The food is always spectacular from Confluence in Carefree Arizona. Not just great but usually detailed and very complex…..actually astonishing. I’ve been to many better restaurants in several states and I haven’t found one restaurant anywhere that does fish as well as from Confluence. This is the only restaurant where I am able to eat the skin. It’s seasoned just so and is crisp, delicious and stays crisp from first bite to last bite. The arctic char was tender, moist and cooked to perfection. If you like salmon then you will LOVE arctic char because it like a milder creamier salmon. The fish plates I tried from Confluence always “SING” with flavors that harmonize and go together like an orchestra arrangement. Here on this plate was sweetness from golden raisins. Piney, buttery flavor from pine nuts. Touches of bitter and salty from Gaeta Olives. A sort of floral saffron sauce is the glue that ties it all together and clean tasting patty pan squash and couscous complete the plate. It’s a stunning plate. Sweet, piney, buttery, touches of pleasant bitter, salty, floral…it’s delicious and interesting in the mouth.
The Arctic Char from Confluence in Carefree AZ was The Best Thing I ate out this week and was Worth a Fork!
Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery is located in North Phoenix Arizona. This is a casual order at the counter Vietnamese Restaurant that specializes in serving about a dozen different Banh Mi baguette sandwiches. They also serve most Vietnamese favorites but DON’T SERVE PHO.
Everything I’ve tried at BMBVE is great and at this time (subject to change) EVERY FORKING THING on the menu is under $10.00 but the $4 $5 dollar menus should be mentioned because they are CRAZY GOOD for less than fast food prices.
You order at the counter, pay, grab a drink and seat yourself.
Every choice is a winner.
But this $4.00 and $5.00 Menu is not to be missed.
We tried most of the $4 and $5 dollar items.
Here are the egg rolls ($4.00)
Three crispy egg rolls with fish sauce and lettuce and vegetables to wrap around the egg rolls.
Fire cracker salmon rolls ($4.00).
My favorite on the $4.00 are the potstickers. These potstickers are better here than from most restaurants in the area. They also come in chicken or pork.
I think my husband’s favorite $4.00 are the pork belly bao buns….(he said they were better than the last bao buns he’s tried)
The $5.00 menu is so much better than any fast food I’ve tried anywhere.
One of my favorite $5.00 plates is the lotus root salad.
It light refreshing, crunchy and herby…….It comes with shrimp but I usually skip the shrimp…He’s a better look.
There is a $5.00 Papaya salad too.
The $5.00 chicken cabbage salad is CRAZZZZZZZZZzzzzy good.
This is a pretty Forking BIG salad for $5.00 and it’s DELICIOUS TOO! It’s more like a Vietnamese herbed slaw that’s lightly creamy lots of marinated slices of chicken in it. It’s light but filling and very satisfying. This might be the best deal in North Phoenix!
Everything at Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery is Worth a Fork! ….(but the $4.00 & $5.00 menus are really special!)
Worth a Fork!
www.BanhMiBistroAZ.com
Every THING is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.
I saw these NEW Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s at my local Target Store. These Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s are exclusive to Target Stores. This flavor is described on the package as a cocoa crisp center with a layer of dark chocolate. I look at the package and notice that this is the first new or limited edition flavor of M&M’s in a LOOOOOOOOOOOONG Time…….maybe many years (or decades) that doesn’t say with artificial flavor on the front of package.
I look at the ingredients…..and get excited……..Looks very promising…..
I open the package up and take a sniff.
It smells just like a bag of chocolate chips.
I pour some M&M’s out.
These are smaller sized and slightly irregular in shape. They come in colors of yellow, red and brown.
I eat one……Ummmm It’s chocolatey and crunchy. It reminds me of the “Crispy” variety of M&M’s but it taste like chocolate chips and a little bit of hot cocoa flavor.
I eat another and let this one melt in my mouth. It had the usual sweet candy shell. Then I’m left with chocolate that taste like a chocolate chip. Then the chocolate melts away and I’m left with a small crispy chocolate cereal lump in my mouth. The chocolate lump taste similar to what I think I remember a cocoa puff taste like. (it’s been decades since I ate a Cocoa Puff)
I bit into a few so you can see what they look like inside.
DANG !!!!!!! It’s Forking easy to keep eating them. They seem lighter and airier than regular M&M’s with a good chocolate taste……They have the right amount of sweetness, salt and are ever so slightly bitter with that chocolate chip flavor and a smidgen of hot cocoa…… It’s actually hard to stop eating them!
I’d say these new Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M’s are Worth a Fork! These are good enough to be a permanent M&M flavor.
The Impossible Burger is a meatless burger made from potato, coconut, wheat and heme made by Impossible Foods.
If you cook it correctly it is suppose to be meat-like and red in the center.
Ok so I have to try it to see how it is………I haven’t eaten a real Whopper in over ten years. In the old days when I was a kid Burger King Burgers at one time used to be juicy and used to have a nice charcoaled kind of flavor…….I remember they always were always a mess to eat and came with much more lettuce too………….Nothing ever stays the same and progress happens. Whoppers are cooked different these days. It seems that they are cooked till they are prettified and are always served dry…….like hockey pucks.
“WOOF!” “I don’t want a vegetarian burger” “I would rather have a dry beef burger!”
So here’s to a new progress again and lets see how the Impossible Whopper is……..
Well it’s not red inside but it’s not dry either.
The patty is very caramelized ……..almost like a crisp coating all around the patty. I’ve had the Impossible Burger at two other restaurants and none of them had an almost mushy center like this Burger King Impossible. This Impossible Whopper is next to flavorless…..(Unlike the other two Impossible Burgers I had). Or maybe between the pickles and the over load of ketchup and strong onions it’s hard to taste anything else……I pull off a piece of the patty and try to taste it…….but I mostly just taste the ketchup. For me this sandwich has too much sauce on it and there is too much bread…I lose half the bun after the last photo.
Conclusion – For fast food quality it’s not the worst……Not big on flavor but it’s it’s not dry either. It didn’t make me feel sick to my stomach like most fast food. It’s not great but it’s edible.
I would like to try to cook the Impossible Meat myself but I heard the restaurant Impossible meat will not be sold to the public. I also heard that a different formula of Impossible plant based meat will be sold in supermarkets soon.
Those were my Forking Thoughts on the Burger King Impossible Burger. Your Forking Thoughts may indeed differ.
According to the Nashville Hot Chicken Coalition ( www.Hot-Chicken.com ) – Nashville Hot Chicken is only Authentic and is a specialty of Nashville Tennessee. Only 6 restaurants are certified to be authentic Nashville Hot Chicken. They are Prince’s Hot Chicken Shack, Bolton’s Spicy Chicken and Fish, Pepper Fire Hot Chicken, Hattie B’s Hot Chicken, 400 Degrees and Deezies in Murfreesboro.
Nashville Hot Chicken is marinated, floured and fried. It needs to be sauced either before or after flouring or breading with what they call a dry sauce or paste (wet sauces are NOT Nashville hot chicken). Nashville hot chicken is HOT because the paste is suppose to be 1/3 fat and 2/3 cayenne pepper that gets cooked and reduced till thick. A few other seasonings may be added. Nashville hot chicken is also about flavor. It should be flavorful as much as hot. Authentic places will serve the chicken with dill pickles and white bread to catch up the juices nd flavor.
Hattie B’s in Las Vegas is located in the Cosmopolitan Hotel Casino on the Las Vegas Strip in a food court area. You order at the register and you pick up your platter at the end of the counter when it’s ready.
I ordered a small dark HOT with pimento macaroni and cheese and cole slaw. I ordered HOT because that is the same I had from the Nashville location.
This Las Vegas chicken lacks the cayenne aroma that the Nashville one had. I take a bite. The chicken is tasty and moist but doesn’t start you off with a sting like the Nashville one did. This one is also sweeter. This one is much milder……I thought it seemed greasier…..I thought it had even less crunch to it…….It’s tasty and is GOOD chicken but it’s not the same.
My husband got the same platter and a side of the hottest chicken strips they offer called, Shut The Cluck Up. I taste one.
This chicken is dry and it’s not stingingly hot either…….It’s not mild but it’s not like what came from Nashville….Even the Shut The Cluck Up isn’t as hot or delicious as Hot from Hattie B’s in Nashville.
Here are some pictures from Nashville.
The Hattie B’s in Las Vegas is Worth a Try! but to me doesn’t seem the same as from Nashville. Could be an off day????
www.HattieB.com
www.CosmopolitianLasVegas.com
Every FORKING Thing is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.
My first stop was Hattie B’s for Hot Chicken in the Cosmopolitan on the Las Vegas Strip.
Hattie B’s is located in the new food court…….
It’s tasty but it’s not the same as what I tried from the Nashville location………..It doesn’t sting you when you bite it……..It’s like they cooled it down and sweetened it up for the masses. Or maybe it’s just an off batch? I don’t know?
Our next stop was Eataly.
It’s an Italian Food Court with wine and more food to purchase.
We tried fish.
We tried pasta.
We came back another day and tried more pasta.
Finished up with gelato.
Some things were better than other things and we purchased some things to try latter.
The next day we went to China Town and tried Mian Sichuan Noodle.
This is suppose to be a very authentic Sichuan Noodle Restaurant. It’s not a fancy place.
But where else have you been that offers placemats with instructions on how to eat the food?
Before we order they start us off with sweetened Mung Bean Soup. It is used to cool you down from fiery mouth numbing food.
Here we started with Spicy Radishes and a sweet and sour cabbage is served as a palette cleanser. The Spicy Radishes were indeed spicy but not like water boiled spicy……That means you didn’t need a fire hydrant. They were unlike anything I ever tasted before…….with an unusual crunchy texture. I might not have known that they were radishes because I could no longer taste radish in them.
We had-
Sichuan cold spicy noodles
and
Spicy Sichuan Pork Noodles called Za Jiang. Tune in and you can read that story soon.
Our next destination was Chica in the Venetian.
It’s a Latin Restaurant of chef Lorena Garcia’s takes of Latin cuisine.
We tried spicy Peruvian ceviche.
and dinners of pacific striped sea bass
and porchetta.
We stopped by Gordon Ramsay Burger. I asked about the beef the last time I was here and they told me that they ground the beef in a main kitchen that is in the Paris Hotel/Casino.
They changed the menu since my last visit and that amazing Tandoori Chicken sandwich is no longer available……so I ordered something else. I thought an interesting choice might be the Fish and Crisps Burger because This is the fourth Gordon Ramsay Fried Fish option that I know of in Las Vegas. They all differ slightly and they all are priced differently.
The a crisp beer batter lightly coated a thick big piece of cod and it was drowning in about a 1/4 cup of yuzu-dill mayo that got topped with salt and vinegar potato crisps on a big fluffy toasted seeded bun…….
We shared plain fries called “Just Fries.”
My husband tried the Hog Burger that’s Mangalitsa Pork, Bacon, BBQ Pork, white cheddar, pickle, crisp onion and slaw burger. (he requested the slaw on the side)
Oddly this burger was dry? All the food we tried last time was amazing……Well the truth is that most busy restaurants run hot and cold……but I prefer hitting them on hot days.
Another day we went to Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill in the Caesar’s Palace. It’s a full service South West Style restaurant that’s very bright and lively inside with lots of bottles of tequila on the wall.
They started us off with a really delicious basket of assorted breads. (save room and eat the bread……the bread is worth eating)
For my main I had the Ancho Honey Glazed Salmon with black bean sauce, tomatillo and jalapeño crema over spinach (lunch $25.00 subject to change).
Gosh! It was delicious and flavorful. The salmon too! Not too spicy and not too sweet….just really good flavors!
My husband got the Grilled Mahi Mahi with green chile rice, yellow pepper mole and pineapple salsa (lunch $25.00 subject to change)
This one is delicious too! The flavors are different and stronger…..still south west. We both like the actual salmon more. I like the taste of both but my husband prefers the stronger flavors in this dish.
We go on to try the Deep Dish Banana Cream Pie.
It’s a thin praline hazelnut brittle with cream and fresh sliced bananas……..It’s ok to me. I really enjoyed the bread more and would have eaten more bread and skipped dessert…..We both really enjoyed the entrees and the bread basket at the Mesa Grill.
Then we got to try multi award winning and James Beard award winning chef Micheal Symon’s new bbq restaurant called Mabel’s in the Palm’s Hotel/Casino near the Las Vegas Strip.
We shared a big pan of Texas Style Brisket, Memphis dry rubbed Turkey breast, horseradish beets and macaroni and cheese.
Some things were great and some things weren’t as great………The pickles were DYN-NO-MITE! Like a crazy stinking great bread and butter pickle but better…..actually everything pickled was super crazy great! The turkey today had really terrific flavor but was served to us on the dry side today. The Texas style brisket might have been better at lunch time…..but when I got it the brisket was sort of dry and lacked much flavor but benefited from the house made sauces. The horseradish beets were pretty darn good! Macaroni and cheese didn’t have much flavor on my visit. I think they thinned down the sauce because our cup had lots of a milky liquid in the bottom.
The Splurge Night
L’ATELIER by Joel Robuchon
L’ATELIER by Joel Robuchon is located in the MGM Casino/Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. This is a high end exhibition tapas restaurant by the late most stared chef in the world, also called chef of the century Joel Robuchon.
They made some menu changes since my last visit and the three course special ($85.00 subject to change) is only offered as an early bird now from 5pm-6pm.
You get a bread basket of the most delicious baked breads and French Butter.
You get an Amuse Bouche…that for the past several years has been a foie gras shooter with parmesan foam. If you ask you will get some sort of vegetarian Amuse Bouche.
My first course was an Eggplant – Avocado Fondant with pixie sized turmeric croutons.
My husband got polenta with egg and ham….(well not just any ham…..it was that ham that was kissed by Jesus…..has black feet ……eats nothing but acorns…….and cost like $25 or $30 a Forking ounce)
For my main I had Halibut Flakes in Lemongrass foam with Robuchon Potatoes.
My husband said he had the best short rib that he has ever tasted.
We both had the tarts – Les Tartes for dessert because there is a strong possibility that this dessert plate might be the very best most detailed dessert plate in the WHOLE FORKING COUNTRY.
It’s beyond knocking it out of the park……It’s more like knocking it out of the galaxy!
They surprised us with these FORKING INSANELY Crazy Great Amazing praline madeleines.
The master is gone but the magic remains.
That was a little taste of where the Fork I’ve been…….Las Vegas
Everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.
The Mekong Plaza is an Asian Shopping Center that is a mall with a dozen Asian restaurants, an Asian/International Grocery Super Market gift shops and more. Today we thought we’d do some exploring here and mostly tasting.
We started with a full service Vietnamese Restaurant called Com Tam Thuan Kieu.
We shared a dish that is seldom found at most Metro Phoenix Vietnamese Restaurants called Com Do Ga Roti (fried Cornish hen with tomato paste red rice). Today they were out of Cornish hen so chicken was offered.
First came out a cup of broth and chunks of very developed soft pork.
Next we moved on to the main event.
We received a generously sized plate of very moist tender delicious bbq chicken thigh made with house made bbq sauce. I picked fish sauce as the dipping sauce and it went together to make something mighty tasty. The plate also came with pickled vegetables, a fried over easy egg and tomato paste red rice. I’ve had Vietnamese red rice before and this differed as they do from home to home or restaurant to restaurant. Here the rice was on the dry side and contained very little tomato.
Below is com do ga roti from Thao Sandwiches now closed for business. You can see the texture and tomato and seasoning does differ.
Thao Sandwiches (now closed for business)
Moving on next stop was suppose to be a Filipino Restaurant called Wholly Grill for Grilled Tuna with Eggplant Salad but that wasn’t on the menu today so we stopped at Heng’s Kitchen in the food court instead to share a Szechuan Spicy Boiled Fish.
Soon we are served and they are nice enough to split the rice plates for us. The fish is very tender and mild and cooked to perfection. We receive a good amount of bean sprouts and fresh chopped cilantro. There is some heat from hot chili and some Sichuan peppercorns but this is the least spicy Szechuan Spicy Boiled Fish that I’ve ever had…….I saw the chef looking at me when I ordered it……..It’s possible that he thought I looked like someone that can’t handle spicy foods and it’s a possibility that he was trying to spare me too much mouth numbing painful heat?????? I don’t know…..but that’s what I thought. This dish was still very good but super mild for the kind of dish that it is.
The last time I had Szechuan Spicy boiled fish it looked like this from Szechuan Cosine in Glendale.
from Szechuan Cusine in Glendale
See all the peppers…..now this was ultra spicy and mouth numbing.
Now we take a break and walk around Mekong Market. Lets see what we see.
Chestnut Kit Kats!
WOW Sake KitKats too!
Boiled corn with colorful kernels.
Faux fish.
LOTS of real fish. (near the middle is rabbit fish…..rabbit fish?……does it hop?)
Much more fish..thought the moon fish look attractive…..they shine much more than the photo shows.
Lay’s tomato and cucumber flavor chips.
Togarashi
Lay’s Spicy Hot Pot flavored potato chips that actually DO contain Szechuan pepper.
Asian gefilte fish…..who knew?
Fermented mudfish in rice……….?
Best Wild Jelly Fish Head.
Yellow Rock sugar…….I don’t know about yellow sugar??????? Makes me think of a Frank Zappa song.
A whole world of produce and herbs.
We decide we can hit one more restaurant and go to Happy Baos.
They are packed and we have to wait outside.
In reasonable time we are called in to sit at a table.
This is a tiny restaurant that is very packed with tables close together.
I don’t know if they are short on help or just very unorganized today. We’ve had ordering problems and waited abnormally long for our food while others around that came in latter had multiple plates. But this restaurant was written about in the Arizona Republic recently and might be busier than usual????? We finally get served.
Chicken Cabbage Dumplings and a Tofu Vegetable Bao.
The Bao is ok….
There is a possibility we waited so long because they rushed out a batch of dumplings for us. These dumplings seemed rushed because they lack seasoning and the cabbage they were suppose to contain.
That was my trip to Mekong Plaza in Mesa.
www.MekongPlaza.com
Every FORKING Thing is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.
OMG YUM! This was another one of the BEST FORKING Plates I ate out in Metro Phoenix. It’s a magnificent creation that does not seem like it could be from this planet. It was something that mere mortals can’t think of……This plate had all kinds of flavors and textures. Sweet, sour, crispy, salty, spicy, lots of umami and TONS of YUM! It’s not just very good…..It wasn’t just outstanding…This was like from another planet FORKING DELICIOUS!
We must start with the fish. It was a Hiramasa. This fish came from Australia and it’s from the yellowtail family. It’s a very mild tender fish but the chef put this unbelievable sear on the skin and made it into careful deliciously seasoned potato chip texture but underneath the fish is super moist, clean tasting and tender it melts in the mouth……It REALLY melts in the mouth. …… Little smear of a spicy arbol chili sauce that add some playful heat and more flavor………(yum)…….Sprinkled around the plate are these incredible pieces of huitlacoche. WOW I’ve had huitlacoche a number of times in Mexico and here but I never had Huitlacoche on this level before. At first I thought the first piece I ate was a mushroom ……it mushroom-ee taste but more interesting. It also had a more melty texture. So delicious! This is even better than the Huitlacoche I enjoyed in Mexico. But all together with the toasted pepitas and the magical ….sweet tomatillos these flavors Forking POP like a hot air balloon. Sweet, salty, crunch, umami, spicy..POP! …… I don’t know WTFork they did to the tomatillos…..but they tasted better than tomatillos…..some sort of potion was applied. The Tamale was made with blue corn masa floured was topped with some sort of magic mango chutney. It was so delicious I couldn’t stop eating to sip my wine.
Everything we’ve tried at Confluence was great but this was one of those plates that was so great that it seemed like it was from out of this world! It was CRAZY Forking Great…Like from another planet! This was also among the Forking BEST plates of the year I tried in Metro Phoenix.
In case you didn’t know…..Confluence is a small but upscale restaurant located in beautiful Carefree Arizona (also runs 5 degrees cooler than most of metro Phoenix bonus). They serve painstakingly detailed quality farm to table elevated modern cuisine. This is the kind of restaurant that you should drive across town for. This restaurant serves masterfully crafted interesting dishes at a very fair pricing.
Always Worth a Fork!
Worth a Fork!
www.RestaurantConfluence.com
Everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.
July is officially Hot Dog Month. The adopted German Sausage now is as American as apple pie and baseball. In doing research of who invented the hot dog it is my conclusion is that nobody Forking knows who invented the hot dog. Most likely it was someone of German decent. I found in Food Network Magazine (and no where else) that a German Immigrant named Charles Dachshund invented the hot dog. (above photo is from www.TheTreeofLiberty.com)
According to multiple sources including Wikipedia…At one time people called hot dogs “dachshund sausages.” Not all but some sources claim that dog actually did get ground into some sausages……………………..”DOG GONE IT!”…………
As time went by a hot dog vender with poor spelling skills couldn’t spell dachshund for his hot dog cart sign….so the sausages were then known as HOT DOGS.
Hot Dog
Hot dogs, frankfurters…………………. Frankenfurter………..
Like I was saying hot dogs, frankfurters and wieners are all seasoned pre-cooked sausages. Frankfurters tend to be seasoned more aggressively and are usually made from beef. Wieners tend to be more bland and are often made with pork.
Not all but many hot dogs are stuffed into a natural sheep’s small intestine for that snap that people enjoy. Other hot dogs are skinless.
Happy FORK of July! Hot Dogs, Frankfurters and Wieners OH MY!
This mustard been a reading that you relish….if not ketchup later.
