I never have been to Chicago and I’m not real familiar with Chicago Style Pizza. Lou Malnatis is a Famous Pizza Chain from Chicago that’s well known for their Signature Deep Dish Chicago Style Pizza.  Lou Malnatis has opened their first Restaurant in Phoenix AZ and that’s a big deal so I thought I’d give it a try.

Lou Malnatis

The inside of the restaurant has a fun retro kind of interior with interesting fixtures and bright lights that spell cheese on a wall in the dining room.

We order our individual sized pizzas and are told it will take at least 30 minutes.

After about 40 minutes we receive our pizzas.

I ordered a vegetable pizza named “The Lou.”

The first thing I notice is that this is an extremely small size pizza. It looks child’s size to me.

My pizza with filled with fresh mushrooms, spinach mix that looked sort of grey, vine ripened Lou’s tomatoes (that were good), cheese blend (mozzarella, Romano, Cheddar) and topped with roma tomatoes (sort of unripe) in what they call Butter Garlic Crust.

You don’t pick up a slice and eat this pizza. You have to eat it with a knife and fork. I try a little end of the crust and it’s thin and fried pie like almost like a crostata. ( a crostata is made with olive oil based dough) The bottom of the crust is slightly thicker but still thin and is more pizza dough like. I don’t get the butter taste it almost seems more like dough that’s fried in oil….

I like the taste of the cheese blend and I also like the fresh mushrooms and vine ripened tomato sauce.

My husband tries the Malnati Chicago Classic. It’s a similar pizza but filled with lean Lou’s Sausage, vine ripened tomato sauce and cheese blend. The sausage is very lean and slightly dry. This pizza is very mildly seasoned.

Lou Malnatis is the first of Three BIG Chicago Chains of Pizza restaurants to open in Metro Phoenix AZ. (the other two chains are opening soon within the year) You might want to give them a try if you want to take part in all the hype about Chicago Style Pizza.

For more information please visit www.LouMalnatis.com

The Forking Truth

Salad and Go is a Gourmet Salad Restaurant. Salad and Go is small local chain that seems to be growing in Metro Phoenix. You either drive threw and order or use the Walk Up Window pictured above. No dining room here but they do offer a Dog Friendly Patio and gave my dogs Dog Biscuits! At Salad and Go all the food is natural and organic and made in house. They offer over TEN varieties of fresh and seasonal salads that can also be turned into wraps. They serve healthy breakfast options, smoothies and more. Prices are very low and portions are surprisingly large. All nutrition values are posted on their website. www.SaladandGo.com

I ordered the Apple and Mixed Greens Salad ($5.74) added Chicken ($1.44).

My salad contained Fresh Mixed Greens, Romaine, Golden Raisins, Candied Pecans, Apples, Blue Cheese,  Balsamic Vinaigrette and added Chicken.The chicken was well seasoned and seemed like it was baked, chilled and cut into bit size cubes. This salad certainly was DELICIOUS and was so satisfying. This $7.18 salad is bigger and better than many $12.00 salads I had out in other places.

My husband had what they called a Santa Fee Salad with added Steak.

The Santa Fe Salad contained Corn, Mexican Cheese, Sweet Grape Tomatoes and Spicy Beans and a Cilantro Lime Dressing tied it all together.

The dogs were well behaved and got to sample the Chicken and Steak too.

Salad and Go is Budget Priced but Quality Food that’s Healthy and a Great Value.

Salad and Go is Worth a Fork!

Worth a Fork!

For more information on Salad and Go please visit www.SaladandGo.com

Anything is subject to change and your experience may differ.

The Forking Truth

Fat Ox is one of the most anticipated new restaurant openings of the year in the Metro Phoenix Area. The Chef has trained in France and is well known for other very good restaurants in the area (The Brasserie, Zinc Bistro and The Mission).  Fat Ox serves Modern Italian Foods such as antipastos, salumi, pastas and main meals. The energetic atmosphere is a mix of all sorts and so are the lighting fixtures as I counted nearly a dozen different kinds of fixtures. It’s loud in here and it’s also very dark despite all the interesting fixtures…..in this very spacious restaurant with a very large Patio.

The Forking Truth is that it’s THIS DARK in the dining room! Often I couldn’t see what was on the plates and ate mostly blind. I took most of the other photos with a flash. I didn’t actually know what the food looked like until I viewed my photos…..FT (ForkingTruth).

We start out with complimentary toasted bread cubes and Calabrian Chili Butter. I like the unique spicy but not too spicy taste of the Calabrian Chili and I have a jar of them in my pantry right now.

Our First Course arrives. It’s the Charred Taleggio Cheese with similar bread, Beet Mostardo, Lemon and Walnut and Olive Oil.

I couldn’t see the Pomegranate Seeds but I felt them burst in my mouth. The Sage, Beets, Mustard and Walnut all dressed up the cheese nicely. This was a great plate!

Our second course was pasta and it was a show stopper.

There wasn’t much of it but what I tasted was amazing. Carefully made perfect to the tooth pasta shaped like little wrappers containing a prize….of…carefully seasoned butternut squash. It was a little sweet a little buttery highlighted with just the right amounts of mostarda, amaretti cookie, parmesan cheese, sage and pomegranate. Our server recommended that we order THREE Plates of pasta….Now I know why. Amazing, Delicious and tiny…any table can fit in three of these sized plates.

My main course was the A La Diavlo Rotisserie Jidori Chicken.

The picture looks amazing but remember it really was dark…dark or darker than the photo below because I moved the candle back to where it was suppose to go.

The Forking Truth is that I didn’t see the vegetables on top of the chicken and when I went to use my steak knife it was like playing MURDER IN THE DARK with the chicken. I sawed off a piece and got an unpleasant mouthful of rubbery moist chicken skin in a tangy but delicious sauce. For me it was a difficult task to remove the chicken skin in the dark. Then it was difficult to find the chicken in the dark…and next…I got a mouthful of fennel when I was expecting chicken. This plate was too difficult for me to eat in the dark. I didn’t know I’d need a coal miner’s hat to eat the chicken. How silly of me to be unprepared.

My husband had the Rosewood Skirt Steak Tagliata.

Because it was dark neither of us saw the oil and balsamic around the plate. Leaving the steak to taste mostly natural tasting. A few baby herbs and baby vegetables accented the plate.

The waitress tells us about desserts but she is by my husband and I’m on the bench too far to hear her with all the music noise in the background. We pass on dessert this time.

I note this restaurant is new and may still be finding their way..

For more information please visit www.ILoveFatOx.com

I do note that everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.

The Forking Truth