx eateries in La Phoenikera and the metro area got together with Girl Scouts to create desserts based on their famous cookies. Holy baby Jesus! This is part of the Girl Scouts–Arizona Cactus-Pine Council’s Cookie Dessert Challenge (try saying that three times), which has […]

Armando Hernández and his wife Nadia Holguín, owners of Tacos Chiwas, have finally opened the taco joint’s sister coffee shop Cafe Chiwas and we’re excited AF! It’s a cozy place where you can get a cafecito and pastries while you work on your shenanigans using their WiFi (they have WiFi woohoo!). Also, if pastries are […]

Living in La Phoenikera, whether you are Latinx or not, you’ve probably had tamales during the holidays. Tamales are a staple food in Latin America and there are many different versions, from sweet to savory, from white to colorful, from corn husk to banana peel wrappers. The word tamal (plural for tamales…one tamal, two tamales, […]

Sandra Flores considers herself an “in-betweener.” By this, she means that she’s Latin American, which makes her look for places that speak to both sides of her identity. That’s why, when she thought of opening a coffee shop, she wanted to make sure it did exactly that. She wanted a place that was modern but […]

Whoever has a vision of their future and wants to materialize it, doesn’t have it easy. If you start your own bidness, often times you’ll want to throw in the towel, you’ll have to make concessions, reevaluate your views, pull through thick and thin, wean off your spare time (at least for a while), and […]

Somebody recently asked me if I knew a place with a killer mole in La Phoenikera—you know, the kind that pleasures your tongue as if it were a one-night stand. I couldn’t make a suggestion, but luckily, enlightenment is one Google search away. I laser-focused on the “La 15 y Salsas” result, which was located […]