Santorini’s BBQ Grill is a casual budget type restaurant that offers a mixed menu of Greek Food, some Barbecue, and Fried Fish. They are located in Glendale Arizona only a few. miles from Old Town Glendale. Did you know that Santorini is the name of a large Greek Island where one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history happened……….Anyways- I was in the area and this place sounded interesting so we gave it a try. It’s not a fancy place but seems clean inside. It looks like hit might have been some sort of fast food place at one time.
We walk in and I see the lunch specials.
Then I see the full menu on the wall.
We order, pay, and seat ourselves.
We start by sharing the hummus.
The hummus is extra creamy and glistens from olive oil. The pita bread was warmed up for us.
I had the chicken kabob Greek Salad that came with more warmed up flat bread and tzatziki sauce.
The salad. is a generous size and was fresh made with crisp romaine, tomato. wedges, olives, pickled spicy peppers, feta cheese, and marinated chicken breast. It’s reasonably. good.
My husband got the gyro. Greek salad with a sides of hot links and macaroni and cheese.
It’s kinda average and A-OK!
It cost slightly more than fast food and is better than. fast food.
That was my trip to. Santorini’s BBQ Grill in Glendale.
This recipe is by Great British Chefs dot com (I rounded some ingredients slightly). It’s called Charred Green Beans with Sauté Potatoes, Chermoula, and Fried Almonds. I didn’t call it Charred Green Beans because my green beans were kind of hallow (maybe old?) so when I took mine to char they got all soggy. This recipe is tasty and is a more epicurean version of green beans almandine. Here you fry up the almonds in oil and use the infused almond oil to fry up the potatoes and then fry up the green beans. To make things more interesting you toss the green beans in chermoula (a Moroccan pesto made with preserved lemon). Serving size is difficult to judge. For me this makes a little more than 4 side servings. You will also have extra chermoula leftover that would taste amazing in a tuna salad or on top of grilled fish.
Ingredients for around 5 servings
1 cup almonds
3 Tablespoons olive oil
pinch sea salt
pinch sugar
2 potatoes – peeled (original recipe suggest a dice cut but I cut mine into long thin fry shapes ….do whatever. you want)
flaky sea salt
black pepper
1 lb green beans – trimmed
3 Tablespoons chermoula
1 cup cilantro chopped
1/2 cup parsley leaves chopped
2 garlic cloves – ground to paste
1 preserved lemon (just the rind scrape out the segments and white from rind as much as you can) – chopped fine
1/2 teaspoon sea salt
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/4 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice
Directions
Make chermoula and set to the side. In a large bowl combine the cilantro, parsley, garlic, preserved lemon, oil, salt, paprika, cumin, cayenne, and lemon juice. Set to the side
Fry up the almonds. Put the oil in a fry pan on medium high heat. Fry up the almonds till they turn light brown. Remove almonds without removing the oil and drain on towel lined pan. Sprinkle the almonds with sugar and salt and seed to the side.
Fry the potatoes till they are golden brown. Drain and then season with salt and pepper and set to the side.
Fry up the green beans to desired wrinkle…..Drain green beans when done. Add the green beans to the big bowl with the potatoes and chermoula and toss. Top with the almonds and serve and enjoy!
Fried Green Beans with Potatoes, Chermoula and Fried Almonds
A special THANKS!!!!!!! To Greet British Chefs so I could come up with these amazing green beans!
Little CAY Latin-Caribbean Kitchen is a casual full service Latin-Caribbean Restaurant located in Scottsdale Arizona. They have patio seating, traditional seating, booths, and seating at the bar.
Patioinside
You can order appetizers like various empanadas, shrimp in tostones (plantain) cups, plantain latkes, conch fritters and more.
Jerk Chicken Empanada & Plantain Latkes with ketchup and curry saucesmaduros (plantains)
You can get pressed sandwiches such as the famous Cuban sandwich, some of the other pressed sandwiches are the Sloppy Jose (picadillo ground beef), and a jerk chicken and Swiss sandwich. Other sandwiches offered are breadless and use Tostones (plantains) instead of bread.One is called Jibarito of churrasco and red chimichurri. The other two are grilled eggplant and grilled chicken. A few salads are offered but the main dig might be the Chop Bowls or the Classic Dinners.
Many different varieties of Chop Bowls and Classic Dinners are offered. I usually get the Kokomo bowl because it’s a FORKING YUM-Dinger!
From Little Cay in Phoenix I got the Kokomo Chop Bowl the flavors are great but you must add the special sauce o the table to it to get the whole experience.
It’s made of salad, grilled marinated chicken, yellow rice, black beans, curry mayo, rum soaked cranberries….and this is all great but then it gets even better when you add the Pique hot sauce. (or the. xtra hot pique that was offered to me on my last visit)
Seasoned Puerto Rican Hot Sauce called Pique
My husband usually gets the Dos Cays (Classic Dinner).
Dos Cays
The Dos Cays is a plate of Ropa Vieja (slow cooked beef), Lechen pork (slow cooked), yellow rice, pink beans, tostones, ajillimojilo sauce.
Tried the Pink Sands Grilled Maui Maui with added avocado as my server suggested.
The flavors of everything are wild and delicious. The flavors pop even more when you add the pique sauce. This also is a very large portion of food and might be two meals for some people.
Below is the Bistel De Palomilla (grilled marinated skirt steak with sautéed onions, white rice black beans, maudros, ajilimojili sauce, and added on red chimichurri sauce)
Same story as most of the dishes…..Everything taste delicious and gets even better when you add the pique sauce…….The only thing different here is that the steak is slightly over cooked but it taste really good.
A few times we had dessert here.
Once we tried the guava empanada special.
guava empanada special
We also tried the Maduros Foster.
Another time we had the Key Lime Tartlet. So far this one was our favorite but we haven’t tried everything yet.
Key Lime Tartlet
That was a Bigger Taste of Little CAY Latin-Caribbean Kitchen in Scottsdale Arizona.
Bacanora Is a small but very well received Sonoran Mexican Restaurant and Bar located in Phoenix Arizona. They have been named by Esquire one of the best new restaurant of 2021 in America. Our local food critic said in her latest review said the Bacanora is an instant classic.
The restaurant really is very small with less that 10 tables inside, a few bar seats, and a few tables outside.
Most of the insidebar areaa few outside tables
All the cooking is done on one wood fired grill that. is very close to the bar.
the kitchen
Did you know that Bacanora is the same name as a Mexican clear alcohol from agave plants from the town of Bacanora? Speaking of alcohol Bacanora (the restaurant) offers an interesting cocktail menu. Some of the cocktails that they offer are margaritas, an Oaxacan old fashioned, something called chicken milk with mezcal and all kinds of things, micheladas, and an over the top option called Con Fuego of adding hot coals and smoking aromatics.
Oaxacan Old Fashioned (LOOK at the ice cube) and Special of the day Margarita with Tamarind
Just lke the vestibul sized restaurant the menu also isn’t the largest. They offer elote (charred corn with seasoned spiced creama and cotija cheese) as an appetizer and special of the day appetizers. The special of the day appetizers today were cucumber salad, a butternut squash appetizer and halibut aguachili.
Halibut Aguachili Special Appetizer
The main digs that they offer are a carne asada burrito, A Sonoran style (fried in fat) carne asada tostada, pollo asada and daily specials.
Pollo Asado
Today’s specials were a. shrimp and chorizo entree and a tomahawk steak.
Shrimp and Chorizo Special
I’ve been wanting to come here for a long time but read about waiting around ninety minutes for a table. I recently found out that Bacanora now takes reservations. When I made my reservation they were already booked up for a month on the days I wanted.
Everything we tried was delicious with unique flavors that you won’t find anywhere else. The food wasn’t upscale but was homestyle….meaning that you had to peel the shrimp yourself. You also had to peel the chicken skin off because it wasn’t edible. The proteins today were prepared reasonably well (slightly over (shrimp & chicken breast) and slightly under (chicken thigh & leg))) but had very good flavors. My hands smelled delicious all night long.
That was my trip to Bacanora Restaurant in Phoenix AZ.
I had 3 1/2 pounds of tomatillos to use so I wanted to make tomatillo salsa. I made up my own recipes for tomatillo salsa and they were both good. One was raw and one was for roasted salsa. I started looking up other people’s recipes and they were all surprisingly different. I also read that some chefs strongly prefer the raw to the roasted salsa. I did base what I did on Chef Nud Dudhia’s recipe. His recipe was the only one that I saw that used almonds. The almonds really push this recipe above the others. It’s simply scrumptious. I really don’t want to make tomatillo salsa any other way now! This is so FORKING delicious that you are going to want to use this sauce on everything. He says that you can do this roasted or raw. I did roasted because I liked my last roasted tomatillo salsa better than the raw. I rounded some things and changed a couple things because I need to keep this salsa good for at least a month so I made it with home made pickled peppers and I added home made jalapeño brine instead of lime juice….To get the lime taste I’d recommend to add some lime zest. I made around 7 cups. Serving size is difficult. to tell because I don’t know if you need a spoonful for a taco or a cup to cover a burrito. I’ll guesstimate 10 servings.
Ingredients for around 10 servings
3 1/2 pounds tomatillos husked, washed
2 pickled serrano peppers (preferably home made) – rough chopped
2 pickled jalapeños (preferably home made) – rough chopped
6 garlic cloves – ground to paste
6 oz roasted salted almonds – crushed
2 shallots- peeled, chopped
1 avocado- remove pit and avocado flesh – rough chop the flesh
1/4 cup cilantro – chopped
1/2 cup Jalapeno brine (THIS MUST BE HOME MADE by you or purchased from a farmers market to taste good)
1 teaspoon sea salt
optional but recommended – lime zest for finishing
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Put the tomatillos in pans with edges on a middle rack and keep them in the oven till they char up. Remove when done.
If you have a stick blender you can blend everything together now. If not you need to wait till the tomatillos cool.
Blend together the tomatillos, peppers, garlic, almonds, shallots, avocado flesh, cilantro, jalapeño brine and salt. Adjust seasoning if necessary.
Tomatillo Salsa (suggested serve)
Chicken thigh covered in tomatillo sauce, pickled red onion, radish pico and served with grilled zucchini topped with pumpkin seed pesto and cilantro oil.
A special THANKS to chef Nud Dudhia for sharing his FORKING Amazing recipe so I could come up with what I got here.
I was making some salsas so I thought radish pico de gallo would go well with everything and it looks pretty too. I’m thinking that you won’t use much as a portion so I think it will make around 6 servings. I used 6 common red radishes…..but mine were on the large side so you might want to add one or two more if yours are small. You don’t have to cut the radish the way I did. I think shredded would work well. I didn’t cube the radish because I thought it would be harder to eat that way.
Ingredients for around 6 servings
6 common red radishes – sliced thin and quarter the slices.
1/2 lime – just the fresh squeezed juice
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon course sea salt
5 cilantro sprigs – chopped
1 pickled serrano pepper – minced (preferably home made)
3 Tablespoons red onion – fine chopped
1 Tablespoon scallions – sliced thin
Instructions
Just mix up all the ingredients in a small bowl and serve.
Radish Pico De Gallo on the right side of a NY Steak also with Morita salsa and pickled onions
Shu Han Lee is a very high end food blogger, food writer, and food stylist. She has worked with Jamie Oliver and has written for magazines. It wasn’t really my intention to change her recipe but I didn’t have the more flavorful Hatcho miso in my pantry that I need for her recipe. I used regular white miso instead and bumped up the miso by adding a splash of yuzu hot sauce. I also cooked it only slightly differently like the way I cook certain Mediterranean eggplant recipes. What I wound up with turned out FORKING SCRUMPTIOUS. Serving size is always difficult to judge. I used one regular medium sized eggplant. My guesstimate is that you would eat a quarter of the eggplant so I’m guessing 4 small side servings.
Ingredients for around 4 smaller side servings
1 eggplant – cut in half long ways – score tops in diamond shapes
1 heaping Tablespoon white miso paste
1 Tablespoon honey
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
1 Tablespoon (or to taste) yuzu hot sauce (I used Trader Joe’s Brand….it’s more yuzu tasting than hot)
5 Tablespoons hot water
non stick spray
1 Tablespoon sesame seeds (to finish)
1 (or 2) scallion – diagonal cuts (to finish)
Directions
In a small mixing bowl mix together the miso, honey, oil, yuzu hot sauce, and hot water. Place the halved and scored eggplants and the mixing bowl liquid in a gallon Ziplock bag. Make sure the eggplant is cut side down in the bag so it can absorb liquid. Leave it on the counter for at least 30 minutes.
Set oven to 400 degrees F
Spray a baking sheet with non stick spray.
Take the eggplants out of the ziplock bag but keep the unabsorbed liquid to the side.
Place thee eggplants cut side down on baking sheet and let them cook for 25 minutes.
After 25 minutes turn thee eggplants over (cut side up) and pour extra reserved liquid over and into the eggplant halves. Leave them in the oven till they look slightly caramelized. Top them with sesame seeds and scallions.
Miso and Honey Marinated Eggplant
Enjoy!
A Special THANKS!!!! To Shu Han Lee for sharing her amazing recipe so that I could come up with what I got here!
Rags Real Chicken and Waffles is a small casual restaurant located in Youngtown Arizona. Incase you didn’t know…….Youngtown is a small-town of around six thousand in Arizona. It’s located between El Mirage and Sun City. Rags Real Chicken and Waffles offers a limited of menu chicken and waffles, fried chicken dinner, rib dinner, fried (catfish) fish dinner, fried shrimp dinner, kids meal, and a few more choices. Soft beverages are included with dinners. They do have a B.Y.O.B. sign on the wall so you can bring in your own booze. It’s not a fancy place. They have a mix of homey mix matched furniture. It’s also small and they have only three community tables and four seats at the counter. In the corner of the restaurant is a band area and dance floor.
The open kitchen is also very small. They don’t have room for a steam table so they use chafing pans on the counter to keep the sides hot. The chicken and the waffles are prepared to order so expect to wait at least fifteen minutes.
We try a dark meat chicken dinner and a white meat chicken and waffle. The White meat breast is Dolly Parton sized.
White meat chicken and waffle
The chicken in both platters is fried to perfection and both dishes the has a light crisp coating of corn meal. They are minimally seasoned so that you mostly only taste chicken. You can add salt and pepper to spice it a little more or used some hot sauce for a little zip……They also have BBQ sauce but I think it was too overpowering for the chicken…maybe it really goes with the ribs. Somehow the waffle didn’t get crushed as you would expect under that heavy breast. The waffle stayed light and fluffy. The chicken breast is really good and a very large portion. It certainly can be two meals for many people.
dark meat chicken dinner
The dark meat does have even more chicken juice and chicken flavor. It’s fried so expertly well that it doesn’t even seem fried. It’s also a large portion. The sides are like a neighbor or relative might have made them…..home style.
That was a little taste of Rags Real Chicken & Waffles in Youngtown AZ…You should be licking your fingers now!
Clever Ramen is a fast/casual Ramen Style restaurant located in the ASU part of Scottsdale Arizona. Clever Ramen is a sister restaurant of Clever Koi, Fellow Osteria, and Across The Pond. These restaurants are by Born and raised Hospitality. Clever Ramen offers Pre-Built ramen bowls, build your own ramen bowls (confit chicken thigh, lemongrass chicken breast, karaage chicken, bulgogi steak, pork belly, tofu, and soy egg), a variety of fries, extra vegetables like Korean spinach, and grilled bok choy. Extras like crispy shallots and nori. They also offer steamed buns of pork belly, Korean hot chicken, and kimchi cauliflower. They also offer soft beverages and sake cups, and canned beer and wine. We ordered and paid at the counter.
We got our drinks and sat ourselves.
It’s modern and sleek inside.
It was a nice day so we walked threw to the patio. Within only a few minutes someone runs our food to us.
We started out by trying a couple of steamed buns.
Crispy (not crispy) pork belly & Korean Hot (but not hot) chicken steamed buns
They are small so you can eat one and fit in some ramen. The better one today was the Korean hot chicken. The chicken was developed with flavors and was tasty fresh and juicy. It was good with the tasty house made pickles. It wasn’t hot it was just tasty. They put only a scant amount of sauce on mine today….it was almost dry so I hardly got any taste of Gochujang.
It wasn’t the best day for anything pork…Instead of crispy pork belly today it was mushy and chewy. Maybe it’s usually better?
I thought the Pre-Built Bowl of spicy kimchi ramen with confit chicken thigh was pretty good!
The broth is well made and taste developed with flavors. The chicken is tender and delicious. I taste kimchi but it’s not over-powering. Chili crisp is there to heat things up. The soy egg is ok but is missing that ramen taste that only mirin can give……..The only thing that can really improve are the noodles. The noodles are slightly over cooked and don’t have the chew that ramen noodles are known for. The noodles here are more like collage noodles.
My husband tried the pork ramen. Today wasn’t the best day for pork.
The crispy pork wasn’t crispy today and was mushy and chewy. The broth was weak today and the mushrooms were soggy. Maybe tomorrow this dish might be better?
That was my trip to Clever Ramen in Scottsdale AZ.
The Dish Fest is a food and drink festival based on the January/February Phoenix Magazine article naming the one hundred and one best dishes picked by Phoenix Magazine editors. This festival was held February 27/2022 at the Clayton House in Scottsdale Arizona. Ticket holders were entitled to unlimited bites and sips (hard and soft) from participants. This was an indoor and outdoor event with food trucks. Some of the proceeds benefited the Joy Bus Diner.
Here is most of what I came across in no particular order, I did skip most of the libations because the point of being here was tasting today. I couldn’t taste everything but I did sure taste a lot.
Chef Christopherfrom Christopher’sPitchBlack SheepPostinoinsideWeft and WarpWeft and WarpWeft and WarpChula SeafoodValentineObonObonOakCitizen Public HouseCitizen Public HouseCaldwell County BBQCasa De FalafelAimees Swine HouseFlavors Of LouisianaSuperstition MeaderyPA’LACasa CorazonIsland Boys Jerk HutSalsa BitesAioli BurgersRandom AFTempura takeover
That was a little taste of the 2022 Dish Fest at The Clayton House in Scottsdale AZ.
