2nd Taste at Restaurant Confluence in Carefree AZ – Worth a Fork!

Confluence is an upscale casual restaurant in Carefree Arizona. They serve unique detailed elevated Modern Cuisine and quality big pour wines in a casual cozy environment. They offer comfortable indoor seating and outdoor seating with mountain views.

I enjoyed an amazing dinner here last month and thought I had to run out and have lunch there since I read on Facebook that they had fresh snapper just flown in and made into a lunch special.

We stated out by sharing one of the vegetable plates called Cucumber.

Here’s an up close look.

There are four unusual kinds of cucumber in here. One might have been lemon cucumber and another was super unusual and very much like an actual finger lime….. there also was radish, shiso (possibly micro shiso), miso, finger lime and sesame seeds, cashew and maybe a few other things as I thought I tasted lemon grass and serrano peppers too. This was very unusual, complex and most of all thrilling in the mouth with so many delicious harmonizing flavors going on in it ….As much as I really loved this dish ……….and I really did I just wish I got a little more finger lime in the parts I tasted…….because finger lime is so special. But don’t get me wrong this was a fabulous dish.

I know most people are not familiar with finger limes that are sometimes referred to as fruit caviar because they burst in your mouth similar to caviar. They are tiny citrus fruits of different colors and most from America look like the picture below. (Finger Limes are also grown in Australia and come many beautiful bright colors.) You squeeze the fruit caviar out to use them. I used to find them at a few AJ’s Fine Food Stores around Halloween time but usually you have to special order this fruit from California if you want them. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE them and had to order this salad when I read finger limes were in the Cucumber Dish.

I read on Confluence Facebook Page today that fresh flown in snapper was going to be a lunch special. I asked about it and I was told they didn’t have it today. Latter the owner comes to our table, apologized to me and said, due to bad weather it wasn’t available. They took the snapper off the Facebook Page and I went with something else. For my meal I tried the Halibut Tacos. I had my choice of side salad, house made chips or a $2.00 up-charge for their amazing fries…….(the fries are famous here and are really great!)………. but I thought they’d be too heavy with what I was having so I went with salad.)

I started with the salad. It had a few types of arugula and other greens. What stood out about the salad was the texture of the greens. They had a crispness about them that was super fresh and different…really super crisp. It really was the simplest of salad but was prepared in a masterful way. The Halibut Tacos are packed with crisp cabbage, grassy cilantro, really tasty lime pickled onions, piccolo de gallo, cream fraiche on flour tortillas with lime wedges. What’s best about this dish is how well the halibut was prepared. Halibut is an unforgiving fish that was prepared moist and perfect. It can be difficult to prepare a small piece of halibut to perfection. You all know me….I have to tell The Forking Truth (that’s my thing incase you are unfamiliar with my blog). The Tacos were GOOD but these were explosively drippy tacos.

My husband had the Prime Rib Sandwich.

The Prime Rib Sandwich was served on crusty baguette and was packed with a mix of rare and medium thinly sliced tender Prime Rib. A creamy ultra flavorful Horseradish-Tallegio sauce embellished the juicy meat. Pickled red onions cut threw all the richness and peppery arugula was the finishing touch to the sandwich. This sandwich is very well made and also well thought out with a lot going on. The sandwich also came with a crisp house made pickle and what seemed like oil free seasoned thin crisp potato chips.

We are full and I wasn’t planning on dessert but they felt bad for me reading about the snapper that wasn’t available so they surprised us with a Vanilla Creme Brûlée. They sure didn’t have to do that…….but it was mighty nice of them.

As you can clearly see that this is a very detailed Cream Brûlée. It had a nice hard sugar crust that’s embellished with carefully carved marinated fruit and also adorned with tender shortbread cookies. It was a nice sweet ending to an incredible lunch!

Last visit was an incredible dinner…..among the best I had this year.