Highlights
- Riot Hospitality's recently rebranded Shiv Steakhouse on Camelback is serving crab rangoon cigars at $22, fried in beef tallow and dipped in red tobiko caviar.
- Valley newcomer JING on North Scottsdale Road charges $23 for king crab rangoons blended with Gournay cheese, with a brunch rollout coming soon.
- Clever Koi's $16 avocado crab rangoon finishes with a dusting of powdered sugar and has become a near-mandatory table starter at both Valley locations.
- Crab rangoon traces to the 1950s Trader Vic's in California despite its Burmese name — a lineage Phoenix Magazine and multiple food historians have confirmed.
Three Scottsdale kitchens are charging a combined premium for a bar bite that has no business being this good: crab rangoon, the cream-cheese wonton invented not in Asia but at a California tiki bar in the 1950s, is getting a serious upgrade.
The most theatrical version is at Shiv Steakhouse (7373 E. Camelback Rd.), the recently rebranded Riot Hospitality concept in Old Town Scottsdale. Riot Hospitality culinary director Dustin Cooke shapes the wontons into long cylinders from rice paper, fills them with jumbo lump crab, stretchy mozzarella, cream cheese, and serrano peppers, then fries them in beef tallow until crisp. The finished cigars are edge-dipped in red tobiko caviar and perched over a pool of sweet and sour sauce with roasted pineapple, honey, and rice vinegar. The order runs $22. According to Scottsdale Independent reporting, Cooke developed the Shiv menu in collaboration with chef Jeff Mahin, whose résumé includes the Michelin-starred Fat Duck in England and former L2O in Chicago.
At Valley newcomer JING (10605 N. Scottsdale Rd.), chef Thomas Griese blends cream cheese with Gournay — a lighter, garlic-and-herb French cheese — then folds in king crab, Maryland jumbo lump blue crab, and kanikama. The hand-folded, triangle-shaped wontons, four to an order, are crisped in oil and set on a Thai chili-plum sauce. Price: $23. Griese told Phoenix Magazine the rangoons will move to the brunch menu soon.
Clever Koi, with two Valley locations, takes the most accessible approach at $16: crab, avocado, and cream cheese mixed with scallions, shaoxing, turmeric, and sesame oil, fried to order and finished with a dusting of powdered sugar. Culinary director Brandon Jedd told Phoenix Magazine that nearly every table opens with an order of rangoons or potstickers.
As Phoenix Magazine's Marilyn Hawkes notes, crab rangoon was most likely invented in the 1950s at the original Trader Vic's in California — an American creation despite being named after the former capital of Burma. Mixology's current tiki renaissance is the why-now behind all three kitchens revisiting the dish simultaneously.
Shiv's brunch and dinner service is running now at 7373 E. Camelback Rd.; JING's brunch rangoon rollout has no announced date.
Sources
Every factual claim in this article traces to one of the sources below. See how we work for the editorial process.
- Phoenix Magazine retrieved 2026-05-06T11:40:44.681784+00:00
- yourvalley.net retrieved 2026-05-06T11:40:44.681784+00:00
Authored by margot_reyes. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 2026-05-06T11:40:44.681784+00:00. Every claim traces to a source.
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