Last week was brutal. My local Safeway super market was only filled with 20%-30% groceries. There was very little that could be purchased.
This week I went to Walmart Grocery.
I almost cried when I saw all the produce. It’s so much closer to normal.
They were also out of a lot of things like onions, potatoes, hot dogs, eggs, all paper products. A lot of things were very low or missing but at least they had fresh looking chicken so I was happy.
packaged cheeses
No eggs today.
Since I’m down to my last paper towel I stopped at CVS. They had a few paper towels left with a sign that says limit one. I grabbed a two pack of bounty paper towels. I don’t know if they priced gouged me because with tax the two rolls cost over TEN DOLlARS…dang I normally pay a little over a dollar a roll in a big multi roll pack from Costco….
A few days latter I went back to Walmart Grocery. I also had trouble buying my dog’s Blue Buffalo Food. The Dog Food Stores were out of the big bags and I was almost out but got lucky and found a couple small bags at Walmart. They still lacked paper products but there was maybe a half dozen containers of eggs with a limit of one per customer. I was lucky to get eggs this time. They only had 6 cartons and one was an extra large box of eggs so I snagged it up.
I also went to Costco. They now make you wait in a line and so many people are allowed in at a time. Many were waring masks. I’m not a fan of Costco raw chicken since they switched to Foster Farms Brand but they were still out of raw chicken and most paper products. I did notice that the empty shelves from last week now are filled with water bottles. They also had eggs this week. Now they block off the aisles and funnel you to one area with six foot spaces to check out. All cart contents stay in the cart and sneeze guards have been installed by the cashiers.
That’s how things were this week.
The CoronaVirus Apocalypse in Metro Phoenix Week Two – Annoying but no Famine this week.
Everything is subject to change and I hope it does for the better.
I didn’t noticed much of a change shopping for food until this past weekend. I was at Costco a warehouse shopping type of store. I didn’t really need too many things so I didn’t look for too many things either. It seemed like they offered most of the foods they normally offer but they were out of paper products, eggs and bread. It’s possible that they were out of more things but I didn’t notice. To me it didn’t seem like a crisis but it sure did seem annoying.
First time I’ve seen empty shelve at CostcoLots of empty shelving at Costco
Latter in the week I thought I’d go to Safeway for chicken because Costco sells a brand of chicken that I don’t like. I had no idea that Safeway’s shelves would be like this.
Not much here.
Tomatoes are usually here.
They have a few things. They have Japanese eggplants and it looks like yellow beans and green beans. On the other side is Savoy cabbage.
Here’s most of the rest of the produce.
No potatoes or onions.
The meat counter is out of meat. It’s not like I came in at an off time. I came Tuesday just after lunch.
They are out of all raw chicken and raw turkey today.
They have some meat but it’s vegetarian, some beef and some pork.
Not much here.
Not much here.
Not much here.
Not much here either.
This is a crisis. Nobody can live forever like this.
This is the FORKING CoronaVirus Apocalypses and this is what it’s Forking Like To Buy Food. It seems like Famine in Phoenix Week One. I can only hope that next week is better.
Everything is subject to change and I FORKING HOPE THAT IT DOES!
Here is a collection of the most frightful and horrific foods served to me in Metro Phoenix Arizona. Some but NOT ALL of these restaurants are normally good but things do happen …..and many will have a bad day…..It is very unfortunate for me because I won’t go back when I have a poor experience somewhere. It’s not my intention to damage a restaurants’ reputation. I will mention the name of the restaurant if they are no longer in business. After all I already mentioned who they were at the time I dined there. And That’s The Forking Truth!
The worst taco in the whole world came from Taco Haus in Scottsdale. Dry flavorless chicken in a tortilla that decomposed on the way to the table. Rest in peace Taco Haus.
The 2nd worst taco in the whole world was served to me at the 2019 AZ Taco Festival. This one wasn’t just salty or over salted. It FORKING taste like it was HALF SALT. Some poor boob at the festival must have accidentally dropped a whole container of salt into the taco. mix and just mixed it in not giving a dam. Shame.
Fondant from Indi Fusion
Once upon a time there was a restaurant called Indi Fusion. It was an Indian Fusion restaurant. They sure did make some tasty food and they had so much potential. But dessert was another story there. I ordered a fondant ( basically a French lava cake) instead of a fondant I received a Fon-DON’T…….I recieved not a molten cake….not even a cake…but a disk of frosting. I have to say that the chef had some confusion issues.
Soggy falling apart dumplings from a particular Asian Restaurant in Phoenix.
Bad food usually does come from chains…….
I’ve never been to a Long John Silvers before and never will go again. I enjoy fish and many decades back Arthur Treachers used to serve really delicious quality Icelandic Cod. Incase you don’t know the chain has been sold a long time back and lowered the quality of the food so it might suck now. . Anyways I was hoping that Long John Silver would serve something similar to what Arthur Treachers used to serve. WOW was this sickly BAD!!!!!! It was so greasy and muddy tasting with that OLD USED OIL TASTE. I couldn’t eat it….Now I feel bad because I offered this fish to my dear departed dog Louie and Louie took it and he FORKING SPIT IT OUT! It was so bad LOUIE SPIT IT OUT! But then my younger dog gobbled up what poor old Louie spit out.
Now I really feel bad for these people that opened a meatball theme restaurant called Meatballz in Scottsdale. They didn’t have basic cooking skills to prepare meatballs or a basic tomato sauce. I have no idea on why they went into this business. I highly doubt that anyone ever said to them your food is so good that you should open a restaurant.
Crunchy Carrots in Vegan Balls and Sauces
Mushy vegan meatballs with crunchy carrots in a raw acidic slightly bitter sauce sandwich. The sauce was so bitter and also had crunchy uncooked carrots in it. My husband tried a meat meatball and it was also awful.
This one was from a restaurant in Phoenix.
Dinner that looks like it threw up on it’s self ……….from a well known restaurant on Camelback Road.
All the food was really bad from this Mediterranean restaurant in Glendale but most things photographed well.
The pickled they gave me could own a senior citizens card……before it passed away. Their falafels were served with hard uncooked chick peas that was hard like rocks and could break teeth……The gyro was like fried baloney….but the rice, onion and tomato was good.
I went to what one of the “official” top ten Italian Restaurants of Metro Phoenix. The Forking Truth is that I did enjoy a few lunches there but then went back for dinner.
For $34.00 I got over cooked Bronzino and vegetables that appear to be reheated too many times and maybe were a couple of weeks old. They don’t don’t check on you here…this might be why.
Now Little Cleo’s in Phoenix was a good seafood restaurant……But
I was horrified at this tiny dinner plate……Don’t you think it was tiny too? I guess I accidentally ordered “the I already ate plate.”
Here’s another “I already ate plate.”
This one was also from a very nice restaurant that had an ultra talented chef…..but.
Seared Tuna Nicoise ($16.) from The Local, PHX AZ
Wouldn’t you be horrified if you received this tiny lunch for $16.00? This isn’t even enough for a midget on weight watchers….and WTFork did they do with that other half of egg anyway?
……Is my dinner excited to see me?…….Or is the chef just pissed off?
I got this polenta tower from a well known restaurant in Phoenix. I do note the chef has changed at least twice at this restaurant since I had this dinner. You won’t get this anymore there……(but he may be working someplace else now?)
We ate a nice meal at a Filipino restaurant. The FOOD really was good there but the desserts were hard like rocks. I couldn’t break them open but my husband used all his might and busted them open.
We did confront the owner and he said that nothing was wrong with the desserts and they just needed to be heated up. (excuse me…….. I didn’t know that I was suppose to bring my own Forking heat source with me to try these desserts) Well The Forking Truth is that these desserts were served to us HARD AS ROCKS….(he also said he’d take them off the bill…..but nobody took them off the bill..we just paid and left)
Some people don’t enjoy dessert….Now I know why.
I was served this dessert somewhere WAY out in the far west valley. the dessert wasn’t so good……in taste and in texture. When I pulled this thing out of my mouth from the dessert I thought it was a piece of silicone glue.
But the waiter here told me it just was a piece of the dessert…???????? I thought it was GLUE…The waiter said it was part of the dessert!
This is my finished plate of food from a certain Mediterranean Restaurant somewhere in Phoenix. This restaurant at the time had a FIVE STAR Average on a certain review site so I thought the food would be good. The food might look good but my chicken was so dry and hard that it was impossible to remove it from the wooden sticks. That little bite on the one piece of chicken was all I could break off. The pitas were also hard and seemed like processed food. Even the rice was horrible and was some kind of pre-cooked rice.
Nobody enjoys a falafel that lacks herbs and is crumbly dry.
I have read many reviews that this small Mediterranean Restaurant serves the best falafels in the valley……I don’t know what they had but these falafels I tried sucked. They are dry as the Sahara Desert and lacked fresh herbs. This is not a good falafel.
Even nice resorts serve mediocre food.
This salmon salad was from a fine resort in Scottsdale. This salad made me very unhappy. The salmon seemed like it was salvaged from a buffet past. It was pre-made, almost cold and also over cooked. There was albumin formation on the fish…it’s like egg whites being cooked out of the flesh.
The salad was also missing some ingredients that I was looking forward to enjoying like fiddlehead ferns, sunflower seeds and flavor.
The Forking Truth is that once in a while the finest restaurants might screw up.
Over Cooked and Over Salted Phoenix AZ
This fish tells a different tail. Over cooked and over salted fish from one of the finest restaurants in Phoenix………All the other plates here were excellent…..They just screwed up on the fish. I told the waiter and he claimed he’d tell the chef………….who knows?
Here is a sad fish story of a small business located in Glendale. I think what happened here was a combination of poor cooking skills and restaurant equipment failing.
My fish was crispy in a weird way. I never was served freezer burnt fish before…..The sweet potatoes seemed to have been aged and the Mac’n’ Cheese was mushy watered down velvetta sort of concoction. The tarter sauce wasn’t even edible here and had the consistency of creamer. My husband’s plate was even worst. His fish was even more freezer burnt and he warned me not to even think about trying his sides….Red/beans and rice were spoiled and he couldn’t describe what was wrong with the hushpuppies…..after a brief tasting we tossed out all the food and ate someplace else.
I waited 45 minutes for this.
Tried a deep dish pizza in Peoria. The crust was very hard and tasted burnt and all this cheese made me feel sick. Crust is mostly black.
Bad food can come from a food truck.
Close up of Corned Beef Wild Buckeye Roll
This was from a food truck. It was a greasy mess and tasted like the grease it was fried with decomposing possums, dead donkeys and other critters or whatever.
This next one might not be the restaurants fault?………….you can purchase unusually super tough chicken. (it’s usually that ultra cheap chicken)
The slaw was really good. The fresh made bread was tasty but the chicken was inedible. It was like it was full of steal belted silver skin…….You couldn’t eat it. This was from a Bosnian Restaurant somewhere in Phoenix.
“READY OR NOT HERE IT COMES! …………. sucker”
Some restaurants put out food ready or not!
Raw grits from a bbq restaurant in Phoenix. Here we brought this to someones attention and instead of saying I’ll take that off your bill or I’ll get you a new one she just walked away. Also from the same BBQ……
For what it’s worth….The brisket might have been outstanding if it was cooked several hours more but they served it before it’s time with hard fat and tough beef. We had other problems but these were the major issues.
This restaurant thinks that the customer will eat anything.
$13.99 Salad from a Mexican Restaurant in Phoenix AZ
The most uninspired salad in metro Phoenix……with horrible salsa too!
Sometimes there is a reason why some restaurants go out of business.
Sonata’s Restaurant used to be located in Scottsdale. My first few visits were so delicious….I was flabbergasted at what they served me on my last visit not so long before they closed. Old fishy tasting salmon that was topped with sour uncooked tomato paste surrounded by horrid splats of floury corn two horrible ways. Down before are gooey gross pierogis. I latter heard that they were between chefs.
Sometimes restaurants don’t hire qualified help and then they go down the tubes. I did tell them how it was when I dined there and the waiter said he’d tell the management. They did nothing. I also wrote about my experience here and on a review site. The management told me that my first two experiences were great so I should just be happy with that.
Tough steak with a side of pond slime for some place in Carefree. (this really grossed me out…I couldn’t even bring the meat home for my dogs…and couldn’t eat beef again for a few months)
I went to this particular restaurant in Peoria and a while back it was OK….I heard that the ownership changed and I was hoped that it got better……sadly it got worst. This food was far worst that what you’d get from the lowest end fast food place! It was like MICROWAVED BY A MORON!
This is my salad. It was made with what tasted like pre-made frozen chicken fingers that had the strangest texture. They were hard, hollow and cold. It seemed like they blew them up in a microwave oven and then chilled them.
My husband also had an awful sandwich here.
His sandwich was made with similar chicken fingers that were covered in cheese that was hard but also melted at the same time.
This one isn’t the worst and almost didn’t make this list….but it isn’t great either.
There is this sandwich shop in Glendale and the fillings for their sandwiches aren’t bad but they use the FORKING WORST ROLLS IN THE WHOLE WORLD. I have no idea why someone would open a sandwich shop and use the lousiest bread they could buy.
Sometimes some restaurants serve you half good and half bad food.
I went to an Asian Chicken restaurant in Mesa. The chicken on the left side of the plate was moist and edible. The chicken on the right side was similar to jerky but very dry and stringy.
I had delicious fish at this restaurant in Glendale before so I thought I would get delicious fish again….I was wrong.
I have no idea what went wrong here…..The fish came out like it was made of rubber. You couldn’t eat it. We didn’t complain because we were just so upset that we just wanted to leave. Then they charged me $89.10 for this fish. This has to be one of the worst experiences I ever had anywhere.
Disappointing food can come from a pizza shop.
Who wants a pizza without toppings? I got an individual pizza from a certain place in Peoria. They were very scant with the toppings and one slice was pretty much topping free.
Some people are not fit to be in the restaurant business.
It’s impossible to forget this plate I got somewhere in Sun City. (notice the funeral service card by the lower right side of the plate….strategically placed……) It’s made of boiled frozen vegetables, old green potatoes and old trout. here’s a closer look at the vegetables.
Sun City AZ
and the potatoes. Try some…I dare you!
Sun City AZ
Honest to GOD I asked why the potatoes were green….The waitress said I have to ask the chef……The answer I got was that black pepper always makes potatoes turn green. I was so offended by what I served I seriously thought about calling the police because I thought this was a crime.
Well that was the Halloween Special Edition – A Collection of the most Frightful Horrific Foods served to me in Metro Phoenix AZ.
Sometimes when you travel you find yourself eating airport food. I heard about many local Metro Phoenix restaurants opening branches of their restaurants in Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport. I had to leave extra early for a flight and decided to give one restaurant a try. In general I’m not a big of breakfast foods so I was pretty thrilled to find Los Taquitos offering their full menu as the other two restaurants (Humble Pie and Nocawich) were I was were only offering breakfast.
I thought oh cool I’ll try a chicken torta…….I haven’t had a chicken torta since my last trip to Mexico. A torta is basically a sandwich on a French inspired Mexican roll.
They have a good amount of variety seating here.
They have a long table with traditional seats, a few tables with stools and a high top seating with outlets for computer use.
It’s walk up to the counter and ordering goes sort of Chipotle Style……(they ask you what you want as you walk down the line). My husband orders the food as I grab a table and guard the suitcases. He tries to order me a chicken torta. He tells the girl behind the counter that he wants to order a chicken torta. She says what do you want on the chicken torta? He says whatever a chicken torta comes with. ***********She says I don’t know what goes on a chicken torta.*********WOWEE who knew that whoever works behind the counter doesn’t know what goes on a chicken torta?
I wind up with this.
I guess it doesn’t look bad but the bread is very heavy and thick. The chicken is a generous amount of very dry flavorless chicken breast with some amounts of inedible grizzle. I also received wilted lettuce, unripe tomato slices and a smear of liquid avocado. On the side was dry seasoned rice and plain black beans.
My husband received.
Carnitas Torta with the same rice and drippy refried beans.
www.LTGrill.com
Coming back to the airport we were brave and decided to try airport food again because we were really hungry, short on time and had to be somewhere. We landed at terminal 4 this time and were walking by Zinc Brasserie.
We’ve enjoyed many dinners from the Zinc Bistro Location in Scottsdale and have enjoyed the take out at the Le Petit Zinc window here before. We waited a little while to get seated but once we were our order was taken quickly.
I got the grilled chicken salad.
It’s basically a Caesar salad. It’s a lot of romaine leaves, thinly sliced (what taste like marinated) moist chicken breast with black pepper, shaved toasted bread and shaved parmesan dressed with an emulsified slightly creamy dressing. It’s not the most exciting salad in the world but everything is fresh and good. It seems healthy and is satisfying.
My husband got the Short Rib Banquette.
Wow look how big and nice this is! This sandwich is actually bigger, better and more detailed than the last sandwich my husband got from Zinc Bistro in Scottsdale. The sandwich was delicious. The Zinc Ketchup was nicely spiced. The fries were fresh and hot and lightly dusted with smoked paprika.
Zinc Bistro Pastrami Brisket Sandwich Platter from Scottsdale
www.ZincBistroAZ.com
Airport food is rated at 1/2 a Fork because it could go either way.
1/2 a Fork…Could be good! Also could suck.
Everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.
