Caminero Mexican Food is a small casual Mexican Restaurant located in North Peoria Arizona (#UpperWestSideAZ). It’s a small restaurant with a very large menu located in a strip mall. They offer soft beverages, appetizers, a very long burrito menu, tacos, chile relleno, combo plates, fajitas, cube steak, steak and onion plates, salads, chimichangas, enchiladas, breakfast plates, a kid’s menu and MORE! Prices are reasonable and portions are very large.
I read in our local newspaper an article called, The Good Stuff. It was about this restaurant and the writer had very high praises about the beef fajita quesadilla she enjoyed. She said that the beef fajita meat was the gold standard for beef fajita meat. So I thought…WOW! I drive by here quite a bit so I should try it!
It’s not fancy.
You order and pay at the counter. Pick out a beverage and seat yourself. Someone runs out the food when it’s ready and that person offered us salsas. They have mild, hot and green.
beef fajita
Here’s the beef fajita. It came with choice of tortilla. I picked corn and received warmed tasty white corn tortillas. The beef is tender and developed with lots of flavor (soy sauce and seasoning salt). For me and I note that I am different….It’s too much flavor that is over-powering to me….I taste soy sauce that is very strong and I taste seasoning table salt…..this might be delicious to most people but for me it’s too much. I do think both the hot salsa and green salsas are good. I also like the guacamole. The salsas and the guacamole help to mellow the beef. I guess if you had this beef in the quesadilla with all that cheese you wouldn’t notice the soy sauce and seasoning salt as much.
My husband thinks his steak and onion plate is tastier and offers to switch plates.
It’s very similar to the beef fajita plate. It’s also made with tender beef that is developed with flavor. It’s too hard for me to taste because my taste buds are blown now and all I can taste is soy sauce and salt from the fajita beef.
In the future I do plan to return but I will try something chicken or fish next time.
That was my trip to Caminero Mexican Food in Peoria AZ.
Ocotillo is more than a fabulous restaurant that always offers ever changing seasonal menus of astonishing variety of farm to table slightly global goodness. Ocotillo is a mile square compound event center that includes a coffee lounge, a beer garden, a fire pit, a wine bar, and more in a park-like setting.
You can also dine inside in the bar area or dining room. There are also more patio areas to sit at.
inside
Ocotillo always offers a bountiful menu of great variety of around twenty different dishes for a variety of appetites and taste. Some of the dishes offered are globally inspired. Meats are smoked in-house and pastas are made in house. The sections of the menu are salads, vegetable pates, small plates (usually not so small), house made pastas, and large plates.
It happened to be restaurant week so we went with that because it was a jackpot getting three courses for $44. But all the plates we got were also offered on the restaurant menu.
Tonight my husband started with the roasted duck leg with French beans, frisee, hearts of palm, pecans, citrus, banyuls vinaigrette. (This was really great!)
I went for the dried balsamic strawberries with herbed ricotta and grilled bread. It’s big enough to share. Nice starter.
For my main I had the halibut with fiddlehead ferns, rancho gordo butter beans, green garlic, spring onions in a fino sherry sauce.
The halibut (an unforgiving fish) was seared and prepared to perfection and was delicious! The fiddlehead ferns were a really nice foodie treat! (and they are very expensive too!)
My husband went for the nettle pappardelle with lamb bolognese, Calabrian chili, olive oil, garlic crumbs, and pecorino. (He said that this was really great!)
Then we got to share TWO desserts.
strawberry shortcake
flourless chocolate cake with pistachio ice cream, caramelized white chocolate cream, and candied orange.
It was one of the best restaurant week meals ever!
Not all but a few of the previous plates we enjoyed from Ocotillo.
house smoked salmon plate
sweet potato
house made pastrami sandwich
Japanese Style fish and chips
cauliflower, kale, pesto, pine nuts, peanuts, herbs, lemon vinaigrette
Thai Style roasted chicken
pork shank
Tandoori chicken sandwich with watermelon salad
Vanilla roasted pear with goat cheese, smoked almonds, bitter chocolate and mint
I was thinking about doing a honey miso butter sauce for a vegetable…..I thought that it would work best on carrots so here it is. Serving size is always difficult to judge. I don’t know if you want a small serving or a big plate. I see this as 4 servings.
Ingredients for around 4 servings.
2 lbs. carrots – scrubbed, peel if not organic (two carrots cut in thin match sticks or shred)
2 Tablespoons canola oil
2 Tablespoons sweet butter
2 Tablespoons white miso
2 Tablespoons honey
1/3 cup roasted salted peanuts – lightly crushed
2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 teaspoon paprika
1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1 teaspoon Aleppo pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
2 Tablespoons fresh mint leaves – chopped or torn
2 Tablespoons cilantro leaves (fine stems ok) – chopped or torn
sea salt – to taste
black pepper – to taste
Directions
Set oven to 420 F.
If you have a grill pan use it or a baking sheet. Lighty oil it with a small amount of canola oil. Use the rest of the canola oil to oil the whole carrots.
In a medium mixing bowl add the carrot shreds, olive oil, paprikas, Aleppo & cayenne peppers and sea salt. Mix well. Shred this mixture on a baking sheet.
Put the whole carrots on the middle rack of your oven and the carrot shreds on a lower rack.
In around 20 minutes the shreds will be done. Mix in the peanuts to it.
It is also time to flip the whole carrots. They will need around 10 minutes more. (maybe slightly less or more depending on size)
Make the honey miso butter. Melt the butter in a small dish in the microwave or oven (since it’s on) mix in the honey and miso and it’s done. Keep to the side.
When the carrots are done salt and pepper them lightly. Spoon the honey miso butter butter over the carrots. Top the carrots with a spiced carrot peanut shreds and top the shreds with the fresh mint and cilantro.
Roasted Carrots in Honey Miso Butter with Roasted Spiced Carrot Peanut Crumbs
There is always something new, weird, different, limited, or special edition out there in the wonderful world of food. We never know WTFork we’ll come across when we shop for food. Here are a few of the things that I came across recently.
Up above are –
DIFFERENT – Ikea Festlight pickled mushroom potato chips……..Never did I come across pickled mushroom potato chips. They sure are different.
DIFFERENT – Ikea Festlight pepper and leek flavor potato chips…These ar only slightly different because we see chive and onion a lot and we also see pepper. But still I haven’t actually noticed leek before so that is just enough to be different.
LIMITED EDITION – Van Leeuwen – Wild Blueberry Shortcake….??? Might be delicious if you are in the mood for LITTLE blueberry. (Get it?…Wild blueberries are very small)
LIMITED EDITION – Van Leeuwen – Kraft Macaroni & Cheese French Ice Cream…I’m not a big fan of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese so I doubt this one will do it for me but if the little blue box does it for you then please go and indulge.
Limited EDITION – Van Leeuwan Royal Wedding Cake with Elderflower & Lemon French Ice Cream. You can get the last lick of a royal wedding with this flavor of ice cream.
I found a lot of new pancake mixes out there.
NEW – Capt’n Crunch’s artificially flavored Berrytastic pancake mix……..(ick and it’s scary looking too!)
NEW – Capt’n Crunch’s Ocean Blue Dish soap……OOPs! I mean artificially ocean blue maple syrup……….Gosh no wonder why there are so many whack jobs out there……
NEW – Pillsbury Funfetti pancake mix with candy bits. Now this one will make you poop a rainbow.
NEW – Betty Crocker – Drunk-are-yous…..I screwed up again I mean DunkAroos (whatever they are?) Rainbow pancake mix…Same as above and you can poop a rainbow two.
DIFFERENT – Cinnamon Toast Crunch Cinnadust pancake mix….Soneone was on some sort of dust to think this up.
DIFFERENT – Lucky Charms artificially flavored marshmallow pancake mix with cereal topping. Well if you don’t care what you eat there is more!
WEIRD – Mrs Butterworths Post Fruity Pebbles syrup……..It’s a Yabba Dabba OY VEY
WEIRD – Mrs Butterworth’s double chocolate pancake mix. This might come with fudge frosting and candy. Looks like a birthday cake from Walmart.
WEIRD – Mrs. Butterworth’s EPIC Post Fruity Pebbles Pancake Mix. This is not what sweet dreams are made of. Just add water and get a nightmare.
DIFFERENT – Lorissa’s Kitchen – Korean Barbecue Beef Jerky. Sounds tasty…might be good…or just jerky……but not Jamaican Jerky.
DIFFERENT (and expensive around $9.@) Jcoco Chocolate Bars in Crisp Quinoa Sesame, Black Fig Pistachio, and Boharat Spice. They are different!
DIFFERENT – Love Cocoa by James Cadbury…..Strawberry Champagne White Chocolate…..Every bar is a donation for one tree. Sounds great and buying a tree is wonderful.
DIFFERENT – Ikea Beloning milk chocolate with lingonberries…Sounds tasty to me!
DIFFEERENT – Ikea Beloning milk chocolate with wild blueberries. This one also sounds delicious to me!
NEW – Kellogg’s Corn Flakes with Cinnamon…Now that one sounds good…Corn Flakes were always boring.
NEW – Tropicana – Crunch cereal crunchy almond cereal made for O J (OJ Simson?) instead of milk…? ???????????
NEW – Hostess Boost JUMBO caffeinated donettes………in (my least favorite flavor of all time) Chocolate Mocha and Caramel Macchiato……..I don’t know??? It gets weird when they add caffeine to junk food……just saying.
Not always but there usually is some sort of new or limited edition Oreo Cookie.
LIMITED EDITION – Nabisco Firework Oreo Cookies with POPPING Candy. Maybe these Oreo cookies make you fart fireworks?
Well that was the NEW, WEIRD, DIFFERENT, limited and special edition foods out there for May 2022. Who knows WTFork I’ll come across next month.
Dining out with dogs is just a “FLUFF” story about taking my dogs out to eat. It all sort of started with my dog Louie. He was elderly and diagnosed with aggressive cancer. We were told probably three months or maybe up to six months was for what to expect for him. Louie was elderly and couldn’t do a lot but he always enjoyed eating and going out to eat so I took him out to eat as often as possible. Instead of the 3-6 month diagnoses Louie made it another seventeen months. Today I take my current dogs out to eat as often as possible.
There are some things that you need to know about dining out with dogs. One thing is that many restaurants have patios but not all patios are dog friendly. You should see a sign or license posted that they have a dog friendly patio. If you don’t see that then you should call to ask if it is ok to dine there with your furry friend. Another thing to be aware of is that it is always best to dine at off times with dogs. You need to avoid as many people and other dogs as possible. That might sound weird but many people don’t share your love for dogs. Other people might be allergic to dogs. It is best to avoid other dogs because dogs tend to bark at each other and this can be considered a disturbance and you might be asked to leave. JUST FORKING dine at off times and avoid the potential problems.
Here in Phoenix heat can be a problem and often it is to hot to dine out with dogs. Your dog is not as heat tolerant as you….They wear fur coats and can’t sweat. For the most part 90 degrees and up is too hot to dine out with dogs. It’s always better to leave them home when there is any doubt.
Did you know that much of the food and DRINK that you consume can be dangerous or even toxic to your dog? It’s always best to get a list of safe and non-safe food list from your veterinarian. Usually a lean piece of lean meat without sauce is usually a safe bet.
Maybe you are ready to dine out with dogs? Some things that you still need to know are-
Dogs are not to sit on restaurant furniture or eat off of restaurant plates. They should also be close by your side at all times.
We regularly go to Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery in North Phoenix. They don’t serve pho but specialize in serving around a dozen different banh mi baguette sandwiches. They also offer a nice variety of other Vietnamese dishes. The food is always good, and fresh, is also always a large portion and prices are very reasonable. The beef is unusually good here. To me it is so tender it reminds me of filet mignon but I know it is ribeye. I only get it a few times a year because to me the chicken is usually just as good and seems lighter.
Today I felt like the lotus root salad and the chicken pot stickers. The salad is nice, tasty, refreshing and not double sized like most of the food here. The pot stickers are just tasty.
My dogs get all the shrimp and the little ends of the potstickers. They really enjoy that. My husband got the grilled pork rice plate today.
This dog was very enthusiastic and in my face about eating Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery food.
The rice plate come with a refreshing pickled vegetable salad, a big scoop of steamed rice, a pork egg roll, and a generous portion of grilled pork. The dogs got some of that too!
We always enjoy going to Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese eatery in North Phoenix.
2340 W Bell Rd Phoenix – 602-843-3637
www.BanhMiBistroAZ.com
We did take out from a newly opened Pad Thai Cafe in North Glendale. We dined at a near by park.
Someone is sucking up to me to try some Thai Beef from my Thai Beef Salad.
Thai Beef salad
The beef is very tender and melts like butter in the mouth. There are lots of seasonings and heat that might not be so good for the dogs so I suck off everything I can before I feed it to them.
I know it sounds gross but they appreciate it!
My husband also gave them some beef from the drunken noodles.
drunken noodles with beef
He ordered it Thai Hot but it seems less hot than my hot Thai Beef salad???? It still good though….The dogs really enjoyed the tender beef today. I was going to order the chicken larb salad but I thought that would be too difficult to share with the dogs because larb is ground chicken. Anyway we all enjoyed ourselves.
Pad Thai Cafe
18425 N 51ST AVE Glendale
623-213-7297
www.PadThaAZ.com
Today we went to Squid Ink Sushi in North Peoria. I got a salmon bowl today and my husband got the wagyu cheeseburger. Both dishes were very good today. They prepared the juicy burger to medium-rare and the salmon was fresh tasting and moist.
Both dogs were very happy with these choices. They enjoyed the salmon and some of the wagyu cheeseburger.
www.SquidInkSushi.com
W. Happy Valley Parkway Peoria AZ
23-561-7747
The Temperature was still under 90 degrees so we went to Twisted Italian in North Peoria. The Patio there is always shaded during the day so It can’t get too hot.
He is squishing into my belly waiting for food.
She is waiting for food too!
Soon they bring us complimentary bread and oil with vinegar.
I give then only a few tiny bites of bread…While we wait to order.
In reasonable time I get the salmon off of the lunch menu. It’s a really good deal. It’s healthy and a large portion. I skip the pasta but my husband usually likes to eat some. It’s nice that it comes with lots of nice vegetables. Today I got zucchini, green beans, asparagus, and a piece of broccoli rabe.
I give my dogs all the zucchini and part of the salmon.
They enjoy that!
My husband got the Italian Relleno off of the all day menu.
It’s a poblano pepper stuffed with house made sausage, mozzarella and provolone cheeses, marinara, onions, bell peppers, and Italian herbs. It’s topped with tomatoes onions, basil, and tomato cream sauce. It also comes with three breaded ravioli.
The dogs get some sausage and some ravioli.
Everyone was happy with what we got at Twisted Italian.
Twisted Italian
9940 W Happy Valley Rd Peoria AZ
623-537-4000
www.EatTwisted.com
Well That was Dining Out With DOGS for May 2022. It’s getting hot in Phoenix but we will try to get out early if we can and we hope to see you next month!
The Forking TruthIn Memory of Louie 5-5-2001 – 3-3-2017
Jet’s Pizza is an American Chain of Pizza Restaurants since 1978. Jet’s Pizza is best known for its square Detroit Style Pizzas with cheesy, crispy crunchy edges. The pizzas can be customized by adding a flavor to the crust. You can also order house made ranch dressing for dipping the crust.
Jets also offers six kinds of pizza crust. They offer – deep dish, hand tossed round, thin NY style, seasoned cauliflower, and gluten free. They also offer sides of breads, wings (reg & boneless), salads, calzone boats (baked sandwiches made with pizza dough), soft beverages, and a few baked desserts.
On my visit this location of Jet’s Pizza is Take Out Only. But they are expecting a delivery of a few tables at some time.
They offer a few lunch specials.
We took out a Greek Salad and two four corner Detroit Style Pizzas.
Here’s the Greek Salad.
It looks ok but taste terrible……
My husband and I disagree on this one but we both don’t like it.
The lettuce is soggy and has a chemical taste to me………..I don’t know if I think that I am tasting sink residue from only God Knows what…or maybe they use some sort of produce soap on the lettuce?
My husband said, ” it’s just old soggy lettuce that doesn’t taste right.”
Either way it’s soggy lettuce that just doesn’t taste good……
We do need to remember that it is possible that the salads are fresh tasting sometimes and I am hitting them on a bad day…………..Old tasting soggy lettuce isn’t good for business.
Then we go to try the pizzas.
On the left is a our corner Detroit Style pizza with bold pepperoni, Italian sausage and Romano crust.
On the right is a basic four corner Detroit Style pizza with turbo crust (butter, garlic, Romano) and a butter garlic dip on the side. I try it……
I’m not sure why but this doesn’t taste good to me……….I taste powdered stuff…..It’s like the powder from badly flavored potato chips………But the pizza is crispy and crunchy as promised ….Then I try the butter garlic dip…….OMG YUK! This is stomach turning…….It doesn’t even taste like butter….It taste like MARGARINE…NOBODY wants to eat margarine………I thought I might get sick…then I feel like I need to stop eating this pizza. My stomach is a mess…
Or maybe the dough contributes to why I don’t like it?
Under the cheese the dough is all wet and gooey…..like raw and GROSS……maybe that is making me feel sick?
My husband didn’t like his pizza either. He didn’t know why….He did say that the sausage seemed flavorless and the bold pepperoni was nothing special.
This trip to Jet’s Pizza was very low calorie for us because it was so hard to eat.
But a lot of people do love Jet’s Pizza.
There are around 450 Jet’s pizza restaurants in America so that means that many people do love Jet’s Pizza.
Maybe other locations differ?
Your opinion may or may not differ.
That was my visit to Jet’s Pizza. Newly opened in Arrowhead (North Glendale AZ).
Mexcelente is a small casual family owned and ran taco and more restaurant located in North Phoenix Arizona. It’s a cute little place that looks sparkling clean. They offer tacos, burritos, nachos, bowls, quesadillas, tostadas with around nine topped or protein choices. It’s very casual here. I only noticed soft beverages.
inside
You order at the counter and get what you ordered topped with your choice of toppings and sauces. Then you pay and grab your beverage and seat yourself.
We both tried a variety of tacos. The choices of tacos that they offer are – al pastor, alambres (steak with peppers, onions, and cheese), carne asada, carnitas, cochinito pibil, grilled chicken, grilled shrimp, tinga, and nopales. You can pick corn or flour shell but the default is corn. The tacos are bigger than street tacos and are well packed.
My husband picked alambres, carnitas, carne asada, and shrimp tacos.
The tacos get topped with whatever you pick from their line of toppings and sauces.
I got grilled chicken, chicken tinga, and carne asada. I added pico, lettuce, cilantro onions, two guacamole, and one hot sauce.
Just like most places some days some meats are better than others. Today both of the chicken tacos are the best of the bunch. Both are flavorful and moist. They were overly generous with the hot sauce….I almost can’t eat the taco with the hot sauce…..It’s way too hot….borderline nuclear……The only other issue here are the single shell corn tortillas. They taste good but are very thin and fall apart while you are eating the tacos. The salsas we tried are very flavorful and good but I recommend if you want a spicy salsa to ask for it on the side.
That was my trip to Mexcelente. At this time they are newly opened.
Bourbon Pub is a global American Pub located in the San Francisco Californian Airport between gates B8-B9 in terminal one by chef Micheal Mina.
I ordered the Korean Barbecue Salmon Sandwich with salad (the other choice was fries).
Korean Barbecue Salmon Sandwich from Bourbon Pub SFO
Gosh it’s a big delicious sloppy sandwich……It’s topped with a very good deli tasting pickle. It made of cut in-house salmon (medium) that is smothered in a gochujang based sauce, and packed with kimchi and topped with mild jalapeños and ginger aioli. All that is on a nicely grilled eggy tasting fresh bun. It’s big and very sloppy. I’m a mess eating it but it is very delicious and the fish is prepared well, seems fresh and melts in my mouth. Half I ate as a sandwich and the other half I ate with a knife and fork and avoided the bun so I didn’t get overly stuffed. The salad contents….some lettuce, sweet tomatoes and onions were lightly tossed with mild vinaigrette.
My husband went for the torta camarones (minus the sour cream) with salad instead of fries.
This sandwich was made of wild gulf shrimp, guacamole, (sour cream left off at my husband’s request), pickled jalapeños, tomato, red onion, gem lettuce, and salsa verde and a long roll. He had his doubts…but in the end he said that it was a delicious sandwich that was very good. Latter he said it was the best thing he ate that day.
My husband was so thrilled with the food coming home he took out a buffalo chicken sandwich to eat for lunch on the plane ride home.
I tasted the sauce and it was delicious. My husband that this sandwich was really good.
I did ok…….I knew I couldn’t eat a big sloppy sandwich on the plane….A salad would ne better so I took out a 5-spice chicken salad from Bun Mee in terminal one that was good. It tasted like a chicken banh mi sandwich……..it was better than the mass produced take out salads that they have all over the airport….BUT I WOULD HAVE WAITED till I got to Bourbon Pub if I knew that they were offering a whole list of specials besides the menu…..Didn’t notice specials on our first visit coming in.
Bourbon Pub SFO in San Francisco Airport is – Fantabulous Airport Food
Worth a Fork!
Worth Fork!
Bourbon Pub SFO
780 S Airport BLVD San Francisco CA Terminal 1 Between Gates B8-B9
La Toque is a Michelin Star contemporary restaurant located in Napa California in the Westin Verasa Hotel. A Toque is a white chef’s hat. This restaurant has a large Toque outside waving around like a flag.
Inside is modern and classic. Diners in the main dining room can look into the kitchen with the windows in the wall.
The second dining room is decorated different and has tables set with tablecloths and heavy silverware.
It’s a high end place. They give you hot towels to clean your hands to start out with.
We ordered from the a la carte menu.
Then they started us off with this tiny amuse bouche that was so tiny but exploded with so much flavor (pistachio flavored). It was so amazing I could have eaten a bunch of them.
Next we were off with fresh baked crusty bread and butter with sea salt.
Our first appetizer is the koji cured hamachi with grapefruit leech de Tigre, serrano Chile oil, and compressed celtuce.
Compressed celtuce…….A fancy dancy celery without strings goes really well with fish and flavors that melts in your mouth….
Next they split the three cheese agnolotti with ramps, and vin jaune, and morel mushrooms.
All good here too….no complaints.
For my main I got the pan roasted Gulf Red Snapper with FENNEL MARMALADE (game changer) radishes and vermouth.
These flavors go magically well together. The fennel marmalade is amazing here…….(I’m going to steal that idea for my dishes)……..
My husband got the dry aged duck breast with fancy carrots, carrot puree, and this really amazing smoked duck fat confit potato and duck jus.
And of course we had to get one of La Torque;s amazing desserts.
This was an fantabulous chocolate hazelnut dacquoise with chocolate-amaretto ice cream.
I thought we were done and they handed each of us a little box of handmade sweets.
Gott’s Roadside is a casual restaurant. They have around seven locations around Napa California. They offer burgers, sandwiches, salads, sides, specials, and ice cream. It’s very casual, you order at the counter, pay, pick up beverages, condiments, get a pager and seat yourself inside or outside.
Today I thought the citrus and avocado salad sounded just right. It’s made up of greens, avocado, aside spiced chicken, cilantro pumpkin seed dressing, orange, tomato, black beans, pickled red onions, quinoa, pumpkin seeds and cotija cheese.
The chicken is refrigerated chilled. But it’s tasty. Better than fast food.
Today my husband got a green chile cheese burger.
Today the burger is petrified and the fries are cold. But last time at this location it was hot and delicious. We also enjoyed the food from the Gott’s that is near to the the Oakville Grocery a few years back.
Last time at this location we got a double cheeseburger, an ahi tuna burger, fried cauliflower, and fries.
That means that this location of Gott’s is just like most small chains. You can hit them on a good day or a bad day.
That was my 2022 trip to Gott’s Roadside in Napa CA
