EAST VALLEY
Ten Seconds Yunnan Rice Noodle
Opened: May 2025
This plain but pleasant Yunnan-style hot pot restaurant is part of a massive Chinese restaurant chain, boasting 750 outlets in China and a growing number in Europe and North America. Its claim to fame is a Yunnan specialty called “crossing-the-bridge noodles,” (quaint origin story not provided), a DIY dish involving pre-cooked rice noodles, a pot of bubbling, slow-cooked bone broth (try the golden hot and sour version, $15.99), and a tray of small dishes (thinly sliced meats, shrimp, meat paste, green onions, tofu, goji berries, corn, lettuce and quail egg), which are added to the broth and ready in – you guessed it – seconds. It’s a lovely, nourishing bowl of soup.
Even better, to my mind, are mixed noodles with beef shank ($15.99), a sesame oil-scented lo mein of stir-fried veggies, shingles of rich beef, vermicelli-like rice noodles and crushed peanuts. The menu offers plenty of pre-noodle noshes, too, including chewy, sesame seed-studded sesame balls ($3.99) and sweet potato and taro balls – sweet with a pale purple center of starchy taro ($4.99). Don’t miss light and tempura-like golden crispy pork bites ($7.99). Like millions of Chinese people, I love this new go-to for cheap, delicious Yunnan-style eats!
Wild Card: Try Laoshan Cola, China’s mineral water-based, distinctly herbal cola made with cloves, galangal and jujube ($3.99).
1832 W. Broadway Rd., Mesa, tensecondsyunnanricenoodles.com
– Nikki Buchanan
SCOTTSDALE
Shio Ramen & Crudo
Opened: March 2025
As a ramen lover, it’s essential to have a good go-to spot for tonkatsu, that sultry pork broth that’s sort of the Bolognese of the ramen world – i.e. the richest, the most comforting. At the very least, this homey ramen-sushi hybrid at SkySong discharges that duty capably. Packed with marrow-y flavor (chicken stock is also used, for added butteriness) and bewitchingly flecked with pools of black garlic oil, Shio’s tonkatsu ramen ($15) delivers that sublime, narcotic effect known to noodle lovers worldwide, swimming with bamboo shoots, meaty flaps of wood ear mushroom and a fermented, soft-cooked egg. Shio is owned and operated by the group of young culinary guns that run Arcadia favorite Sushiholic, a restaurant that I’ve always liked, but thought was not quite as innovative or freewheeling as the name would suggest.
Perhaps the same “complaint” applies here. My order of takoyaki (octopus fritters, $8) is very satisfactory; the yellowtail nigiri ($4) much the same. But where’s the adventure, the randomness, the blackboard menu? I finally get a wisp of it at the end of my second visit when I order a maguro handroll ($8), expecting a typical cone-like temaki, and get instead an elaborate, taco-like creation set on a folded sheet of nori, garnished with toasted ginger and delicate, peppery watercress. I’m tickled by it and would happily eat a dozen.
Wild Card: Shio doesn’t have a website, but its Yelp and Instagram pages are packed with images of grilled squid (ikayaki), seared scallops and other intriguing things I didn’t see on the menu. Maybe just ask for them?
1455 N. Scottsdale Rd., 480-264-3344, @shioramen2025
– Craig Outhier
PHOENIX
Title 9 Sports Grill
Opened: March 2025
The smashing of stereotypes at this new all-women’s sports bar in the Melrose District is generally limited to the WNBA and NCAA softball games on its many TV screens. Crispy chicken wings (also available in cauliflower form, $15) would be perfectly at home on any Zipps or Half Moon menu – meaty and tender under the fried bits, tossed in six fetching glaze options ranging from Thai peanut to garlic-Parmesan. The small plates menu is also sports-bar-normative, albeit with expressive flourishes like zesty pimento cheese dip ($10) and the mac-and-cheese trio (under-realized, with bland, watery cheese and a no-zing green chile permutation, $14). The Southwest chopped salad ($16) is a winner, jeweled with roasted corn, tart-sweet dried cranberries, pepitas and avocado chunks; but the menu’s signature items, a choice of 10 smashburgers and hand-helds ($10), are a mixed bag.
On one visit, the Pimento Crunch was very tasty, with a sweet, barbecue juiciness that lingered until the last bite; on another, the Whiskey Onion was straight-up cardboard, a “smashburger” only in the sense that it was cooked beyond edibility. Luckily, a Long-Island-like Ledecky Lit ($11) from the fun, pun-laden cocktail menu was there to wash it down. Other standouts on a deep bench include the Maher Mule (vodka, passionfruit and ginger beer, $13) and Tiki-esque Taurasi GOAT-tail ($12).
Wild Card: Close out the side with a tasty slice of pie ($7) from local bakery Brotduft. Key lime is the closer of the bunch: tart, cooling and smooth.
4221 N. Seventh Ave., 602-290-9910, titleninesportsgrill.com
– Craig Outhier
WEST VALLEY
Owl Owl Boba x Chick
Opened: January 2025
Husband-and-wife team Angela Yeh and Jonathan Yang got their start selling biandang (Taiwan’s version of the bento box lunch) to workers at TSMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor plant in North Phoenix. Now the couple has settled into a small, cute storefront (decorated with owls, of course) where they turn out beloved Taiwanese classics. Handmade spicy wontons (each glossy wrapper filled with pork and set afloat in chili oil, $7.99) make an excellent starter, as does Taiwan’s street food staple of thickly sliced, braised pork belly (fatty and crisp-edged, $6.99), tucked in a fluffy bao bun with pickled cucumbers, sliced red chilies and spicy mayo or pickled mustard greens, ground peanuts and cilantro. Both versions are excellent. Crispy, deep-fried nuggets of popcorn chicken, sparked with Chinese five spice and Thai basil, may be ordered as a side dish ($7.99) or as a bowl filled with white rice, steamed broccoli, pickled mustard greens and a fried egg ($11.99).
There’s excellent braised beef noodle soup ($14.99) as well, brimming with springy noodles, chunks of ultra-tender beef and bok choy, all set in a rich broth fragrant with five spice. I ask you, who who can resist Owl Owl?
Wild Card: Flavored milk teas ($5.99), jazzed up with chewy boba (tapioca pearls) qualify as dessert. Try nutty, lavender-tinted taro.
5026 W. Cactus Rd., Glendale, 602-603-1646, @owlowl_az
– Nikki Buchanan
