The Smoked food festival was held Sunday October 17th 2021 at Ocotillo restaurant, coffee bar, cocktail lounge, wine bar, and park near downtown Phoenix Arizona.
The event was hosted by Arizona Foodie Diana Brandt. This festival is called Smoked because it features smoked food, smoked drinks and more!
Here are random pictures from Smoked 2021.
That was just a taste of Smoked Food Festival hosted by Arizona Foodie at Ocotillo in Phoenix AZ.
I had leftovers like parmesan custards, onion jam, and tarragon oil. If you cook along with me you too can have those kinds of leftovers..LOL! I figured that if I make a simple salad of 20 second blanched radishes and carrots and toss them in a basic lemon dressing (I didn’t even measure…basically one lemon (juice and a little zest to top the parmesan custard), a big squirt of olive oil, a spoon of dijon, tiny squirt of honey, some sea salt and pepper. That’s really all it is…..
For the carrot flower you need a little thingy that looks like a pencil sharpener for carrots.
Most of the radishes are shredded. Some radishes were sliced.
I roasted off some peppers that were getting old. (350 F 30 minutes a spray of oil salt and pepper.
I made the tarragon drops with a chop stick.
I spooned a spoonful of onion jam and used the end of the spoon and dragged it across the plate.
That’s how I did this plate and you can to if you care to.
A few basil leaves, some thyme.
It is Restaurant Week here in Phoenix Arizona. Around a hundred and fifty restaurants are participating and are offering three course meals for set prices of $33., $44., and $55. Usually I look forward to going to a restaurant or two that I have never tried before during Restaurant Week. Tonight we made reservations to Fuego at The Clarendon in Phoenix. It’s a Latin Fusion type of restaurant. I do note that this restaurant has earned a 4.5 star average out of 5 stars on Yelp from nearly 900 people so that means that most people enjoy what they order here.
It looks like this when you walk in.
To left is a musician playing the piano.
To the right is the cool looking bar area.
We get seated in the main dining area. It’s early and it’s already a very energetic atmosphere.
All around the main dining area is a wrap around patio. We start with margaritas that seem good.
My husband gets an extra starter and starts with a cubano sandwich off the happy hour menu. (only $5.)
He said that the cubano was very good and tasty……THE CUBANO WAS VERY GOOD!
I soon get my appetizer the salmon croquette.
It looks nice but taste fishy….not spoiled fishy…It taste like the type of fishy fish my local Safeway sells. I’m hungry so I eat it anyway.
My husband got the pernil nachos.
They also look nice. But you can’t see that the pork is dried out tonight. Or maybe this one sat under a heat lamp too long and the fresher ones were carried out first?
I just received my complimentary red sangria. It taste like it was made not good, past it’s time wine. I can’t drink it……………. just tasting it makes me feel queasy now….
I soon get my dinner.
Most of the food on this plate looks great but most of the food doesn’t agree with my palate.
To the right is a cup of jalapeno creamed corn. I can only imagine that someone slipped in the kitchen and accidentally dumped a whole bag of sugar into it. It is so painfully sweet I thought I’d get sick eating it. It’s sweeter than dessert sweet. The green beans are good and very garlic-ee……..I forget what was under them (something like sweet cabbage?). but I couldn’t eat it. The salsa on top of the fish seemed good but whatever the fish is coated with taste unpalatable to me. I tried to scrape the exterior of the fish off but didn’t do so well.
This is what I left on the plate. I tried to eat it but couldn’t.
I’m surprised that nobody said anything to me……….about this.
Anywho-
My husband had different issues from his meal (surf and turf pasta).
It is very hard to eat a steak that is served in a bowl of loose pasta. My husband said that the steak and the pasta had little flavor. The person that ran the food promised to bring salt and pepper but never came back with any………….My husband said, that the beans had an unusual taste in them that he didn’t like. The signature jalapeño corn bread was tasty but very sweet and very rich. At some point during dinner someone did ask how things were….I lied and said ok. My husband was surprised that they accepted the ok the way I said it………. I’ve worked in restaurants. Some chefs are professionals…..and some are not. Some chefs get very unhinged when food gets sent back. You don’t want to know how some chefs get and what they might do to your food that gets “re-fired.” I pretty much never send food back when it isn’t an open kitchen.
Moving on…
For our third course we shared the key lime pie and the ancho chile torte.
These are both very good.
The good news is that currently Fuego at The Clarendon has a 4.5 average on Yelp from close to 900 people so that means that most people order dishes at Fuego at The Clarendon that they enjoy.
BUT The FORKING Truth is – Not every dish a restaurant serves is for your taste…..or maybe they just had some screw ups in the kitchen?
Remember that the cubano sandwich, key lime pie, and ancho chile torte are recommended.
www.FuegoBistro.com
Everything is subject to change.
When I looked for weird food news the first thing I found today was that an officer threw a can of beans at a criminal armed with a hammer…….Guess that works better than bringing a lemon to a knife fight?
I read in FoodNetwork Magazine that a farmer in Japan invented Bananas that have very thin edible skin. These bananas currently are only being sold in Japan and coast $6.00 each. …..Why would FORKING ANYONE want to pay $6.00 for one banana to eat the skin? That is just BANANAS!
www.Pinterest
You might have noticed many unusual pastas at the supermarket. Many different beans and vegetables go into pasta these days. Did you know that Hearts Of Palm, Plantain and Mung Beans actually are in certain pastas too? Ah the Pastabilities! I read this one in FoodNetwork Magazine.
I think the strangest Food News I came across was sent to me in an email from Well Done. When I clicked to the article I was directed to www.MyRecipes.com .
Mayonaise Ice-Cream in Hellman’s and Miracle Whip.
www.Drawception.com
You TOO can be toasty in a sleeping bag that looks like a hot pocket microwavable pouch. You can purchase these sleeping bags at www.ThinkGeek.com
I was walking threw the floral department at my local Safeway Grocery Store and spotted bouquets of cabbage in there with the flowers. That’s kind of weird….
Maybe you can also eat them?
Christmas is just around the corner so maybe you need a CHEESY Gift?
You can give someone a bust of you or someone else sculpted from cheese.
Buut here might be the best one.
The man in the hospital bed is actually cake.
Those were the weirdest food related news that I read recently.
The FANTABULOUS Dish means – Top of the line, marvelously good, peachy keen and dynamite.
The FORKING Amazing FnB Restaurant is located in the arts district by Old Town Scottsdale Arizona. The restaurant is co-owned by James Beard Award Wining chef Charleen Badman. She serves an ever changing menu of global farm focused contemporary sharing plates that often feature local vegetables. The menu is vegetable heavy but also features enough meat to please meat eaters. Arizona wines are always featured on the menu.
We enjoyed an amazing meal like we always do at FnB but one dish really stood out. So much so that I actually dreamed about it that night. The flash fried eggplant with fresh dill, pickled shallots, garlic, pistachios, and honey…….
You can’t make this dish at home because you’d never be able to purchase the speciality farm fresh eggplant that this dish was made with………..and even if you could find such an eggplant who on earth can give you a big slab of eggplant that is very hard to describer but is firm…that you could cut like a potato, but also sort of custardy. This eggplant was extra special….like an eggplant just grown for the GODS……..The flavors were so different and so delicious and unlike anything imaginable with eggplant. They were a genius embellishment. But what was phenomenal was the texture and taste of the eggplant. This eggplant was sweet like white eggplant and seemed seedless. This was really FANTABULOUS eggplant with fresh dill, pickled shallots and pickled garlic. (I think I dreamed fennel was also in it….not sure if that was real or just added on in my dream ?) All that countered with the pistachios and just the right amount of honey was darn yummy. This eggplant was firm almost like a custardy potato with the skin falling off like the way fish skin can fall off. The eggplant was cooked but wasn’t oily…..It was a magical kind of firm texture but almost custardy texture unlike any eggplant that I have ever had anywhere. It was so light and so delicious and was so easy to whoof down.
The Flash Fried Eggplant from FnB Restaurant in Scottsdale AZ is an official FANTABULOUS Dish.
www.FnBRestaurant.com
It’s only a little over a ninety minute ride for us to hop in the car and visit the beautiful red rocks of Sedona Arizona. There are the usual tourist shops to visit, some antique shops, jeep tours, some Arizonian wine tasting rooms to do too and more!
Our first stop was Clarksdale.
Our first stop was Violette’s Bakery. They offer some all day breakfast items, a few all day lunch sandwiches, and fine French Style pastries. I saw this place on a local TV show and they said this is a MUST destination if you are in the area. The bakery is a small postage stamp sized place that is actually a small caboose without indoor seating. You sit around the train car or inside this added on edition.
You wait in line at the train with a tiny bakery inside.
It looks like this when you get to the window.
On the day I went they had one person that cooks and one person to take orders and this one person also serves the tables.
Today it was hot…like 100 degrees F….The wait to the window is painfully slow even if you aren’t too far in line. We were around 6th in line and we waited a good twenty minutes to get to the window.
We ordered a bananas foster crepe to share. We paid, tipped and sat ourselves. We were told that it would be around ten minutes.
We waited thirty minutes and never got our crepe. (bahhhh!) My husband tried to find out what happened but couldn’t push threw the tight packed tiny line of people so we just left. (*******As a slight update I’ve just been contacted by someone from the bakery and she wants to make things right).
Then we drove to Cottonwood.
First stop was Merkin Tasting room and Osteria.
Merkin offers plenty of tasting and eating options. They also make fresh pastas here and various lasagna cupcakes.
We did the red wine tasting.
It was a nice start. They all seemed like lighter red wines…Nice to start out like that.
Next we did lunch at the Tavern Grille across the street.
It was packed already. We were lucky to get a seat.
I got an ahi tuna salad.
My husband got the stuffed meatloaf (ham & cheese) and it came with a bowl of hardy chili. All was ok.
Next was Arizona Stronghold for wine tasting.
We shared red flight A.
I thought these wine had quality and character to them. I thought they all were good but some did have more bells and whistles than others.
We also stopped at Pillsbury Tasting room.
Pillsbury makes good wines…a few of the red wines were as rich as some California wines.
Then we had dinner at The Hudson in Sedona.
I made my reservation more than a month in advance and all the patio tables were already booked so I could only get a table inside.
Beautiful mountain views here.
We shared a HOUSE SMOKED salmon bruschetta with pesto cream cheese…(This was really good!)
My husband had a mushroom (ground in house) burger. (it was a little dry).
I had a south west salmon Caesar salad.
The tortilla strips made it southwest. It was thoughtful to put cheese cloth on the lemon to prevent seeds from squirting out. I thought that was a nice touch. I’m not sure why my southwest salad had a lavosh cracker but it was tasty…….I didn’t expect this since the appetizer was so good but……My salmon tasted fishy so they took it off our bill.
The next day we spent some time downtown at various places.
Lunch was at a place located by a small airport called Mesa Grille that is actually built on a mountain masa…(not from Bobby Flay).
You have to go up a steep mountain for a short distance to get there.
You have great views here and you might see a small plane or two take off.
The food at Mesa Grille is NOT TYPICAL airport food. What we tried was surprisingly detailed, interesting and delicious.
We tried the crispy skin cornmeal crusted red trout with spinach, green chili cheese grits, caper butter sauce, crispy vegetable salad, grilled lemon, and crispy trout skin chicharron.
Our other dish was blackened salmon asada with red bell peppers, onions, pico de gallo, guacamole, borracho beans, grilled street corn and hand made tortillas.
Mesa Grille in Sedona was a really great stop! Both plates were really great!
Next we tried a few wineries in Cottonwood. Javelina Leap and Page Springs.
Javelina Leap offers a style of wine that isn’t my style…It’s not bad wine…Obviously it’s award wining wine…Just not my taste.
I forgot to take photos at Page Springs. I have to say that they make very good wine. I haven’t tried all the wineries out here but I have to say for me Page Springs was in the top two that I tried.
An unexpected thing had happened. I planed my trip about 6 weeks back and tonight’s dinner reservation was for Elote Cafe. It’s a good thing we stopped back at the hotel…Because I saw this on my computer from opentable that Elote Cafe cancelled my reservation. I am surprised that they didn’t call me to inform me. I was out all day and don’t carry my computer with me.
OMG! did I panic because I made my reservations SIX weeks back and had a lot of trouble. I couldn’t get a reservation on any patio anywhere I wanted and I couldn’t get a reservation for Mariposa Latin Grill………..
The first place I try to get a reservation for was Mariposa Latin Grill. The only reservation left was for 4:pm at the bar so I took it. Some sort of divine intervention happened. When we got to a front desk person my husband asked if they had a cancellation and asked if any table was available. They didn’t tell us and sat us in a great open dining area with amazing views. We also had the most FANTABULOUS Dinner. I will have to write about it after this. (It was only a few minutes after 4pm……during the week……..the dining room filled up quickly after I took photos.
That was what I ate and wine tasted around Sedona Arizona.
Mercer’s Restaurant is located in Peoria Arizona. They are a family owned and operated restaurant since 1987. They serve comfort foods at reasonable prices and are open seven days a week from 6am – 8:30pm. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner and also offer daily specials.
Every table is full and people keep coming. Many people are here for take out too!
Mercer’s Restaurant is on the end of a mostly deserted mall.
The menu reads that salmon is a favorite here so I should get it?
So I ordered it.
Dinners come with salad or soup.
The above salad is what you get with dinners.
The baked potato is light and fluffy and I like the soft butter that goes with it. I also think that the tartar sauce is unusually good……The salmon taste similar to the frozen salmon from my local Safeway. The texture of the fish has a lack of succulence. It also contains that fishy taste……………………The carrots are not tasty to me. I can’t identify what is on them.
My husband got the chicken fried steak with potato salad. He said, “It’s ok but not the best.”
I tried the potato salad. It’s a little too creamy for me but does have good flavorings to it.
Why critique this?
Some people judge restaurants by the amount of business that they have.
Apparently Mercer’s is doing something right.
www.MercersRestaurant.com
Everything is subject to change.
H Mart is the largest Korean/American Supermarket Chain in America. They have around 85 locations nationwide and also have a few locations in Canada and London. We took a trip to our closest H Mart in Mesa Arizona and these are only a few of things we came across.
Interesting melons
fresh durian fruit
red skinned passion fruit
jujube crunch
fresh wood ear mushrooms and lots of other interesting mushrooms
fresh lily bulb
ginseng
The largest scallions
wagyu beef
yellow chives
garlic stems
green radish
salted egg salmon skin
wasabi pea crackers
live fish …actually the fish section was very large and didn’t smell either. They also offered a lot of frozen fish too..
dried fish
wafu dressing
After we shopping we decided to have lunch in the Market Eatery also known as the H Mart Food Court.
Here is Paris Baguette. Lots of baked goods.
Food Garden
Sogongoong Tofu & BBQ – This was my first choice but they were out of the mackerel I wanted to try.
Jeong’s Noodle
Meisen Katsu – breaded cutlet meals
Korean Fried Chicken
Da Pan …This one seemed interesting to me. I thought I’d like the spicy chicken topaki and my husband thought he’d like the bulgogi Risotto. They also have some weird sounding dishes like Dorito Mac and Cheese here.
This is pretty weird…..It looks like a pizza but it is without crust. I didn’t know that they would sprinkle cheese on it. It’s made of chicken, chewy rice cakes, fish cakes, cabbage, carrots in a sweet but medium spicy sauce….The sauce taste something like that sweet sauce that goes on cabbage rolls. This is weird to me…….It’s a lot of sweet sauce….It came radish kimchi with a soup that frightened me….because I thought looked like urine so I didn’t even try it. Good thing this chicken dish was a big portion because me and my husband ate this because the other dish we both couldn’t stomach.
We thought we would be getting something like this because it is the picture of the dish from the business posted as menu on www.Yelp.com It looks good doesn’t it? I also remember our last food critic from our local newspaper wrote about how great this dish was…..I guess Da Pan made him this version.
But we got this instead.
I tell The FORKING Truth so I have to say that……..It’s really grosser than it looks. Honest to GOD!>>>It’s like they took a brick of cream cheese and put the bulgogi in a blender with the cream cheese with not much else and mixed it with rice.
It’s like vomit on a skillet.
I did better with some of the vegetables that I picked up at H Mart.
Endives fried in chicken fat with lime, peanuts, basil, mint, yellow chives
That was my trip to H Mart in Mesa AZ
www.HMart.com
I’ve tried pastrami at many restaurants around metro Phoenix. Some of the places that I have been to are Chompie’s, Scott’s Generations NY Style Delicatessen, Miracle Mile, Goldman’s Deli, JJ’s Delicatessen and a few more that I forget the names of. Most of these places that I mentioned are at least ok and some are good. Some are inconsistent…….like on one trip the pastrami was very good and the next time is was very bland…. As far as I know none of these places brines their own pastrami…..There is a world of difference when a place brines their own pastrami….It’s like places that don’t brine their own pastrami are like watching television on a black and white TV. And places that so brine their own pastrami are like watching technicolor………That is the difference in taste.
My Top 3 all brine the pastrami in-house.
#3 Smasher’s Eats in North Phoenix
Smasher’s Eats is a newly opened restaurant around North Phoenix. The specialty of the restaurant are their smash style burgers. (that according to my husband are very good) but the special amazing dish that really surprised me was that they have a house cured pastrami melt on the menu….It’s full of delicious flavors. It taste like typical east coast pastrami…..I was shocked when I tasted it. It’s DAM GOOD!
#2 The Thursday pastrami special from Little Miss BBQ Sunny Slope Phoenix.
This is really REALLY to die for………! They use a higher quality meat than what the deli places use and it’s FORKING Delicious. This is a pastrami that eats like a dinner. It’s one of the BEST!
#1 I have to give it to Confluence in Carefree AZ because their pastrami sandwich is FANTABULOUS and is TOP OF THE LINE.
This pastrami sandwich is like no other because it’s made from wagyu beef that is so buttery and really just melts in the mouth. It’s an EXTRA special treat. The pastrami is spiced and smoked to perfection. It’s adorned with brussel’s sprout coleslaw, a thousand island with a little kick, gruyere cheese, grilled Jewish rye bread and a house made dill pickle. You also have a choice of house chips, salad or for a little extra their amazing fries with three dips. (The only bad news is that the menu is ever changing at Confluence so you might miss this on the lunch menu.)
Oh and my home made cured and smoked would fit into this bunch too!
Those were THE FORKING BEST Pastrami that I tasted in metro Phoenix AZ so far.
I’ve been making pastrami and tweaking my recipes for years. My November 2020 recipe is where I have to stop because it can’t be improved……(I don’t want to brag but this pastrami is up there with the best that I have ever tasted!!!)……..I also need to mention that pastrami making is ALWAYS A RISK….Even if you do everything correctly it is possible that your pastrami won’t cure properly and can spoil. That is why most deli restaurants don’t brine their own pastrami and pay others to do it for them. No matter how great the recipe is I have to tell you that the pastrami must be carefully smoked for the very best flavor. I tried to delete my old recipes for pastrami that isn’t smoked but people complain right away if I delete a recipe so I gave up on deleting recipes. Hopefully you will follow my November 2020 Recipe instead of a prior recipe. The last pastrami came out so delicious that I did a whole brisket instead of a half brisket. I doubled the brine…the only difference is that I had some dried chili water from making a salsa leftover so I added that to the water portion of the brine. I did run short on rub so I had to triple the rub.
I squeezed out all the air that I could but it wasn’t enough so I put something heavy on the top so the water would be all around the brisket.
Every day I squished the bag to mix up the brine all around the brisket.
After 6 days the brisket got rinsed and blotted off and then rubbed with a spice blend of mostly coriander, some black pepper and a tiny bit of smoked paprika. My brisket didn’t fit in my smoker so it had to cut it in half.
Then the brisket goes in the smoker for around 7 hours. (It can be longer if you want longer but around 7 hours was perfect for my taste)…….(I used pecan wood that got changed a bunch of times (thanks to my husband)).
Then the brisket gets covered tight in pans and goes in a low oven. (my oven was set at 210 f but I suspect might run lower and all my thermometers read a different temperature so I really can’t tell the exact temperature but I get everything to come out so who cares…)
My bigger dog felt the need to guard the oven with the precious pastrami in it.
The pastrami went in the oven around 7pm……and early in the morning around 5am it still wasn’t done so around five am the oven got turned up to 240 f.
The pastrami finally got done around 10am.
Then the pastrami sits on the counter till it gets to be room temperature. It fills up the house with FORKING DELICIOUS SMELLS>>>>>>>>>Next it gets refrigerated over night so it can get set and sliced without ripping it apart.
My husband slices up the pastrami better than me so I let him.
The dogs watch and anticipate.,,,,,,
Now they get some.
For a whole day the whole house smelled like FORKING DELICIOUS PASTRAMI.
You might want to try my recipes for easy rye rolls and home made spicy beer mustard.
Enjoy!
