Tag Archives: #food . #foodie

My Forking Thoughts on Lay’s Spanish Tomato Tango Potato Chips

I picked up this bag of Lay’s Spanish Tomato Tango Potato chips from the Asiana Market in the Deer Valley part of Phoenix. These chips are from India…..I thought they’d be from Spain since it reads Spanish on the bag. Well Spanish sounds good so lets give this bag a try.

It’s a very small bag of chips and it only weighs around 2 ounces.

Here’s the back of the bag.

Here’s the ingredients.

I’m so glad that they used edible vegetable oil instead of inedible vegetable oil. I see that some flavors are natural and other flavors are identical flavoring substances…LOL!

I open the bag and take a whiff.

Gosh these chips smell really strange…

I smell sweet. I smell fried. I slightly smell cinnamon and a lot I can’t identify….Lets spilll some out.

The chips have ridges and are covered in an orange powder.

I taste one…..

It’s very strange.

It’s sour and sweet with other flavors that are laced with clove.

The sour is very strange….It’s not a normal sour like lemon or vinegar ……it’s more like tomato sauce that isn’t made right. Like when you don’t cook tomatoes enough or when you cook them too much and they start to ferment. Then you taste sugar like they attempted to fix the tomato sauce. I also taste the black pepper…..There are other flavors but they are overpowered by the clove that is really gross here.

Lay’s Spanish Tomato Tango Potato Chips is one of my all time least favorite flavors that I have ever tried.

Your opinion may indeed differ.

The Forking Truth

Confluence Restaurant Carefree AZ – Always Worth a Fork

Confluence is a small but upscale restaurant ran by a husband and wife team in Carefree Arizona that is just north of North Scottsdale. The food that is served is high quality modern American Cuisine. The changing seasonal menu usually contains a few hot and cold appetizers, a few fresh fish options, a few meat options and a few desserts. Tasting options are also available. Currently Confluence offers lunch and dinner every day but is closed on Sundays.

Today we sat on the patio. It’s around five degrees cooler in Carefree than Phoenix. Tonight it is almost too cold to dine on the patio but with the fireplace and a heater it’s very comfortable.

Everyone else is dining inside.

We started out with thick slices of the most delicious fresh baked country bread with high quality olive oil and the very detailed white wine poached sea trout.

The flavors all go together well and the fish is prepared to perfection. The flavors dance a bit in your mouth. Sweetness from a little apricot. Pickled shallots cut the fat and sweet. Key lime poppy vinaigrette ties everything together.

For my main I went with the hamachi. The fish dishes are maybe the best fish dishes in all of metro Phoenix. All of them are expertly prepared and are surrounded by interesting and surprising flavors.

The mild white fish is meaty but very tender and melts in your mouth. It has a nicely seasoned exterior that is crisp. The magic here is the way the flavors go together. These blacked figs are really heavenly. They are seared with crispy exteriors and go insanely well with the black garlic and labne. The broccolini is the crunchy neutral player here. Enjoying this plate is like a gift. Now I know that figs, black garlic and labne is a magical combination. I can even imagine these flavors as a not too sweet dessert!

My husband went with the Iberico Puma.

Iberico pork is very special. It comes from free range pigs from southern Spain and Portugal. The pigs eat mostly acorns and their meat is very different than from regular pigs. Iberico pork looks more like beef with the red color and marbling. It’s a more juicy pork with a unique flavor enhanced from acorns. Here it was accented with sweet potato, blue corn – corn bread, green chili, pepitas, and cipolllini onion.

It would be a big mistake to skip dessert here. The desserts are usually just as spectacular as the food.

Tonight we enjoyed sake poached pear with angel cake, candied pecans and yuzu curd. This is just wickedly amazing. That yuzu curd is a bomb that goes crazy well with the soft as a feather angel cake and sake poached pears. The candied pecans add that yummy sweet nutty salty just right crunch to complete all that taste sensations.

Confluence in Carefree AZ is Always Worth a Fork!

Worth A Fork!

www.RestaurantConnfluence.com

Everything is subject to change and your experience could differ.

The Forking Truth

A Little Taste of Little Saigon Vietnamese Restaurant in Old Town Glendale AZ

Little Saigon is a small but charming Vietnamese Restaurant located in Old Town Glendale Arizona. They offer a large patio out front.

The building is lined with lots of plants and I noticed many pomegranates.

The first thing that you see when you enter is a large but clean fish tank. The last few times that I was here I got seated in the small dining room to the side. Here is another dining room were we picked up our take out.

Our timing was perfect and was ready and placed on a table the moment we walked in the door.

We started out by sharing the Bo Cuon La Nho (beef wrapped in grape leaves with vegetables, fresh herbs and rice paper.

If you never had this before then you can think of it like making a fajita but different. On the right is the rice paper. You have to soak a sheet of rice paper in warm water to make it soft. Then you add a stuffed grape leaf. Top the grape leaf roll with some rice noodles, fried shallots, peanuts, mint, cilantro, radish and roll it up like a burrito.

You’re not done yet. Your mini Vietnamese burrito gets wrapped in lettuce and then you dip it in fish sauce. Enjoy! After we finished these off I went to my main. This time I tried the Ga Xao Xa Ot (Chicken & Vegetables in lemongrass soy fish sauce)

This is not like anything I tasted before…It’s moist dark meat boneless chicken with broccoli and carrots in this sweet and funky sauce that has mild heat to it.

My husband tried the Tom Xao Thap Cam Cay (spicy shrimp stir fry with vegetables).

It looks like a nice assortment of vegetables. It has cabbage, snow peas, tomatoes and carrots. I was told that it was good but was very light with the heat.

The last time that I dined in I had the chicken and cabbage salad. It was refreshing crisp and light. It was just right on a hot Arizona day.

My husband had a pork rice plate with shrimp.

There are many more dishes that I want to try here so more are coming in the future.

That was a Little Taste of Little Saigon Restaurant in Old Town Glendale AZ.

I haven’t found a website for Little Saigon.

They are located at 7016 N 57TH Ave Glendale 85301

Call them for more information 623-939-6136

Everything is subject to change and we hope things do change for the better.

The Forking Truth

Quaker Oats says Good Bye to Aunt Jemima…..Is it Hello to Cap’n Crunch?

June 17th 2020 Quaker Oats announced that they will be changing the name Aunt Jemima and her image from their products because its origins are based on a racial stereotype.

The Aunt Jemima web site was still up June 17th 2020 and it looked like this. The home page was a picture of their products. All of them were Aunt Jemima except for one Cap’n Crunch.

Then an ad for Cap’n Crunch rolls by with promise of “Boatloads of Breakfast Fun!”

The rest of the site was still Aunt Jemima.

Quaker Oats says good bye to Aunt Jemima……….But is it hello to Cap’n Crunch?

Everything is subject to change and we hope it does for the better.

The Forking Truth