happy hour Archives

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Chelsea’s Kitchen

Leah LeMoineNovember 19, 2021

Photo by Leah LeMoine THE SCENE While our highs are still depressingly in the 80s – so disheartening for this part of November, no? – the evenings have been getting a little cooler lately. The other night was chilly, dare I say. What better place to while away a few crisp afternoon and evening hours at a media happy hour than the famously pretty patio of Chelsea’s Kitchen? The Arcadia classic is just as charming as ever. Shade trees provide a verdant...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Zinqué

Leah LeMoineNovember 16, 2021

Photo by Leah LeMoine THE SCENE The “all-day café” trend that has gripped both coasts has reached Phoenix, and it’s no surprise a California transplant has led the charge. Headquartered in Venice, Zinqué (pronounced zin-kay) is a Golden State-inflected French concept where you can get coffee and pastries in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, and dinner and drinks in the evening. In the first two-thirds of the day, it offers counter service. At cocktail hour, it switches to table service, which it also offers during weekend brunch. ...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Linger Longer Lounge

Leah LeMoineNovember 5, 2021

Photo by Leah LeMoine THE SCENE I’d heard about Linger Longer Lounge for years, but I never knew where it was. Downtown Phoenix? Midtown? CenPho? Scottsdale? As I pulled into the parking lot for a media happy hour there a couple of weeks ago, my confusion was validated. It’s tucked into the far corner of a plaza that itself feels somewhat recessed from the intersection of 16th Street and Sierra Drive, just north of East Maryland Avenue....

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Mora Italian

Leah LeMoineOctober 8, 2021

Photo by Leah LeMoine THE SCENE To stay connected during the pandemic – and to nurture our shared love of cooking – my friend Kristy suggested a weekly FaceTime cooking date. Her proposal: We’d take turns selecting recipes to cook along with the other, virtually. A cooking club for two? I said yes without hesitation. We started Quarantine Culinarians in July 2020 and have miraculously kept it up since, with a few skipped weeks and a brief hiatus this past summer. (I promise this will lead to a happy hour write-up – just stay with...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Los Sombreros Revisited

Leah LeMoineOctober 1, 2021

Tijuana Donkey (left) and Mango Mezgarita (right) | Photo by Leah LeMoine THE SCENE Last year, during the height of the pandemic and before the vaccine was available, I became something of an expert on takeout happy hours. I re-crisped pizza and nachos in my oven after they’d wilted in transit. I poured cocktails from their secure plastic carrying containers into my own glassware to make them feel fancy again. I re-plated, photographed, blogged and Instagrammed. One of the highlights...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkBooze Flash: The Mix Up Bar

Nikki BuchananSeptember 16, 2021

The Mix Up Bar interior | Photo by Nikki Buchanan The Mix Up Bar, tucked away to the left of T. Cook’s at the Royal Palms Resort & Spa, is one of my favorite places to hang out over a cocktail. Like the lovely old resort in which it’s nestled, the room is gracious, intimate and — if you time it right — blessedly quiet, the kind of place where you might strike up...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Buck &Rider

Leah LeMoineAugust 27, 2021

Photo courtesy Buck &Rider THE SCENE “I don’t eat seafood in landlocked states.” That sentence – along with its cousin, “Seafood in the desert? Pass.” – is up there on the list of trite refrains I regularly field from friends and relatives about dining in the Valley. When I hear someone say it, I have to fight a visceral urge to shake them and bellow, “Do you think we’re still in the 1950s?!” In a time before overnight shipping and advanced packing and cooling techniques, sure, you would have...

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Desert Digest Food & Drink Happy HourHappy Hour: The Montauk

Leah LeMoineAugust 9, 2021

THE SCENE Like any The Real Housewives of New York City fan worth the salt on her Skinnygirl Margarita, I have a bit of an obsession with the Hamptons. I live for Ramona’s volcanic dinner parties (and questionable design choices), Luann’s out-of-touch pizza order (“Mrs. de Lesseps… The Countess!”), Sonja’s kooky jitney bathroom rituals, Bethenny’s avoidance of guests at her own home, high-stakes brunch battles and, of course, Barbara’s clambake, complete with doggie bags full of lobsters. Alas, I am but a desert girl in an average tax bracket, so I figured my Hamptons enjoyment would remain vicarious unless I somehow befriended a celeb –...

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Desert Digest Food & Drink Happy HourHappy Hour: CHAR Pizzeria Napoletana

Leah LeMoineJuly 22, 2021

THE SCENE I almost can’t believe my eyes when I walk into CHAR Pizzeria Napoletana in Peoria. There’s a sleek, clean and downright Euro feel – silvery tin tiles on the ceiling, modern black light fixtures, gleaming wood and metal chairs congregated around marble-topped tables, brown leather banquettes and booths, a contemporary wooden bench and a clean white counter. I grew up in the West Valley and went to high school just minutes away from this pristine pizzeria at the corner of Lake Pleasant Parkway and Happy Valley Road. Let me tell...

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Craft Beer Desert Digest Food & Drink Happy HourHappy Hour: Pedal Haus Brewery

Leah LeMoineJuly 16, 2021

THE SCENE I am a lot of things, but two things I certainly am not are a beer drinker and a vegan. I often wish I could be both! Life – especially concerts, dive bars, festivals and my alcohol budget – would be so much easier if I loved beer. While I can find merit in a porter or stout redolent of chocolate, coffee or caramel, or in a fruity light beer like Papago Orange Blossom, I’d always rather skip the brew in favor...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Little Cay

Leah LeMoineJuly 8, 2021

plantain latkas | Photo by Leah LeMoine THE SCENE STOP. Stop driving by restaurants and shops you’re curious about. Pull in, park and go inside. Try as many new things as you can. At worst, you’ll spend a little money and be disappointed. At least your curiosity will be satisfied, and you’ll know not to go again. At best, you could discover a new favorite – a neighborhood haunt, a regular spot for meals with friends, a haven with your kind of people, art, vibe, food and drinks. You...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: LON’s Last Drop at The Hermosa Inn

Leah LeMoineJuly 2, 2021

Avocado and tomato bruschetta | Photo by Leah LeMoine THE SCENE My love for The Hermosa Inn and its stunning on-site restaurant, LON’s, is no secret. I love it so much I broke my pandemic “dining-out” fast there in April, when my partner and I celebrated our anniversary on its perfect patio. I’ve rhapsodized about it in print and in this very happy hour blog, where I wrote about LON’s Last Drop’s happy hour two years ago. Ah, but the times, they are a changin’ – and so is the happy hour...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: Campo Italian Bistro and Bar

Leah LeMoineJune 14, 2021

THE SCENE Oh, I forgot how wonderful it is to visit a new restaurant. To sit down at the bar and really drink the place in. To try a smattering of dishes to truly get a sense of the chef’s headspace. To actually feel the vibe, not just observe it from the takeout counter before rushing home. I rediscovered this pleasure this week at a media happy hour at the week-old Campo Italian Bistro and Bar, the newest incarnation of James Beard Award-winning chef Alex Stratta’s space in The Village at...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: O.H.S.O. Paradise Valley

Leah LeMoineJune 3, 2021

THE SCENE Is anyone else having crowd anxiety as we return to restaurants? I can’t be the only one. It’s simply natural to be a little jittery around gaggles of people after the past year and a half of social distancing, quarantining and fearing the physical proximity of others, lest we infect each other with a horrific virus. It’s challenging to rewire your brain and body to accept closeness – especially for someone like me, a social introvert who thrives in small groups but is easily...

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Desert Digest Food & DrinkHappy Hour: The Porch Arcadia

Leah LeMoineMay 27, 2021

THE SCENE Photo by Leah LeMoine This week, I returned to the office for my first full workday there in a long time (nearly all pandemic, though I did come in for a few days here and there). It was nice to see my colleagues, to be in their presence and to share my baking experiments with them again (my pampushki, aka Ukrainian buttermilk rolls, were a hit). It was also nice to revisit the part of town our office is in – the fringes of Arcadia, close to Old...

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