Pierogi Village is a small Polish Restaurant that specializes in serving Pierogi and other Polish Style Foods. It’s very homey inside with lots of Polish dolls, pottery, and other Keep Sakes all over.
My husband tried the Pierogi Sampler Plate of ten pierogi. He tried sausage, beef, potato & cheddar, and potato & cheese pierogi. He said it came with a green sauce that tasted minty and they were embellished with some diced caramelized onions. He said they had little flavor and couldn’t tell the difference between the beef and sausage pierogi. He also said that the pierogi that were suppose to have jalapeño in them didn’t taste like they had any jalapeño in them. He also said that he was still hungry after eating the pierogi (and one of mine) since the pierogi here are very small (about teaspoon sized).
I tried six potato and cheddar pierogi.
I was kinda surprised that they don’t come with sour cream. The pasta is nice and thin and none of them leaked. It might be hard to tell by my photo but they are very greasy. (and that turns me off). I ate four……..but I didn’t enjoy them……….they kinda turned my stomach because they were greasy and just didn’t have any good flavors to them……….The onions didn’t really taste like onions and instead had a cheap smoky lunch meat flavor and were too greasy for me. Even the inside wasn’t seasoned nice. I didn’t really taste any cheddar. It just was greasy and had that cheap lunch meat flavor. Then I scraped the onions off of one to give to my dogs. I was going to eat a fifth one but when I cut it open there was a big piece of some kind of meat in it so I gave it to my husband to eat since I didn’t know what it was.
WHAT THE FORK!
This was in the potato and cheddar pierogi.
BLECH!
My dogs didn’t mind.
Pierogi Village is not for everyone.
Latter I found out that Pierogi Village puts bacon in their potato and cheddar pierogi with no mention of they on their menu. That is very unkind and disrespectful to vegetarians and to people who don’t eat pork. I did mention this to the owner and Margaret eventually agreed with me. She said that she would change her menu and add bacon as an ingredient to her potato and cheddar pierogi. As of yesterday I did not notice any changes to her on-line menu.
I noticed these Limited Edition Hershey Strawberry Ice Cream Cone Kisses at my local Safeway Supermarket. I hesitated …….should I….or shouldn’t I?……..As a Youngster I used to like Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake Ice Cream Bars…..So I was hoping that these Hershey’s Strawberry Ice Cream Cone Kisses might taste similar…….????? Well lets see…..
Eeek! They are flesh colored with little red rashes.
I try it and it is gross. WTFork is this? Not sure if I can finish……..
It just taste very artificial ……Doesn’t taste comparable to anything.
As it’s melting I got a crunchy lump. The crunchy lump is ok….It’s sort of cookie like in taste……
But The kiss is still there and terrible. My tongue is burning from it….YUK!
Now I got a weird aftertaste…..It’s something like hops from beer…ICK…GROSS!
On the bright side I won’t be getting fat from them.
I can not recommend them…..Actually I am surprised that they can pass a taste test from Hershey’s…..
Those were my FORKING Thoughts on Limited Edition Hershey’s Strawberry Ice Cream Cone Kisses but I also must note that YOUR FORKING opinion may indeed differ.
So far 2022 has been a better year than most for Metro Phoenix Foods…..Not too many HORRIBLE FRIGHTFUL dishes….But there were a few. I very recently wrote about the next two dishes so if you read my blog then you know where these dishes came from. It’s not my intention to make trouble for any business………(even if they deserve it)…. I tell The Forking Truth….so I mention how my meal was once with the name of the business and once is enough……But these stories and most of the photos are Horrible and Frightful. Halloween time is just that perfect time to share these memories.
Overcooked macaroni and dried up cheese that never was good.
Burnt dried out fish with almost brunt oil filled eggplant.
After this are oldies but NOT goodies.
This was from a fine restaurant in the Biltmore area that is still in business. I do note that the chef that they had at the time left several years ago….By the looks of the polenta on the plate it seems like he might have been pissed off about something.
A certain restaurant on the west side served me a dessert with a hard glob of silicon in it that I had to spit out.
This next one might be the worst thing I ever got from a food truck. It made me scream and I had to spit it out.
It was suppose to be a corned beef egg roll from a food truck that specialized in corned beef. It was dry and awful inside but I still remember that the worst part was the egg roll because it tasted rancid.
Someone in metro Phoenix served me this sandwich.
They are still in business….
Sometimes you go to a restaurant that was very good for several visits………. Then when you eat the food you find out that the chef is no longer with them.
This restaurant closed shorty after I got this horrid dish. It was fishy salmon topped with raw tomato paste flanked by a splat of pureed corn and another splat of corn grits.
I went to a BBQ Restaurant in Phoenix that is still in Business. They served me grits that weren’t cooked.
They also served us meat that was under and still had hard fat on it.
I remember we said something about this but nobody said or did a thing.
A restaurant that is still in business in Peoria served my husband this sandwich.
At the time that restaurant recently changed ownership….It was not great but ok before this……………
It looks like a cinnamon bun but it’s not……….My husband was served a burnt roll somewhere.
This is the worst bulgogi I ever tried……It’s like they threw it in a blender and added cream cheese. It’s like throw up on a skillet.
This Thai Restaurant in Peoria thinks that it’s ok to call a dish fish and serve it without the meat.
I never went back.
This was from a Taco Restaurant that went out of business.
Dry flavorless chicken that might have been microwaved to hard and chewy with some pickled onions and a tortilla that fell apart before it arrived.
This place is still in business in Sun City.
The fish is fishy. The vegetables are obviously from frozen and boiled……I don’t know what happened to the mashed potato. I asked the server why it was green….She didn’t know and asked the chef. She said that he said, “Black pepper turns the potatoes green.”
Maybe my worst Metro Phoenix Restaurant foods came from an Asian Restaurant that I enjoyed on my first visit. I enjoyed the live seafood that was reasonably priced…..So I came back for a second visit….(unfortunately).
We started with some shiitake mushrooms with Asian Greens. They look good BUT….
Shiitake with Asian Greens
The sauce is HORRIFYING……Maybe it is suppose to be that way but I can’t stomach a sauce with the consistency of snot……I couldn’t eat this…..Sadly our main dish was worst.
On this visit I didn’t notice the live fish tanks???????? But ordered the rockfish anyway..This was like a fake fish that was impossible to eat….Like solid rubber and tough. I was going to say something to the owner….But my husband said that all was ok so the owner left.
The server didn’t even question on why we didn’t eat the fish and didn’t even ask if we wanted to bring it or the vegetables home……
Then the scary part is that we got a bill for over a hundred dollars for those two plates (We found out they charged $89. for that fish).
These were only a few of the HORRIBLE FRIGHTFUL Foods that was served to me in Metro Phoenix AZ.
I came across pineberries at my local Sprouts Store.
I never tried them before so I bought the one and only box of them they had.
It turns out that the pineberries is a cross of red European strawberries and white Spanish strawberries. They were named pineberries because they are suppose to taste like pineapple. Some taste like mild pineapple. Some taste like pineapple mixed with a little strawberry.If you like pineapple and strawberry you might like them.
Did you ever hear of Roveja Wild Pea Polenta? Roveja Wild Pea Polenta is made from small wild peas that grow in various colors of dark brown to reddish and dark green. This pea only grows at high altitudes and has been growing on the Sibillini mountains since ancient times in Italy. Some people use these peas for soup but it is also used for a famous peasant dish with sardines or anchovies with garlic, olive oil and lemon. I found this special Wild Pea Polenta at the on-line Milk Street Store (www.Store.177MilkStreet.com). They said it was better tasting than any other polenta and was very rare. They said it taste earthy and had this great umami to it. I regularly make polenta so I wanted to try it.
It came to me in this package.
It’s hard to read because most of it is in Italian.
Here’s the back with the cooking instructions.
The cooking directions are the 4 squares at the bottom of the bag that is also hard to read.
I figured out that 1/2 the bag (I think it was almost 200 grams gets a liter of water with a splash of olive oil and a little salt. You cook it for around 35 minutes. Mine got lumpy because I did it like regular polenta that you add in when the water is boiling….I guess? that you add this Roveja Wild Pea polenta to cold water that you bring up to a boil and then reduce to a simmer? I was able to fix the lumps by using a stick blender.
This Wild Pea Polenta sets up faster than concrete……I almost couldn’t get them to set in my muffin pan.
Milk Street suggest letting this polenta sit and slice it cold.
I warmed mine up a little but served it with the recommended anchovies, roasted sweet garlic, olive oil, lemon, and one Calabrian chili. I guess it would be more traditional to cook the anchovies, garlic, oil, and lemon into a sauce but I did it this way.
Roveja Wild Pea Polenta with Anchovy, Sweet Roasted Garlic, E.V.O.O. Calabrian Chili, Lemon
It’s good and different…….I get a mushroomy kind of taste and an almost beef burger kind of taste from it with maybe a very light bitterness. I think the most magnificent vegan burger or meat(less) balls could be made with this Rovega Wild Pea Polenta.
Next time I’ll do something different with Rovega Wild Pea Polenta.
This was a WTFork is That? – Rovega Wild Pea Polenta.
The Forking Truth is that not everything is amazing. Restaurants don’t always serve great food. Here is a collection of some of the obvious bad dishes I had served to me in metro Phoenix Arizona. I already reported these offenders once so I did my job. Once is enough. If you regularly read my blog then you will know where these monstrosities came from.
The above photo is a little fishy.
Here’s a close up.
This is suppose to be polenta. But it is oddly stiff……
I don’t know if it’s happy to see me or if the chef was just pissed off…???
This next one looks like a cinnamon or chocolate pastry…..But it is not.
It’s a burnt roll.
Also got a burnt pizza crust somewhere. Maybe the cook was sauced?
Don’t you hate when foreign objects are in your food?
Dessert isn’t always a sweet ending.
They gave us a dessert that is hard as a rock. We said something to (I think the owner) and he said that nothing was wrong with his dessert. He said they soften up when you heat them up…..WTFork was I suppose to do? Heat it up with my butt!
This next one was even more horrible than it looks.
The fish was fishy tasting (I couldn’t eat it) and was topped with raw sour tomato paste (like fresh from a can mixed with lemon juice and was just plopped on the fishy fish. It was surrounded by starchy tasting corn splats of different disgusting textures. I didn’t know at the time but latter found out that the chef left. I guess they let their dishwasher take a swing at cooking. I told my waiter about it but nothing was done…Then they went out of business.
Bad food can come from a food truck.
This was suppose to be some sort of corned beef stuffed roll. You can see it is greasy but THANK GOD you can’t taste it ….It tasted like it was cooked in rancid oil…..
This next one was a restaurant week dinner.
This dinner looks like it threw up on it’s self.
This sandwich was very unappetizing in appearance.
It looks like it was dragged threw a lake. (or maybe a mop bucket?)
Even pizza can bum you out. it’s so disappointing when you get a slice of pizza with zero topping.
BAH!
Had the worst taco in the whole world.
Even the tortilla was decomposing on it’s way to me. It was stuffed with DRY as can be flavorless chicken.
I also had the misfortune to try out the WORST Mediterranean food that I ever had anywhere.
Well the rice and tomato was good. But everything else was horrible but photographed well. Falafels had uncooked hard as rock chickpeas in them. The chicken shawarma tasted like chicken baloney. The pickle they gave me was old and decaying. I think it also came with a Sr. Citizen card.
I went to a new (at the time) BBQ place. The meats they served us were undercooked with hard fat. THE GRITS YOU CAN SEE WERE UNCOOKED that they served us.
We told someone about the grits. Nobody said that they were sorry. Nobody said that they’d take them off our bill. Nobody said that they’d get us something else.
It’s always horrible when they serve you…….”The I already ate plate” (no that wasn’t an appetizer…It was suppose to be my $16.00 Lunch.
Here’s another “I already ate plate”
This isn’t enough food for a gerbil. BAH!
Sometimes some restaurants are just bad.
I got this salad somewhere. They used processed chicken fingers that weren’t cooked correctly. It seemed they they cooked them in the microwave until they BLEW OUT the centers of the chicken and the outside of the chicken got incredibly hard. Then they chilled them and added them to my salad.
My husband got something similar but different here.
He said that his chicken fingers were a little better but the cheese with a combination of hard and melted at the same time.
This next one is also just bad.
I got questionable trout, from frozen boiled vegetables and GREEN mashed potatoes. I did ask my waitress why the mashed potatoes were green. She ran and asked the chef. She said the chef told her that mashed potatoes turn green when you add black pepper.
I think the worst meal I had came from a Chinese Restaurant that I enjoyed before. I ordered the fresh fish because it was very good last time.
I have no idea what the FORK they served us. This fish was like it was made of rubber. I think it was dead and embalmed. It was next to impossible to pull the meat off of it. WOW! was my husband mad at me for recommending this place. He was so mad that when the owner asked us how things were he said ok just so the guy would leave. Then when we got the bill he was really SORRY that he didn’t say anything because they charged us over $80.00 for this fish we couldn’t eat.
All this crap was NOT Worth a Fork!
That was a collection of not all but some of horrible frightful foods served to me in metro Phoenix AZ.
This was the Halloween Edition of The Forking Truth.
I’ve subscribed to a subscription of Universal Yums at www.UniversialYums.com .They send you a box of International snacks. You can subscribe or gift in a number of ways. You also have to choose from three different sizes of snack boxes. The basic Yum Box is 6 snacks, a 12 page booklet with trivia, games and a recipe and runs around $15. a month. Next is the Yum Yum Box it is all that and they say more……and comes with 12 snacks and runs around $25. a month. The largest box is called The Super Yum Box. It is similar to the Yum Yum Box but comes with 20 snacks and runs around $40. a month.
I signed up for just the basic Yum Box (around $15.) that comes with 6 international snacks plus extra. My first box came with all kinds of treats from Columbia. I forgot to take a picture of just opening the box. This is my box after a few days of snacking.
It comes with a booklet with some facts about Columbia.
It also came with a recipe for arepas.
Some fun trivia.
Here are all the snacks.
Mayonnaise flavored potato chips, coconut wafer bar, lemon bacon chips, white chocolate cookie nuggets, a nougat chocolate bar and some sort of confection that is a mash-up of marshmallow and gummy in the shape of penguins.
They also included a surprise bag of a couple other things.
Coffee taffy and a passionfruit bubblegum pop. The coffee taffy tasted just like coffee. Had the texture of taffy but got softer. The passionfruit pop tasted like passionfruit but mixed with talcum powder. I didn’t take it to the bubblegum center.
We tried something that looked sort of familiar…..
Cookies and Cream White Chocolate Nuggets.
They taste like smashed up Oreos with extra frosting that is waxy. If you like Oreo cookies then you will like them.
Then we opened up this one.
It’s a chocolate bar filled with marshmallowy choco-nougat. Outer coating was a little waxy but did have a cocoa taste to it. Marshmallowy nougat isn’t my jam so we go to the next one.
Lemon Bacon chips (oy vey)
They don’t actually have bacon in them.
Pelllet (cooked) style fake bacon
They don’t taste like bacon but they are so artificially sour that they are painful to eat.
This next one looks cute.
They smell like Juicy Fruit Gum.
They are penguin shaped and are like a cross between a marshmallow and a gummy. I guess they are a fluffy gummy penguin.
These aren’t bad. They taste like coconut wafers. These are ok.
Artificially flavored mayonnaise potato chips……(why?)…They smell like normal potato chips……they are powdery and have an odd sour finish…….Or maybe it’s a chemical finish?
There is a YUM scorecard to fill out.
While I didn’t particularly enjoy any of the snacks from Columbia I still enjoyed the adventure. That was my first box of Universal Yums.
I wonder WTFork Universal Yums will send me next time?
www.UniversalYums.com
I do note that your experience may indeed differ from my experience.
Chocolate comes in more flavors now. There is milk chocolate, dark chocolate, white chocolate (white chocolate is controversial and some people would say to not include it) and there is ruby chocolate.
My first experience trying the ruby chocolate flavor was from That’s Amore Gelato shop in North Scottsdale AZ.
Ruby is on the right half
To me it taste like a berry. I would say maybe raspberry or mixed berry with raspberry.
The very next week I found the NEW LIMITED EDITION Ruby Cacao coated Haagen Dazs ice cream bars so I bought them to try. I have a bar next to my 7in knife.
We usually share a dessert so I’m cutting it in half.
The flavor in the candy coating is more intense than from the gelato. it’s more sweet and tangy……Here I get maybe more of a raspberry taste but it finishes with a sort of milk chocolate taste that I didn’t get with the gelato. I can’t wait to see ruby chocolate bars and higher end ruby chocolates coming out soon. I bet they will be even more intense with different flavors. If I see them I will try them and let you know how they are.
Those were My Forking Thoughts on the Ruby Chocolate that I’ve tasted so far.
Bomba is an Italian Calabrian Hot Chili Condiment. It’s a bomb of flavor and heat that adds dimension, flavor and heat to food. A little goes a long way. You might want to use it on bread, pasta, sandwiches, sauces, soups, pizza, eggs, fish or vegetable salads. Sometimes I add some bomba to tomato sauce and to meatballs. There are many different brands of bomba. Most grocery stores don’t carry bomba so usually I buy it on the internet. I haven’t tried them all yet but here are three that I’ve tried.
Each one is a product of Italy. Each one has a different texture and a different taste but they all have heat.
The peppers have a little funk from Trader Joe’s. I thought I tasted garlic but there is no garlic in the Trader Joe’s…..I guess I was craving garlic with this one.
Italian Harvest is almost just hot oil with crushed chili in it. This one has a nice clean bright almost fresh tasting hot chili taste.
I do note that I usually buy Coluccio Brand and it differs each and every time I buy it…Sometimes it’s extra hot and sometimes it is almost mild.
Today the Coluccio brand taste like it’s made with very good olive oil. It’s chunky with lots of olive tasting vegetables and some spices. It seems mild and tasty at first and then it builds in heat that lingers.
I like all the Bomba here. Each one had something different to it.
I tried Trader Joe’s
Italian Harvest
Coluccio
It’s better to have any jar of Bomba than to not have a jar of Bomba.
I came across these Blue Foot Mushrooms at Whole Foods. So I picked up a few because I never tried them before. I FORKING KNOW most people just brush them off but on these I used a very damp paper towel to clean them because I don’t like the taste of dirt.
This small amount of mushrooms coast about $6.00.
These mushrooms feel more dense than your average mushroom.
I thought I better read about them before I prepare them.
I read on www.HonestCooking.com that the Blue Foot Mushroom needs to be thoroughly cooked because it contains some of the same chemistry as from psychedelic mushrooms.
On www.HonestCooking.com they suggested slicing the mushroom in half or thirds and placing them on a parchment lined baking sheet. Then brush the mushrooms with oil and cover lightly with foil and place in a 425 oven for 20 minutes and turn over and maybe another 20 minutes.
I cut my mushrooms smaller because I wanted them in smaller pieces. So mine only needed 20 minutes.
The mushrooms came out crispy and soft at the same time. This is an excellent easy way to cook those tougher kind of mushrooms.
I taste a piece of mushroom.
THEY DON”T TASTE LIKE ANY OTHER MUSHROOM that I know of.
They are very earthy but they lack that dirt taste.
They also taste very FLORAL with a bit of a nutty grain taste.
Blue Foot mushrooms are very unique and don’t taste like any other mushroom.
WTFork is That?
The Blue Foot Mushroom
Special Thanks to www.HonestCooking.com with your informative directions on how to cook the Blue Foot Mushroom.
