Category Archives: Forking Thoughts

Mediterranean Restaurant Casa De Falafel The #5 TOP Restaurant in greater Phoenix AZ – according to Yelp

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According to Yelp a small casual Mediterranean Restaurant located in a gas station called Casa De Falafel is the #5 TOP restaurant in greater Phoenix Arizona. *****UPDATE no longer located in gas station moved to own spot in Glendale AZ.

Also according to Yelp Casa De Falafel is the number 2 falafel restaurant in the United States.

Lets see what Casa De Falafel is like.

We order at a counter and pay here.

The menu is limited.

I noticed that they sell their very own packaged lentil soup.

We ordered 2 falafels and a beef and chicken shawarma plates. While we wait we look around a little.

Here is the dining room. It’s currently not in use during the pandemic.

Here is the view if you were seated.

We start with falafels.

They look like small donuts. One is with a little hummus and the other is with a little tahini sauce that are very similar today and are very delicate tasting.

They are fried nicely and do have a crisp exterior and a moist fluffy interior and are lightly herbed and seasoned. It’s good……to some this falafel might be under seasoned.

Now we are digging into the shawarma plates with garlic sauce, tahini and extra HOT green sauce.

There is a lot packed into this plate. I got a serving of lentil soup, chicken shawarma that is moist, flavorful and nicely caramelized. there’s Mediterranean pickle slices, olives, chickpeas, salad, red onions dusted with sumac and what might? be?

Mexican style rice? Perhaps a nod to part of the name of the restaurant?

The beef shawarma plate is the same but made with beef.

I preferred the chicken over the beef shawarma because the chicken was moist and I think flavored better. For me the beef wasn’t tender enough but my husband said it was good to him. He doesn’t mind a little chew. I also thought the food was tasty and a good value. My chicken shawarma plate was only $9.50 before tax and tip.

That was my trip to Casa De Falafel in Peoria AZ. According to Yelp they are the #5 TOP Restaurant in Greater Phoenix and the #2 Falafel Restaurant in the country.

Casa De Falafel does not have a website but you can find them on Facebook.

Address and phone number is below.

Everything IS subject to change.******UPDATE They’ve moved. to Glendale.

The Forking Truth

The Fantabulous Dish – The Bufalina Pizza from Fabio On Fire Peoria AZ – Worth a Fork!

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The Fantabulous Dish means……top of the line, marvelously good, peachy keen and dynamite.

There are many fantabulous pizza restaurants out there in metro Phoenix. But each one is unique and many of them do a particular pizza better than from other restaurants.

Burrata or bufala cheese is the most exquisite mozzarella cheese that you can imagine. It’s the top of the line of mozzarella.

Most bufalina pizzas (margherita pizzas but made with Italian Buffalo milk cheese) look something like this……and this is GOOD but …….

Fabio On Fire elevates the bufalina pizza. His Bufalina Pizza is special.

Fabio On Fire in Peoria AZ makes his Bufalina Pizzas like this one below.

This Bufalina Pizza starts with San Marzano Tomato sauce, Imported bufalina cheese, oregano, garlic, arugula, reduced balsamic vinegar, farm fresh sweet tomatoes and extra virgin olive oil.

Sometimes they spread out the cheese.

The heat of the pizza warms the creamy imported bufala cheese without cooking it. You get the most exquisite mozzarella the way it was meant to be.

It’s FORKING DELICIOUS! It got all kinds of flavors going on. The BEST bufala cheese, San Marzano tomato sauce (the BEST), farm fresh sweet tomatoes (the BEST), peppery arugula, sweet but tang from the balsamic, flavors from the garlic and oregano….It’s going on here.

The Bufalina Pizza from Fabio On Fire is an official Fantabulous Dish!

Worth a Fork!

Worth A Fork!

www.FabioOnFire.com

The Forking Truth

The FANTABULOUS Dish – Salmon Salad from Pomo Pizzeria in Scottsdale AZ – Worth a Fork!

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The FANTABULOUS Dish means top of the line, marvelously good, peachy keen and Dynamite!

For lunch and sometimes for dinner I enjoy ordering salads at restaurants even if I’m at a restaurant that is well known for making great pizzas. I do love pizzas too but sometimes I feel like I need a salad. I like to save a little stomach room for that dessert that I go for sometimes. We found ourselves at Pomo Pizzeria in Scottsdale and I ordered the Salmon Salad. I did not expect to receive something even better than fish house worthy but I did! I noticed that the salmon came from Chula Seafood so I knew that it would be better salmon and probably very fresh but I didn’t expect that I would be receiving perfection and a really great salad to boot.

This salmon is as perfect as perfect gets. It has a crisp skin and the flesh just melts in the mouth. It seemed like it was slow cooked because of how moist and succulent it was. It was also finished with tasty grill marks. My salad was adorned with this grilled juicy lemon. WOW the taste of the sweet lemon and pink peppercorns on the fish sort of popped. WOW! What a great combination. Under the fish was a bed of spring mix, gold beets, fennel and grape tomatoes. And did I mention how great the salmon really was?

It was a pleasure to eat.

P.S.

I was able to save some room for their amazing house made Luna Gelato.

Fish House Quality Fresh Salmon Salad and Delicious Gelato from Pomo Pizzeria in Scottsdale AZ.

Worth a Fork!

An unexpected FANTABULOUS dish.

Worth A Fork!

www.PomoPizzeria.com

Everything is subject to change.

The Forking Truth

My Forking Thoughts on Surati Cheddar Jalapeño flavored Potato Tubes

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I found some different foreign snacks from Asiana Market in the Deer Valley part of Phoenix Arizona. Here are Surati Cheddar Jalapeño flavored potato tubes. I found them in the India aisle but this snack is from Canada.

The front of the bag is marked suitable for vegetarians.

The ingredients are a mix of mostly natural and some chemical.

I open the bag and take a sniff.

It smells sort of cheesy and I do also smell chili powder.

I spill some out.

They are shaped sort of like French Fries but with. slightly hollow centers. They are dusted with seasonings.

I taste one.

It’s very spicy but it doesn’t burn with a natural cheesy flavor. It’s actually very tasty but the texture is unlike anything I ever tried before. It’s ultra light and airy. It’s so darn light and airy it would be easy to woof down this 3 1/2 ounce bag.

I might buy them again.

Worth a try if you can do spicy.

The Forking Truth

My Forking Thoughts on Universal Yums – February 2021 Ukraine Box

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Universal Yums sells snacks from around the world. You can either subscribe or gift in a variety ways and different available sizes.

I get the basic Yum Box. These days it is 5-7 snacks and runs around $16. a month. My box includes a 12 page booklet with fun facts, a recipe and some games.

The first treat we try are the wasabi spicy potato strips.

They taste like they could be made by Pringles but in a long thin strip and wasabi flavored…Ummmm not bad. I’m surprised that they aren’t all busted up. Not bad..I’d buy them once in a while.

Next we try the baked Milk and Dark Chocolate Bar.

It’s a lot of wafers surrounded by a dark chocolaty wax coating. Not awful….but also not great…..I think mine is an off batch…I have next to zero filling between the wafers. It’s kind of dry. Oh well what’s next?

Next we open the Yum Bag. we try a juice filled Ukrainian mixed fruit jelly (yellow wrapper)……It’s weird….Not sure what it taste like….It’s coated with cornstarch and my mouth full of cornstarch…but is more jelly fruity and wet than corn starch…..It’s weird to me.

A day later I tried the other candy in the Yum Bag.

WOW! This candy is even weirder than the last candy. It’s really soft caramel with a strawberry fruit center that doesn’t taste like much. My husband found this candy less weird. He also agreed that you barely taste the strawberry and it’s mostly just a soft caramel…….I would never eat this again.

This is suppose to be a sweeter condensed milk cream cake. I don’t think mine wasn’t made right. It’s very dry and not sweet…I think it taste like it was made with saw dust………YUK! Neither me or my husband could stomach this one.

This one is a creme brûlée milk chocolate bar…It’s very sweet….like as sweet as thick donut icing….It’s too sweet. I think you can get diabetes if you eat more than one chocolate piece. This one was almost good.

Last snack is the roasted garlic rye chips.

My bread chips arrived mostly busted up. I go to taste one…..Not much on garlic taste….Mine taste like dry wheat bread mixed with wood pulp and they are very dry…..

I hope next month is better or I will have to cancel my membership.

Those were my Forking Thoughts on Ukraine Universal Yums

www.UniversalYums.com

The Forking Truth

Every now & then someone sticks it to you with “The I Already Ate Plate”

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Every now and then someone is going to serve you the “I already ate plate.” You might be wondering WTFork is an I already ate plate. It’s a plate of food that isn’t much and might not even be enough to nourish a hamster. Every now and then if you go various restaurants someone sometime is going to stick it to you with the “I already ate plate.”

Here is an “I already ate plate” previous to the one I just had (from a restaurant now closed for business).

It’s a small portion of food that looks more like an appetizer….or something that is a part of a tasting menu. Maybe someone at the restaurant was confused and thought I was doing a tasting menu?

Here is another “I already ate plate.” I do note that this also wasn’t a part of a tasting menu (this restaurant is also now closed for business).

This was my $16.00 lunch. I was still hungry after this. This isn’t enough food for a little pudgy tiny toy poodle dog that is dieting. WTFork was I suppose to do?………Am I suppose to hit a fast food place afterwards? AND I would LOVE to know what the heck did they do with the other half of the egg……They couldn’t re-use it.

Here is my first “I already ate plate of 2021. I do warn you that this plate appears to be large until you get a better look.

This is pla rad prik (fish in spicy chili sauce) from Tom Yum Thai Restaurant in Peoria.

I go and open up the fish to dig in.

Up above it appears that this fish was already consumed but it wasn’t. When they cleaned out the fish they also removed nearly all the fish flesh. I spent over $20. and all I got was some fish skin, rice, the sauce and a few over cooked soggy falling apart vegetables. What am I suppose to do? If I was dining in I would show this to someone. But I did take out……If I called them up they wouldn’t believe me….. I must note that normally this restaurant is better. I had no issues with my previous visit. I just don’t recommend fish dishes from Tom Yum Thai (salmon was very over cooked from a previous visit but chicken was good).

Every now and then someone sticks it to you with “The I Already Ate Plate.” And that’s The Forking Truth.

The Forking Truth

STUPENDOUSLY IMPRESSIVE – The Confit Wagyu Beef Cheek from Confluence in Carefree AZ

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Every once in a while I taste a dish that is stupendously impressive. Something unexpected that is jaw droppingly astonishing. I’m not even a beef person it’s normally my least favorite protein that I still eat…….I actually partially gave it up (I gave up commercial ground beef). Anywho- I know that beef cheeks are usually very good on menus so I decided to try the confit wagyu beef cheek as a hot appetizer from the modern American Restaurant Confluence in Carefree Arizona.

This confit wagyu beef cheek wasn’t just good…or just great….It was EXCEPTIONAL.

I start by tasting a chunk of beef. It is infused with great flavors and really does melt in the mouth. It actually FORKING MELTS in your mouth…You don’t need teeth. But it turns MAGICAL when you get a piece of beef with some of the silkiest flavorful scrambled egg hiding underneath dripping with this amazingly developed sauce and a sweet nutty creamy bite of kabocha squash…..pops of celery….that taste more like celery than celery that I have at home. It was so unexpected and so surprisingly impressive. This truly taste more superb than I can possibly describe.

Just go and get it (FAST). *******(menus at Confluence are ever changing to the freshest of what’s out there so they change often)

The Confit Wagyu Beef Cheek – scrambled egg, celery, kabocha squash, black garlic, apple. It was listed as a hot appetizer on the dinner menu for $16.00 From Confluence in Carefree AZ.

Worth a Fork!

Worth A Fork!

The menus at Confluence are ever changing.

www.RestaurantConfluence.com

Everything is subject to change….That confit wagyu beef cheek won’t stay on the menu too long.

The Forking Truth

SMOKED Crispy Seafood Mushrooms is a FORKING GREAT Idea

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I got a smoker and a little while back I made the FORKING BEST smoked pastrami ever. I only make a pastrami once or at the most twice a year. Smoked salmon a few times ….nothing fancy…just basic with a basic brine and leave in the smoker around 4 hours. I thought I should try to smoke other things.

I smoked some acorn squash, some beets and some seafood mushrooms. The beets came out really well and we enjoyed with the smoked salmon. The vegetables are super easy to smoke. You just put them in the smoker for 15 minutes with a mild wood. (alder is great for fish so I was using alder and it went extra well with seafood mushrooms!)

Smoked Beets with Goat Cheese Musse, Orange, Almonds, Mint, and Orange Champagne Vinaigrette

I had a bunch of food in my refrigerator so I had to freeze the acorn squash….I’m not sure what I will do with that yet but will think of something!

I tasted a mushroom. I thought it was a little too smoky for me……..Somehow I got the idea in my head to fry my smoked mushrooms. I used this kind of mushroom (seafood mushroom) I think it’s one of the very best buys at a supermarket. Seafood mushrooms usually only cost around a dollar a package and are amazing in soup and have a slight seafood taste to them.

After the mushrooms were smoked I dredged them in cornstarch and shallow fried them in a mix of unsalted butter and canola oil. (I tried the same thing with an un-smoked seafood mushroom and DO NOT GET THE SAME RESULTS AT ALL)

Smoked Crispy Seafood Mushrooms

OMG! These things are FORKING Amazing with my cheese sauce. My sauce was made with all the ends of white cheese I had in my refrigerator. I only use a small amount of butter (butter is what breaks the sauce), corn starch, milk lots of cheese, paprika, cayenne and Frank’s Red Hot Sauce. This combo is BOMB-DIG-IT-TY!

Smoked Crispy Seafood Mushrooms is a FORKING GREAT IDEA!

The Forking Truth

The Bourbon Cellar in North Scottsdale makes a Forking Amazing Ground In House Prime Filet Burger

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The Bourbon Cellar is a small independent steak and seafood restaurant in North Scottsdale Arizona. The owner is also the chef and does the in house butchering. Inside is sort of rustic with lots of wood, bricks, bourbon barrels and American Flags.

Outside is a lush dog friendly patio with a water feature.

I’m not a burger person…Most burgers are just food that is very filling. A few are tasty out there and some burgers out there are of a higher quality……..but none are like The Bourbon Cellar’s Prime Filet Ground in House Burger……..I’ve been here several times and I just can’t get past the ground-in-house prime filet burger. This burger is different.

Here is a closer look. All beef does taste different. Especially ground beef. Commercial ground beef just isn’t up there with ground in house beef. Commercial beef is much gamier tasting…..with a slight sourness to it. It’s that dead cow taste….I know it because I used to cook up a few hundred pounds of beef when I was a cook. It does smell like a dead cow. Ground in house beef is a cleaner taste and doesn’t smell as bad at home when you grind your own beef.

It is an amazing big burger so I cut it in half and remove the toppings.

This burger is great but it isn’t cheap and might run you more than most burgers you eat. The bourbon pickles that I added (90cents) and onion ring topping (90cents) are really great. The onions rings are super great because they are shattering crisp and the onion doesn’t pull out when you bite into it. But it is the burger that is the main event here. It’s seasoned to perfection. I think “medium” is perfect here….medium rare would be too much raw meat. It’s like eating a really great steak. It’s so flavorful. I think it’s maybe the best tasting burger that I have ever tried. It’s so good that it shouldn’t be covered up with stuff. I love stuff….but then it covers up this amazing burger. You really have to eat it open face…It’s that good.

My dogs are always happy to help me with the other half.

Even the cole slaw was good. It was made fresh to order and came out after my burger.

It was very crisp and fresh.

We tried one different thing off the menu and went for the macaroni and cheese appetizer.

This was made fresh to order and did take some time but it is a perfect mix of cheesy and creamy. (Gave my dogs some too)

The ground in house prime filet burger from The Bourbon Cellar is Worth a Fork!

Worth A Fork!

www.TheBourbonCellar.com

The Forking Truth

Recipe Idea – Chili Crisp Dumplings

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I had around a cup of leftover cooked cabbage and around 20 wonton wrappers in my refrigerator. I also recently made Justin Chapple’s recipe from Food and Wine Magazine (minus the bacon) chili crisp condiment. You can also buy chili crisp from an Asian Market or on-line but it’s easy to make so do what you want.

All I did was chop of the leftover roasted cabbage and flavor it with fresh chives and chili crisp (around a heaping teaspoon I think.

Then I put a small amount into the center of a wonton wrapper. I wet the edges of the wonton wrapper with water.

Started pleating up the wrapper on both sides.

Some I did round shape. I just hand squeezed them.

Boiled the plated ones. Salted the water with Red Boat Salt.

Boiled the round ones and added a little beet powder to the water.

Dressed the dumplings with more chili crisp and more chives.

Cabbage and Chilli Crisp Dumplings

Forking DELICIOUS and easy recipe idea for you!

The Forking Truth