Tonto Bar and Grill is a south west themed golf resort in beautiful Cave Creek Arizona. They serve up American Food sometimes studded with local desert foraged ingredients. They were offering a great sounding three course menu so we decided to go for it.

They offer a beautiful out-door patio.

With beautiful views of the golf course.

The dragon flies are real and are not decorations.

We request a seat on the patio. I ask for a shaded table and they offer a seat in full sun. I try it out and one side blinds my eyes and the other seat burns my back.

I tell them for those reasons this table won’t work for me. Our server tells me the sun is only temporary and will set.

I say I can’t sit there and then she says they can set an umbrella up for me.

They set the umbrella up and then the table is tolerable. I thought it was strange since 90% of the tables looked available and many were shaded.

Well any who……

They start us off with a bread basket with creamy soft butter.

The bread seemed like it might have been house baked and was topped with some interesting seeds.

Our first of three courses soon arrive.

I had a compressed Arugula Salad.

It was delicious with Pecans, Green Apple, Pistachios with Pistachio vinaigrette. The salad also contained Spanish Cheese and Dried Cherries. It was all good.

My husband had theTortilla Crusted Crab Cakes.

The Crab Cakes were unusually good and was a welcome surprise as you very rarely get good crab cakes outside of Baltimore.

Soon our plates are cleared and the watering system starts up.

We get splashed with water a few times but not too bad. I just didn’t want to get lawn water on my food because the outdoor water might contain lead and other impurities.

For dinner I have the Onion Crusted Walleye. It’s served over a potato roesti cake. They served me two generous servings of tarter sauce topped with fried capers some lightly steamed shreds of steamed carrots topped with some fresh spinach. The fish is pretty good until I hit the slightly undercooked rubbery bloodline and the soggy fish skin that was crusted over with onion crust. The potato is seasoned nicely and is a tasty treat.

My husband tried the Root Beer braised Short Rib Dinner.

Our favorite part of the plate was the Sweet Potato Casserole. It was layers of nicely cooked sweet potatoes held together with cheese. Anybody would like the sweet potatoes. For both our taste the rib was too stringy and might be over-cooked slightly for our taste. For me it ran too sweet. For me the green beans were painfully smokey. They were infused with a massive amount of smoke. It was too much smoke for me to swallow and I had to spit the piece I tried out. They were too smokey for my husband too but he was able to eat a few of them.

The desserts were

A decadent Warm Buttermilk Chocolate Cake with Warm Chocolate Sauce, Fresh Fruit, House Pecan Ice-cream with fancy cookies.  So many treats to try on one plate

And Lemon-Lime Sour Cream Pie.

Both desserts were very detailed and also very good! The Lemon-Lime Sour Cream Pie had this citrusy ribbon that hit you with the right amount of tang, sweetness and flavor. Under the ribbon was a creamy layer that was so tasty with nutty tasting crust. This dessert was all good even down to the cute hand made sugar bumble bee.

Tonto Bar and Grill offers a Taste of the South West indoors or on the patio. For sure you can enjoy some lovely appetizers and amazing desserts. I haven’t tried enough of the menu to be clear on a rating.

For more information please visit www.TontoBarandGrill.com

I note that your experience and taste may differ and I just tell the truth about my dinning experience.

The Forking Truth.

Kitchen 18 is among the few kosher restaurants in the metro Phoenix area. At this time 10-4-16 they might be the only kosher restaurant in Metro Phoenix AZ that serves Mediterranean food. They get inspected by Maricopa County and they also get inspected by a rabbi with Chabad. Kitchen 18 only serves fully inspected meats unlike non-kosher restaurants that serve randomly inspected meats. Only disease free animals can be kosher. Beef that is used is grass fed and only comes from the front quarter of the cow. The back end gets sold to non-kosher plants. For these reasons kosher meat is higher in price.

Kitchen 18 is a new restaurant again. Under the last two owners and current owner they served Mediterranean Food. They now have added Chinese Style Food, Sushi, Seafood, American Food and International Specials. They expanded the interior of the restaurant and dressed it up some.

I thought we’d start out with some spicy Tuna Rolls because it seemed like fun to order sushi at a kosher restaurant.

Our Spicy Tuna Roll has arrived with low sodium soy sauce, a sweet teriyaki kind of sauce, and a creamy sauce that is sort of sweet and slightly spicy. I taste one piece and I’m happy because the tuna is clean tasting but it isn’t spicy at all. I don’t always enjoy sushi tuna because half the time it isn’t clean tasting and I can’t eat it but here it was ok. If your into sushi you will go to a well known sushi restaurant. The Asian food they offer here really is for people that are kosher and can’t go to a Chinese or Japanese Restaurant because they don’t serve kosher foods.

We shared a Mediterranean Sampler Appetizer.

I got freshly made HOT Fluffy Pita Bread. tasty stuffed grape leaves, creamy hummus, AMAZING Baba Ganoush, salad and very good above average Falafels.

Here is a close up of the Falafel.

A good Falafel looks like this inside and is full of herbs. This one has great flavor and is like a crunchy meatball style like the way most places in this area make them.

An ok Falafel looks like this.

A not so great Falafel looks like this one. This one is fluffy but lacks fresh herbs.

Some people do judge the Falafel by fluffiness and crispness. Some people do say they like the falafel to be shattering crisp. I judge Falafels by flavor because the crisp falafel is nice but in a pita bread as a sandwich I sort of like the meatball texture falafels because they seem better with pita to me.

I haven’t tried a better Baba Ganoush at any of the other Mediterranean Restaurants I’ve been to in the metro Phoenix area. This Eggplant dip had the eggplant running threw it with that perfect char taste that this dip is suppose to have. It was delicious and very creamy. This eggplant dip had great flavors and texture.

We also shared the Shawarma Plate.

The Shawarma Plate contained Chicken, Hummus, Tehina sauce, Shrug sauce (spicy hot pepper sauce) Grilled Vegetables, salad and fluffy hot fresh made pita bread. Everything on the plate was really great especially the Shawarma. By a long shot this was the best shawarma I tried in years. The chicken was so moist and juicy and seemed succulent. I liked that it wasn’t over seasoned. The grilled vegetables were great. It’s very rare that you can get such nice vegetables with Mediterranean plates. The spicy red pepper Shrug sauce was HOT and tasty but is a different style than other shrug sauces I had before. This one is made from dried peppers with an oil base. The fresh baked fluffy pita is very good too.

On one visit I didn’t try enough of the menu to give a full review but just from this one visit I can say for sure that for Mediterranean Style Food this place pulls it off better than most that I tried.

Service was also friendly and efficient.

For Mediterranean Food Kitchen 18 is worth a Fork!

For more information please visit www.TheKitchen18.com