Match Cuisine & Cocktails is located in the Boutique Hotel called the FOUND:RE in down town Phoenix AZ. This small hotel is really part art museum that displays a mostly changing gallery of unique artwork.

This new restaurant Match Cuisine & Cocktails is sort of new again as they have a new chef that is introducing new menu items. I thought this would be an interesting pick for restaurant week and it was…….

We arrived slightly early for our reservation so we were asked to sit in the lounge.

We were hoping to partake in some happy hour food and drink since we rarely ever take advantage of that anywhere.

I didn’t notice any reduced pricing on any of the food but did notice a couple dollars off on a few drinks I wasn’t interested with so we walked around looking at the artworks some more.

Interactive Projection on the floor

We do get seated with menus and both decide to order off the restaurant week menu.

They start us off with wines that pair expertly well with our appetizers.

My Farm House Salad might have been the most detailed salad I ever had anywhere. It must have contained about 50 ingredients. The salad was packed with a whole farm of local shaved baby vegetables, flowers, different sauces, dehydrated items gelled things and even more. It was like a journey around the world with changing seasons. It sure was Forking Interesting. Every bite did taste different. My husband had Fire Roasted Oysters with Chinese Pork Sausage, Takana, Miso Custard and Smoked Soy. It was so different he didn’t know how he felt about it.

Dinner was….Whole Deboned Roasted Sea Bream with Pardon Peppers, Olives, Tomato, Arugula, Fennel and Burnt Lemon Vinaigrette and Wood Roasted Beef Tenderloin with Morels (served after we noticed they were missing), Salted New Potatoes, Ramps and Burnt Carrot Madeira Reduction.

My Fish seemed fresh as could be…..and didn’t taste like most fish you get in Phoenix….more like fresh like fish from California or fresh fish sent to Las Vegas……It was a very large portion that was prepared reasonably well. The only problem was the timing of arrival. My plate arrived well after the fish was prepared and it was near cold…..I figure I took too long eating the salad so the timing was off. My plate also came with a truck full of vegetables. One of the vegetables were the best Heirloom Tomatoes I had in some time. They were so good that if there was such a thing as Jesus these tomatoes I had would make hime weep….Best tomatoes ever! I ate too much and was very full. My husband had the Beef Tenderloin Platter. Even he said the beef was good and he really thought the Ramps were interesting but even more interesting was the Burnt Carrot Madeira Reduction. I think he liked his plate but for him the portion was small. Both dinners also came with generous wine pairings that were amazing with the food.

For dessert we both had the Chocolate Pot de Creme. It was presented in a very non-traditional way.

A sweet ending to an interesting meal.

www.MatchPHX.com

Worth a Fork! Not Perfect but the highest quality fresh ingredients presented in an interesting or non-traditional way…

The Forking Truth is that your experience may or may not differ and everything is subject to change.

The Forking Truth

Virtu Honest Craft is a very small restaurant located in old town Scottsdale AZ. This restaurant has won and also was nominated for many awards. The menu they serve is considered contemporary European with an Italian Slant. You will be seated on the patio unless you have specified otherwise in your reservation.

We were seated on the patio and were slightly uncomfortable in the 93 degree F heat. Our table was very wobbly but our waiter was able to fix it.

We started with cocktails that were very detailed and contained ingredients I never heard of. Very interesting cocktails that also were delicious.

Our appetizers were a Salad of beeted cheve sformato, micro greens, citrus hazelnuts and Sicilian Rope sausage with garlic potatoes, peppers, onions and charred salsa.

My salad was fine and was greens and citrus over a disk of goat cheese whipped with beets…The Salad was great but I thought it needed a crouton or a slice of bread to spread the cheese on to. My husband enjoyed the sausage.

For dinner I tried the Big Eye Tuna with Sun-chokes.

The tuna is prepared reasonably well and rest above fried sun-chokes in a very sweet sauce and it topped with some thinly sliced fried sun-chokes. The sauce was suppose to be an agro dolce sauce….(a sweet and sour sauce) but the sauce lacked sour and mostly lacked the rosemary that was in the description. (I think one stray leaf made it to the plate) To be honest the sauce  was cloyingly sweet to me ..(and I am a BIG FAN of sweets but this is too sweet)..I started to wonder if it was me……..so I asked my husband to try the sun-chokes. He tried a forkful and said he wouldn’t be able to eat them either. I should have asked the waiter to bring me a lemon to fix the sun-chokes. Oh well now I have more room for dessert!

My husband had the Lamb Shank with Melguez Borlotti Beans, Pine Nuts and Mint.

He said the Lamb was prepared well and he liked the taste of the beans.

For dessert we had the Peaches and Cream Olive Oil Cake.

It came as broken cake in a glass with syrupy peaches and loose cream. It didn’t seem the least bit sweet after the sun-chokes.

www.VirtuScottsdale.com

This dinner didn’t hit it out of the park for me. Shame because the last time was awesome….actually better than awesome…more like life changing….

Had this last time all this dishes were very complex crafted with unique ingredients and artfully composed all genius dishes. Better than awesome….life changing.

That SHOWS you that EVERYTHING is subject to change and YOUR experience may or may not differ.

The Forking Truth