by Nick Coons

Situated in the middle of the Royal Palms resort, this is not a place you go to for a "casual" lunch or dinner. In fact, T.Cook's is anything but casual. Dress attire is business casual at a minimum, though I don't know if over-dressing is really a possibility.

We met a few friends there for dinner recently and sat at a waiting table that probably would have been suitable for use as our dinner table at any other restaurant. Once our table was ready, we were escorted to our seats, which included an encounter with an indoor palm tree. Well, partially. The tree came up from the ground and then out through a hole in the roof, so only the trunk of the tree was exposed inside. With constant growth, and a hole only slightly larger than the size of the trunk, I can only imagine the constant repairs.

During the entire meal, there were multiple servers who seemed to be focused only on us, providing excellent service and quickly removing used dishes. In many restaurants like this, they serve pseudo-gourmet dishes. Those are dishes that look pretty, cost a lot of money, and you're expected to like them even if they don't taste good. That was not the case here. With each dish that was finished, I kept wanting more of the same. This held true all the way through the cheesecake at the end.

T. Cooks is located at 5200 E. Camelback Rd. in Phoenix.

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