Sfizio (svee-tsio) Modern Italian Kitchen is located in North Phoenix Arizona near the Dessert Ridge Mall. They serve Italian Style foods with flavors of South Italy. They offer small plates, three variety bruschetta plates, salads, wood fired Neapolitan Pizzas, calzones, hand crafted pastas, four entrees (pollo parmesan, eggplant tortino, pollo piccata, braised short ribs with risotto and vegetables). They also offer a kids menu, desserts, alcohol and more!

Inside they have one main dining room and a bar. They also have a patio that wraps around the restaurant.

We started out with the eggplant rollotini and the stone fired bread.

The bread is a little toasty and buttery. The eggplant is very thin with a nice texture and seems free of oil. It’s stuffed with creamy ricotta cheese and is topped with marinara, a little bit of a mozzarella type of cheese and a little fresh basil.

For dinner we tried the pollo piccata and the braised short ribs.

The pollo piccata is TWO pounded pieces of chicken breast that was prepared with white wine, lemon, and capers. It came with perfectly prepared spaghetti. For some this is a large portion and some people might get two meals out of this.

The braised short ribs are also a generous entree.

Here you get tender crisp fresh vegetables, saffron laced risotto and tender flavorful short ribs.

If you can manage to save room for dessert the cannoli are worth a try.

The shells taste house made and are less sweet and less bubbly than most. The filling is rich and creamy and is also less sweet and than most. But what is really special are the pistachios. They are so darn flavorful. They sure didn’t come from Costco. They use the very best pistachios that you can ever taste.

Sfizio Modern Italian Kitchen Phoenix AZ – Worth a Fork!

21050 N Tatum Blvd PHX AZ

480-687-8107

www.SfizioItaliano.com

Everything is subject to change.

Casa Corazon is a full service with bar Mexican Restaurant located in Phoenix Arizona. If you are a fan of shrimp then you are in luck. Casa Corazon offers a not entirely but a shrimp heavy menu. Most of the appetizers contain shrimp. Some of the appetizers are aguachile, shrimp fundido and shrimp cocktails. They offer things that you are familiar with like tacos, burritos, a salad, soups, enchiladas, and fajitas. They also offer things that are more South Mexican like chiles en nogada, cochinita pibil, and chicken mole negro. Some of the specialty dinners are the hot lava moloajete cauldron of guajillo sauce fried fish, shrimp, chicken, and asada, shrimp dinners, whole fried fish, ribeye, and a lobster quesadilla. They also offer a children’s menu and desserts.

You enter threw the kitchen and someone greats you there and walks you to a table. It looks like this place used to be a small church. There are small stained glass windows with crosses as small accents around the room, lots of exposed old bricks, old wood, and hand done fresco paintings.

Sometimes you get chips that look like this.

Sometimes you get chips that look like this with a bacon-ee bean dip.

After you decide on what you want you walk back into the kitchen to the salsa bar.

Many different salsas here of all kind of different heat levels. Today I went with pineapple, hibiscus, and morita. The pineapple is very thin but does have a pleasant pineapple taste. The hibiscus was smoky but kind of floral. The morita was a deeper smoky and pairs especially well with beef.

Last time I enjoyed three different tacos.

Earlier this year Casa Corazon participated in The Dish Fest where best dishes of the valley are featured from Phoenix Magazine.

The tacos were delicious! They were among the best dishes that I tried at The Dish Fest.

Below is an enchilada plate of chicken, cheese, and beef enchiladas in their unique RED BEET enchilada sauce.

Tonight we tried the lava molcajete – mixto.

It’s HOT and BUBBLING with red guajillo sauce (tasty and not too hot spicy), sea bass, grilled shrimp, asada sirloin, grilled chicken, rice, black beans, Mexican onions, mushrooms, squash, nopal (cactus), A Mexican yellow pepper, and tortillas.

We like everything but the steak, chicken, and shrimp because they were all over cooked and dry. My husband lied and told the server everything was fine because he was mad that she forgot to order the taco that he wanted to try.

This is The FORKING Truth….so I have to say….

A lot of salsas……..

A shrimp heavy menu………

Sometimes very good….

Sometimes things go the other way like at most restaurants

Casa Corazon

2637 N 16TH St PHX AZ

602-334-1917

www.CasaCorazonRestaurant.com

Everything is subject to change.

Dosa Place is located in North Phoenix on West Bell Road in an older strip mall in the spot where at least three previous Indian Restaurants once where (Pastries and Chaat, Dosa Grill, Just Biryani). This restaurant specializes in serving dosas. Not entirely but the majority of the menu are dosas. They offer around THIRTYFIVE savory or sweet dosas. Incase you don’t know the dosa is a South Indian Crepe made from a batter of fermented rice and lentils. Dosas are served with chutney and sambar (a vegetable soup laced with curry and a little heat). Besides dosas Dosa Place also offers vegetarian and non-vegetarian appetizers, vegetarian and non-vegetarian entrees, biryanis, fried rice dishes, noodle dishes, naan pizzas, and of course DOSAS and more! At the time of my visit Dosa Place is without a sign.

It looks exactly the same inside as it did as the last two restaurants.

We ordered up a storm and tried a variety of dishes.

We started with the chicken 65 appetizer.

The chicken is tender and is coated with some spices and a little heat……..It taste like an Americanized version of this dish.. Not too spicy and not the most complex but better than from some places.

Then everything else comes out.

Lets start with the dosa masala.

I ordered the beetroot dosa masala but they were out of beets today so I got the regular masala dosa. It’s a large paper thin crepe stuffed with a small amount of seasoned potato in the center. The sambar a tomato-lentil vegetable soup laced with curry and a little heat was very good that was on the side. It also came with tomato chutney and a green chutney.

We also tried tomato-onion uthappam.

This is also a dosa. It’s a light rice and lentil sort of batter embedded with vegetables and a few herbs and is very tasty. It has a unique light texture and almost seems like it might have been steamed.

For our main we shared the chicken chettinadu.

It’s wildly fragrant with a little heat and very tender moist chicken. It might contain coriander, cardamon, chili, cloves, cinnamon, garlic, tomato, turmeric, ginger, onion and more.

Dosa Place – Newly Opened – Lots of dosas – Give them a try!

Dosa Place 3539 W Bell Road Phoenix AZ

602-612-2383

www.DosaPlacePhoenix.com

Everything is subject to change.

Seydi’s Pupuseria and Grill is a little casual Salvadorian restaurant located in North Phoenix Arizona. They specialize in serving these crazy delicious Salvadorian stuffed flatbreads called pupusas. Prices are low! Portions are large! Pupusas are crazy delicious!

All the pupusas are stuffed with cheese and some contain a vegetable, wild flower, or meat. They offer TWELVE different kinds so there is something for everyone. (plain cheese, bean, wildflower, jalapeño, zucchini, spinach, green pepper, pork, chicken, steak, shrimp)

They are really cheesy inside. You really are suppose to eat them with your hands. But if you use a knife and fork it’s up to you.

You eat the pupusas with Salvadoran slaw and rojo sauce. The slaw is very unique. It’s fermented but isn’t sour like sauerkraut. It’s also not strong tasting like kimchi. It’s just really good and cuts the fat to make it pop. The red sauce is thin but it has a sort of salsa taste. It’s all very delicious on the pupusa.

Besides pupusas…..They also offer breakfast like fried plantains with rice and beans, an egg and sausage burrito with rice, beans, and jalapeños. Or maybe you are a little hungrier and want a ten ounce New York Steak with eggs home fries and toast.

They offer appetizers like yucca fries with pork, Salvadorian Cole slaw, and tomato sauce, Salvadoran chicken sandwich (yes on the appetizer menu), This one other appetizer can feed a family…..It’s a chicken tamal, yucca fries and pork, Salvadorian pie, one papusa, Salvadoran slaw, and tomato sauce.

They offer combination plates that include two tortillas. A few of them are-…………grilled steak with two pupusas,

stewed beef with rice and salad, fried tilapia with rice, beans, salad, jalapeños (pictured below),

twelve grilled shrimp with rice, beans, salad, breaded chicken with rice, beans, salad, jalapeños.

They offer two soups. One is farm hen vegetable and the other is beef stew with rice. Both come with tortillas.

The farm hen vegetable soup contains maybe half a small bone-in skin-on chicken with all kinds of vegetables (zucchini, potato, carrot, maybe cassava?, cabbage, and peas). It also comes with hand made tortillas, vegetable studded white rice, lime, and a small condiment of chopped onions, cilantro with jalapeños to give the soup some punch. It’s also a very large portion.

Or you can just order pupusas…..and if you can fit it in they also offer two desserts. One is plantain empanadas and the other is cassava and honey.

It’s not a fancy place but it seems clean.

You order and pay at the counter and then you seat yourself.

And you would be nuts (unless you are lactose intolerant) to drive here and not enjoy a crazy great pupusa.

Worth a Fork!

Seydi’s Pupuseria and Grill

2625 E Greenway PKWY Phoenix AZ

602-404-7634

www.Seydis-Pupuseria-Grill.business.site

Everything is subject to change.

Clean Eatz is a casual chain of restaurants that offer healthy….meal plans,,,,,,,,,,

grab and goes, an eat-in cafe, and more. I went to the location in Glendale Arizona. This is a fast growing chain of restaurants with around 80 locations. Two new ones are coming to Arizona in Phoenix and Surprise.

The cafe offers a menu of “Good for you snacks,” Build a bowls, build a salads, build a burgers, wraps, flat breads, a kid’s menu, smoothies, and more. Prices are very low so I wasn’t expecting the best quality.

You order and pay at the counter. They don’t sell many beverages that most places sell. Only what is considered health conscious. They don’t even sell plain bottled water. We went with the complimentary orange-mint infused water.

We sat ourselves and in reasonable time someone runs out our bowls to us.

The bowls are small, medium, or large protein I went with medium. My base was sweet potatoes, my three vegetables were carrots, asparagus, banana peppers, protein was salmon, sauce was sweet potato chipotle, and heat level was swole N spicy.

I received much more salmon than I expected but it’s not the best. It’s over cooked, fishy tasting (NOT SPOILED but fishy like frozen fish from Safeway) and is topped with powdery stuff that is weird. I am undecided if I can even eat it. My husband generously offers to leave and go someplace else. I decide that I can eat it but it’s not good. The sweet potatoes are really weird and sponge-ee. I have no idea on how sweet potatoes can be made that way. The carrots are between raw and cooked and the asparagus are mostly overcooked and squishy. I picked the sweet potato chipotle sauce…..It’s just weird tasting……It doesn’t taste like real food……. I can see how you can lose weight eating here.

My husband went with the large portion bowl. He picked rice noodles, corn & beans, asparagus, banana peppers, shrimp, salsa, and smokin chipotle.

His bowl turned out a little better than mine.

He could tell that the shrimp are from frozen but were ok. The worst part of his bowl were that the noodles all stuck together. He said that his wasn’t really bad. Not great either……but not bad.

You can lose weight eating at Clean Eatz.

5870 W Thunderbird RD Glendale AZ

602-374-3806

www.cleaneatz.com

Everything is subject to change.

African Kitchen is located in Phoenix Arizona not too far from the Metro Center Area. They offer mostly Liberian and other African Cuisine like Nigerian and Ghanaian. It’s a casual small restaurant. I noticed many people with a similar accents to the man serving us doing take out and dining here. Soft beverages and some unique soft beverages like ginger juice are offered. The atmosphere is loud. They have a TV on with a soccer game playing. The people dining here are into loud conversation while dining.

The menu is on the green board at the rear of the restaurant. They also have printed menus. There are many foods that are seldom found at any restaurants that I know of. They offer foods such as ahieke (a fermented kind of couscous), potato greens, torborgee soup (a spicy bitter Liberian stew of beans, palm oil, dried meat), chuck rice (Liberian green rice), egusi soup (Usually Nigerian or Ghanaian melon seed, bitter leaf, and meat soup).

Ingredients are listed on the wall with the menu.

My husband was going to order the torborgee soup but was warned if you aren’t used to the ingredients in that soup it has very unpleasant effects on you that aren’t good to talk about while you are reading about food……….So he got the palaver sauce soup that comes with rice.

It’s a popular West African stew of beef, turkey, skin-on chicken ….It seems like it was prepared well but is very different from American Food or any food that I have tried before…..Besides the unfamiliar flavors and funk (maybe bitter leaf, palm oil, smoked dried fish, melon seeds)…..The amount of rice is enormous. The protein amounts really are very small in the two dishes that we tried. Maybe two – three ounces at the most.

I planed to order the chuck rice (green rice) with fish gravy but was told that they weren’t serving that today and made a quick switch……

I had the tilapia with dry rice and plantains. Again an enormous amount of rice. The rice fills the whole plate and is higher than it looks.

The fish is prepared reasonably well. The plantains are nicely fried. The rice is very unusual to me. It’s not dry like the name implies. It’s actually kind of slime-ee in an okra kind of way. It probably contains okra and little bits of fish and cubes of beef that are similar to lunch meat or hot dogs. This rice might be delicious for an acquired taste.

I did notice that everyone dining there had enormous plates of rice that they actually were finishing. It looks like that is how African people eat.

African Kitchen in Phoenix AZ sure seems like the real deal.

Try it for a taste of Africa.

African Kitchen Phoenix AZ

3543 W Dunlap Ave Phoenix AZ

480-532-5512

Everything is subject to change.