The FANTABULOUS Dish means – Top of the line, marvelously good, peachy keen and dynamite.
The FORKING Amazing FnB Restaurant is located in the arts district by Old Town Scottsdale Arizona. The restaurant is co-owned by James Beard Award Wining chef Charleen Badman. She serves an ever changing menu of global farm focused contemporary sharing plates that often feature local vegetables. The menu is vegetable heavy but also features enough meat to please meat eaters. Arizona wines are always featured on the menu.
We enjoyed an amazing meal like we always do at FnB but one dish really stood out. So much so that I actually dreamed about it that night. The flash fried eggplant with fresh dill, pickled shallots, garlic, pistachios, and honey…….
You can’t make this dish at home because you’d never be able to purchase the speciality farm fresh eggplant that this dish was made with………..and even if you could find such an eggplant who on earth can give you a big slab of eggplant that is very hard to describer but is firm…that you could cut like a potato, but also sort of custardy. This eggplant was extra special….like an eggplant just grown for the GODS……..The flavors were so different and so delicious and unlike anything imaginable with eggplant. They were a genius embellishment. But what was phenomenal was the texture and taste of the eggplant. This eggplant was sweet like white eggplant and seemed seedless. This was really FANTABULOUS eggplant with fresh dill, pickled shallots and pickled garlic. (I think I dreamed fennel was also in it….not sure if that was real or just added on in my dream ?) All that countered with the pistachios and just the right amount of honey was darn yummy. This eggplant was firm almost like a custardy potato with the skin falling off like the way fish skin can fall off. The eggplant was cooked but wasn’t oily…..It was a magical kind of firm texture but almost custardy texture unlike any eggplant that I have ever had anywhere. It was so light and so delicious and was so easy to whoof down.
The Flash Fried Eggplant from FnB Restaurant in Scottsdale AZ is an official FANTABULOUS Dish.
It’s only a little over a ninety minute ride for us to hop in the car and visit the beautiful red rocks of Sedona Arizona. There are the usual tourist shops to visit, some antique shops, jeep tours, some Arizonian wine tasting rooms to do too and more!
Our first stop was Clarksdale.
Our first stop was Violette’s Bakery. They offer some all day breakfast items, a few all day lunch sandwiches, and fine French Style pastries. I saw this place on a local TV show and they said this is a MUST destination if you are in the area. The bakery is a small postage stamp sized place that is actually a small caboose without indoor seating. You sit around the train car or inside this added on edition.
You wait in line at the train with a tiny bakery inside.
It looks like this when you get to the window.
On the day I went they had one person that cooks and one person to take orders and this one person also serves the tables.
Today it was hot…like 100 degrees F….The wait to the window is painfully slow even if you aren’t too far in line. We were around 6th in line and we waited a good twenty minutes to get to the window.
We ordered a bananas foster crepe to share. We paid, tipped and sat ourselves. We were told that it would be around ten minutes.
We waited thirty minutes and never got our crepe. (bahhhh!) My husband tried to find out what happened but couldn’t push threw the tight packed tiny line of people so we just left. (*******As a slight update I’ve just been contacted by someone from the bakery and she wants to make things right).
Then we drove to Cottonwood.
First stop was Merkin Tasting room and Osteria.
Merkin offers plenty of tasting and eating options. They also make fresh pastas here and various lasagna cupcakes.
We did the red wine tasting.
It was a nice start. They all seemed like lighter red wines…Nice to start out like that.
Next we did lunch at the Tavern Grille across the street.
It was packed already. We were lucky to get a seat.
I got an ahi tuna salad.
My husband got the stuffed meatloaf (ham & cheese) and it came with a bowl of hardy chili. All was ok.
Next was Arizona Stronghold for wine tasting.
We shared red flight A.
I thought these wine had quality and character to them. I thought they all were good but some did have more bells and whistles than others.
We also stopped at Pillsbury Tasting room.
Pillsbury makes good wines…a few of the red wines were as rich as some California wines.
Then we had dinner at The Hudson in Sedona.
I made my reservation more than a month in advance and all the patio tables were already booked so I could only get a table inside.
Beautiful mountain views here.
We shared a HOUSE SMOKED salmon bruschetta with pesto cream cheese…(This was really good!)
My husband had a mushroom (ground in house) burger. (it was a little dry).
I had a south west salmon Caesar salad.
The tortilla strips made it southwest. It was thoughtful to put cheese cloth on the lemon to prevent seeds from squirting out. I thought that was a nice touch. I’m not sure why my southwest salad had a lavosh cracker but it was tasty…….I didn’t expect this since the appetizer was so good but……My salmon tasted fishy so they took it off our bill.
The next day we spent some time downtown at various places.
Lunch was at a place located by a small airport called Mesa Grille that is actually built on a mountain masa…(not from Bobby Flay).
You have to go up a steep mountain for a short distance to get there.
You have great views here and you might see a small plane or two take off.
The food at Mesa Grille is NOT TYPICAL airport food. What we tried was surprisingly detailed, interesting and delicious.
We tried the crispy skin cornmeal crusted red trout with spinach, green chili cheese grits, caper butter sauce, crispy vegetable salad, grilled lemon, and crispy trout skin chicharron.
Our other dish was blackened salmon asada with red bell peppers, onions, pico de gallo, guacamole, borracho beans, grilled street corn and hand made tortillas.
Mesa Grille in Sedona was a really great stop! Both plates were really great!
Next we tried a few wineries in Cottonwood. Javelina Leap and Page Springs.
Javelina Leap offers a style of wine that isn’t my style…It’s not bad wine…Obviously it’s award wining wine…Just not my taste.
I forgot to take photos at Page Springs. I have to say that they make very good wine. I haven’t tried all the wineries out here but I have to say for me Page Springs was in the top two that I tried.
An unexpected thing had happened. I planed my trip about 6 weeks back and tonight’s dinner reservation was for Elote Cafe. It’s a good thing we stopped back at the hotel…Because I saw this on my computer from opentable that Elote Cafe cancelled my reservation. I am surprised that they didn’t call me to inform me. I was out all day and don’t carry my computer with me.
OMG! did I panic because I made my reservations SIX weeks back and had a lot of trouble. I couldn’t get a reservation on any patio anywhere I wanted and I couldn’t get a reservation for Mariposa Latin Grill………..
The first place I try to get a reservation for was Mariposa Latin Grill. The only reservation left was for 4:pm at the bar so I took it. Some sort of divine intervention happened. When we got to a front desk person my husband asked if they had a cancellation and asked if any table was available. They didn’t tell us and sat us in a great open dining area with amazing views. We also had the most FANTABULOUS Dinner. I will have to write about it after this. (It was only a few minutes after 4pm……during the week……..the dining room filled up quickly after I took photos.
That was what I ate and wine tasted around Sedona Arizona.
Mercer’s Restaurant is located in Peoria Arizona. They are a family owned and operated restaurant since 1987. They serve comfort foods at reasonable prices and are open seven days a week from 6am – 8:30pm. They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner and also offer daily specials.
Every table is full and people keep coming. Many people are here for take out too!
Mercer’s Restaurant is on the end of a mostly deserted mall.
The menu reads that salmon is a favorite here so I should get it?
So I ordered it.
Dinners come with salad or soup.
The above salad is what you get with dinners.
The baked potato is light and fluffy and I like the soft butter that goes with it. I also think that the tartar sauce is unusually good……The salmon taste similar to the frozen salmon from my local Safeway. The texture of the fish has a lack of succulence. It also contains that fishy taste……………………The carrots are not tasty to me. I can’t identify what is on them.
My husband got the chicken fried steak with potato salad. He said, “It’s ok but not the best.”
I tried the potato salad. It’s a little too creamy for me but does have good flavorings to it.
Why critique this?
Some people judge restaurants by the amount of business that they have.
H Mart is the largest Korean/American Supermarket Chain in America. They have around 85 locations nationwide and also have a few locations in Canada and London. We took a trip to our closest H Mart in Mesa Arizona and these are only a few of things we came across.
Interesting melons
fresh durian fruit
red skinned passion fruit
jujube crunch
fresh wood ear mushrooms and lots of other interesting mushrooms
fresh lily bulb
ginseng
The largest scallions
wagyu beef
yellow chives
garlic stems
green radish
salted egg salmon skin
wasabi pea crackers
live fish …actually the fish section was very large and didn’t smell either. They also offered a lot of frozen fish too..
dried fish
wafu dressing
After we shopping we decided to have lunch in the Market Eatery also known as the H Mart Food Court.
Here is Paris Baguette. Lots of baked goods.
Food Garden
Sogongoong Tofu & BBQ – This was my first choice but they were out of the mackerel I wanted to try.
Jeong’s Noodle
Meisen Katsu – breaded cutlet meals
Korean Fried Chicken
Da Pan …This one seemed interesting to me. I thought I’d like the spicy chicken topaki and my husband thought he’d like the bulgogi Risotto. They also have some weird sounding dishes like Dorito Mac and Cheese here.
This is pretty weird…..It looks like a pizza but it is without crust. I didn’t know that they would sprinkle cheese on it. It’s made of chicken, chewy rice cakes, fish cakes, cabbage, carrots in a sweet but medium spicy sauce….The sauce taste something like that sweet sauce that goes on cabbage rolls. This is weird to me…….It’s a lot of sweet sauce….It came radish kimchi with a soup that frightened me….because I thought looked like urine so I didn’t even try it. Good thing this chicken dish was a big portion because me and my husband ate this because the other dish we both couldn’t stomach.
We thought we would be getting something like this because it is the picture of the dish from the business posted as menu on www.Yelp.com It looks good doesn’t it? I also remember our last food critic from our local newspaper wrote about how great this dish was…..I guess Da Pan made him this version.
www.Yelp.com menu
But we got this instead.
I tell The FORKING Truth so I have to say that……..It’s really grosser than it looks. Honest to GOD!>>>It’s like they took a brick of cream cheese and put the bulgogi in a blender with the cream cheese with not much else and mixed it with rice.
It’s like vomit on a skillet.
I did better with some of the vegetables that I picked up at H Mart.
Endives fried in chicken fat with lime, peanuts, basil, mint, yellow chives
Bok Choy Garlic Stems & Chestnuts in Banchan Sauce
I’ve tried pastrami at many restaurants around metro Phoenix. Some of the places that I have been to are Chompie’s, Scott’s Generations NY Style Delicatessen, Miracle Mile, Goldman’s Deli, JJ’s Delicatessen and a few more that I forget the names of. Most of these places that I mentioned are at least ok and some are good. Some are inconsistent…….like on one trip the pastrami was very good and the next time is was very bland…. As far as I know none of these places brines their own pastrami…..There is a world of difference when a place brines their own pastrami….It’s like places that don’t brine their own pastrami are like watching television on a black and white TV. And places that so brine their own pastrami are like watching technicolor………That is the difference in taste.
My Top 3 all brine the pastrami in-house.
#3 Smasher’s Eats in North Phoenix
Smasher’s Eats is a newly opened restaurant around North Phoenix. The specialty of the restaurant are their smash style burgers. (that according to my husband are very good) but the special amazing dish that really surprised me was that they have a house cured pastrami melt on the menu….It’s full of delicious flavors. It taste like typical east coast pastrami…..I was shocked when I tasted it. It’s DAM GOOD!
#2 The Thursday pastrami special from Little Miss BBQ Sunny Slope Phoenix.
This is really REALLY to die for………! They use a higher quality meat than what the deli places use and it’s FORKING Delicious. This is a pastrami that eats like a dinner. It’s one of the BEST!
#1 I have to give it to Confluence in Carefree AZ because their pastrami sandwich is FANTABULOUS and is TOP OF THE LINE.
This pastrami sandwich is like no other because it’s made from wagyu beef that is so buttery and really just melts in the mouth. It’s an EXTRA special treat. The pastrami is spiced and smoked to perfection. It’s adorned with brussel’s sprout coleslaw, a thousand island with a little kick, gruyere cheese, grilled Jewish rye bread and a house made dill pickle. You also have a choice of house chips, salad or for a little extra their amazing fries with three dips. (The only bad news is that the menu is ever changing at Confluence so you might miss this on the lunch menu.)
Oh and my home made cured and smoked would fit into this bunch too!
Forking Amazing Smoked Pastrami with my Easy Rye Rolls and my Spicy Beer Mustard
Those were THE FORKING BEST Pastrami that I tasted in metro Phoenix AZ so far.
I’ve been making pastrami and tweaking my recipes for years. My November 2020 recipe is where I have to stop because it can’t be improved……(I don’t want to brag but this pastrami is up there with the best that I have ever tasted!!!)……..I also need to mention that pastrami making is ALWAYS A RISK….Even if you do everything correctly it is possible that your pastrami won’t cure properly and can spoil. That is why most deli restaurants don’t brine their own pastrami and pay others to do it for them. No matter how great the recipe is I have to tell you that the pastrami must be carefully smoked for the very best flavor. I tried to delete my old recipes for pastrami that isn’t smoked but people complain right away if I delete a recipe so I gave up on deleting recipes. Hopefully you will follow my November 2020 Recipe instead of a prior recipe. The last pastrami came out so delicious that I did a whole brisket instead of a half brisket. I doubled the brine…the only difference is that I had some dried chili water from making a salsa leftover so I added that to the water portion of the brine. I did run short on rub so I had to triple the rub.
I squeezed out all the air that I could but it wasn’t enough so I put something heavy on the top so the water would be all around the brisket.
Every day I squished the bag to mix up the brine all around the brisket.
After 6 days the brisket got rinsed and blotted off and then rubbed with a spice blend of mostly coriander, some black pepper and a tiny bit of smoked paprika. My brisket didn’t fit in my smoker so it had to cut it in half.
Then the brisket goes in the smoker for around 7 hours. (It can be longer if you want longer but around 7 hours was perfect for my taste)…….(I used pecan wood that got changed a bunch of times (thanks to my husband)).
Then the brisket gets covered tight in pans and goes in a low oven. (my oven was set at 210 f but I suspect might run lower and all my thermometers read a different temperature so I really can’t tell the exact temperature but I get everything to come out so who cares…)
My bigger dog felt the need to guard the oven with the precious pastrami in it.
The pastrami went in the oven around 7pm……and early in the morning around 5am it still wasn’t done so around five am the oven got turned up to 240 f.
“I am waiting a long time for this pastrami but it smells heavenly”
The pastrami finally got done around 10am.
“I’m waiting for some………..Hurry up…I’m starving”
Then the pastrami sits on the counter till it gets to be room temperature. It fills up the house with FORKING DELICIOUS SMELLS>>>>>>>>>Next it gets refrigerated over night so it can get set and sliced without ripping it apart.
My husband slices up the pastrami better than me so I let him.
The dogs watch and anticipate.,,,,,,
Now they get some.
For a whole day the whole house smelled like FORKING DELICIOUS PASTRAMI.
Forking Amazing Smoked Pastrami
You might want to try my recipes for easy rye rolls and home made spicy beer mustard.
The FANTABULOUS Dish means – Top of the line, marvelously good, peachy keen and dynamite!
I kept thinking about my recent restaurant week dinner from SWB in Scottsdale. Every dish I tried exceeded my expectations and EACH dish was a FANTABULOUS dish. I zeroed in on this dish because it is offered on the lunch and dinner menu..
I usually don’t even ever like cream based soups but this one was different and was not too heavy and had layers of flavors that were delectable. First your mouth gets the velvety sweet corn accented with the right amount of poblano taste. Just enough poblano to make the corn more interesting….But leaves you with that perfect corn finish. You get more layers in your next spoonful because you go for a little chili oil and maybe some queso fresco and a bright grassy little pop of cilantro.
The cream of corn poblano soup from SWB Bistro in Scottsdale (Hyatt Regency) is one FANTABULOUS Dish and is Worth a Fork!
Universal Yums is a gift or subscription service for a box of international snacks. You have a few different size choices.
I get the basic Yum Box and it comes with a booklet of facts, trivia, a recipe and information about my snacks.
Lets try a snack.
Ummmm…Now these are tasty! They are little cookies filled with a chocolaty filling that is laced with a small amount of hazelnut and tahini. These are tasty…Now they are gone.
We got a Yum bag with Mastic Toffees and Melon and Lime Chews.
Oh joy……..(not really)…Turkish sour watermelon gummies. I just don’t do gummies and ESPECIALLY Don’t FORKING do sour gummies. But I will ask my husband to eat one.
Next is a coconut & coffee snowball cake.
I like coconut but never liked coffee so far. I thought maybe I haven’t had good coffee yet and that is why I don’t like coffee? I tried two bites. I think I would like this if I liked coffee. The cake is moist with a nice texture and the exterior is very unique. The center cream isn’t terrible. I would like this if I liked coffee, Coffee just taste like bitter coffee grinds to me……
Next……
Baharat spiced cracker chips in taco flavor…??? They are odd to us….They are very powdery chippy crackers……..The powder texture sort of bothers me more than the odd flavors….They are very salty, they are onion-ee, there is sweetness to them, They finish very sweet….They sort of stick to my teeth.
Only two treats left….
Here’s tahini halva…..Not bad…It seems like light fluffy frosting that taste like sesame seeds instead of something too sweet.
Last treat
These are just plain chickpeas that are salted. These are GOOD! The texture doesn’t break my teeth like most bagged chickpea snacks. These you can actually eat in salad and do have a nice natural chickpea flavor. These I would buy if I saw in the store.
Those were my FORKING Thoughts on Universal Yums – Turkey 2021
The FANTABULOUS Dish means…..top of the line, marvelously good, peachy keen and Dynamite.
The Mole Negro – Rubbed Smoked Wagyu Brisket from Renata’s Hearth in Phoenix Arizona (at the Biltmore) Is CRAZY FORKING astonishingly delectable. It’s juicy, fatty (but not too fatty), smoky, crunchy and OOOOohhhhhhhhhhh sooooooooo FANTABULOUS! It just might be the best tasting brisket that I have ever tried……
It also comes with hand made in house flour and corn tortillas, three salsas (verde, roja and mango pineapple) Peruvian rice and black beans.
Just drop what you are doing and try it now because it is FANTABULOUS!
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.
