Calling all sushi lovers and competitive eaters: A Sushi Showdown sushi-eating contest will take place 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, April 7, at RA Sushi restaurants in Mesa, Tempe, Ahwatukee, North Scottsdale and Old Town Scottsdale.

Just weeks after a 15-year-old collapsed from cardiac arrest in a Gilbert restaurant and was rushed to Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, he walked back into the hospital on a recent Friday to thank the men and women who helped save his life.

I made sushi at home the other day for the first time ever. And it didn’t go that badly, surprisingly. I wouldn’t have thought so just 24 hours earlier.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Las Vegas is getting ready for the year of the snake. The casino capital celebrates Chinese New Year — also known as lunar new year — in a big way, with feasts, exhibits, performances and other events at outdoor festivals and at casino-resorts like Bellagio and The Venetian.

The 42nd annual Barrett-Jackson Collector Car Auction will take over Jan. 13-20, 2013, at Westworld of Scottsdale — but you can get revved up for the auto action sooner.

Take a departure from typical holiday party menus at RA Sushi Bar Restaurant on Dec. 31.

Adults in the East Valley are getting another option for hanging out late on a Saturday night.

For two weeks this summer I made it my mission to improve my 8-year-old son’s tolerance of vegetables.

TASTE. Chandler’s Culinary Festival returns Oct. 6 with expanded local restaurant offerings and new evening hours.

C-Fu Gourmet (2051 W. Warner Road [480] 899-3888). This Chinese eatery is best known for its daily Dim Sum, a kind of snack lunch full of tasty dumplings and pastries, served between 10:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. And with good reason — it’s the best in the East Valley, highlighted by the shumai (pork dumplings) and shrimp rice noodle roll. Their dinner service is also a winner, offering nearly 200 options and 13 “regional specialty sauces.” $$

Ken and Payton LaCivita are managing partners of Cogburn’s Big Wings, 4902 S. Val Vista Drive, Gilbert. (480) 855-3288 or CogburnsBar.com

If you've ever had a California roll, you've had nori.

If you’ve ever had a California roll, you’ve had nori.

Light, chilled and refreshing with a toothsome texture, ceviche is summer in a bowl. Add tortilla chips and it becomes a cross between a meal and a snack.

Light, chilled and refreshing with a toothsome texture, ceviche is summer in a bowl. Add tortilla chips and it becomes a cross between a meal and a snack.

‘The Queen of Versailles” has earned a lot of hype over the past few months, scoring considerable praise from critics and the Sundance Film Festival. The notion that such a film could resonate with anybody other than the 1 percent baffles me. This is a movie about unsympathetic billionaires that are so self-centered that they had to make a documentary about their alleged financial struggle. To refer to it as a “documentary” would diminish the value of the genre. “The Queen of Versailles” is nothing more than a reality show stretched to an hour and 40 minutes that belongs with the likes of the Kardashians on E!

“The Queen of Versailles” has earned a lot of hype over the past few months, scoring considerable praise from critics and the Sundance Film Festival. The notion that such a film could resonate with anybody other than the 1% baffles me. This is a movie about unsympathetic billionaires that are so self-centered that they had to make a documentary about their alleged financial struggle. To refer to it as a “documentary” would diminish the value of the genre. “The Queen of Versailles” is nothing more than a reality show stretched to an hour and forty minutes that belongs with the likes of the Kardashians on E!

The documentary "The Queen of Versailles" begins life as a juicy guilty pleasure, allowing us to gawk and cluck at the nouveau-riche ostentation of an elderly time-share mogul and his much-younger trophy wife as they build their dream home: a 90,000-square-foot palace that would be the biggest house in America.