Pizzeria Bianco is a nationally known pizzeria with two locations in Phoenix Arizona. Many celebrities, Food Network TV, magazines, and food critics give Pizzeria Bianco much positive recognition. The chef and owner is James Beard Award Wining chef Chris Bianco. The menu is limited but is all very high quality. They offer a few small plates, sandwiches, salads, and six pizzas. Part of what is special is the wood fired fermented dough made from locally grown heirloom grains. The mozzarella is house made. The canned tomatoes are California grown Italian style grown by Bianco. The produce is fresh plucked local and is sometimes actually plucked by Chris Bianco.
Inside is small, industrial looking, and loud.
If you can’t find a table inside there are tables outside and a few seats at the bar.
Today we went for pizzas.
I got the rosa pizza.
It looks much different than my last pizza from here. I haven’t been here in years…..mostly because I used to wait two hours to be seated. By the time I got seated I think we were usually on a second bottle of wine. Then when we finally got a pizza we were starving and my pizza from this location was charred so much that it tasted burnt to me and was extra light with toppings. For a few years after that I would get Bianco Pizzas from Pane Bianco (a sister restaurant) because they didn’t char the pizzas as much and went slightly heavier on the toppings……But again this pizza is very different from what I remember from this location. (It’s more like the Pane Bianco pizzas that I enjoyed)
This pizza has a crunch, a chewiness and crispness like no other. The outer crust is almost like a shattering crisp cracker. This crust does have a different taste to it that isn’t like flour. It is unique and is not like any other pizza out there…….
My pizza today has a delicious layer of parmigiano reggiano cheese.
Each bite does taste different. Some of the local Arizona pistachios have a nice rich fresh pistachio flavor and other pistachios are chewy. The red onion goes well with these flavors. My favorite bites are the ones with rosemary that brighten and freshen everything. Some pieces don’t have rosemary. I confess that I wish that this pizza came with slightly more rosemary. But it is great the way it is…that is just my taste.
My husband had the Sonny boy today.
This pizza was made with Bianco tomato sauce, fresh mozzarella, salami, and gaeta olives.
It was nice to get seated soon after we arrived.
These pizzas were much better than what I remember from many years ago. These pizzas are also unique with a lot of work that goes into them and these pizzas don’t taste like any other.
Mariposa Latin Inspired Grill is an upscale Latin Style restaurant located in Sedona Arizona. They offer high quality Latin style foods in a really rich atmosphere with museum quality accents and breathtaking views.
From the second you get into the parking lot the views are stupendously impressive.
Whimsical butterfly motifs are everywhere here.
On top of the small roof above the door is a large butterfly and a wind charm butterfly. There is a butterfly on the doormat. The front door is encrusted with beautiful gems into a butterfly. You really can’t see how amazing the door really is until you enter.
Behind the hostess desk are more hand made lite gem artwork that is truly astonishing.
Looks like more hand made gem encrusted windows above the wine fridge.
Only reservation available that I could get was as they were just opening. (I never ate that early before but it worked out in the end). But it did fill up within the hour.
We were planing to start out by sharing the stuffed poblano pepper with vegetables and quinoa (really a dinner but to us it seemed like a not too heavy starter).
The restaurant had some sort of delay and the manager apologized to. us and gave us some complimentary empanadas and made portabella, poblano, caramelized onion and gouda cheese with chimichurri on the side.
My gosh they are so flavorful. They are delicious! Nice treat for us.
We did wait a while for the stuffed pepper called veggie nirvana on the menu but it was worth it.
It’s as pretty as a picture.
It’s stuffed with quinoa, roasted vegetables, jack cheese, romesco sauce, black bean puree and spicy pepitas. This was just delicious.
For dinner my husband had the ribeye with chimichurri and a side of triple queso poblano mac ‘n’ cheese.
I tasted a bite. I usually hate ribeye but this one is delicious, very flavorful, very tender and very juicy . It’s delicious and about as great as a steak can be.
This triple queso poblano mac ‘n’ cheese is a bowl of tasty cheesy goodness too!
I had the fish of the day. It’s called pescado paradiso (it was sea bass today) and came with tomatoes, charred sweet corn, white wine herb butter quinoa pilaf, and black bean puree.
Everything was so delicious tonight that we wanted to have dessert. We ate around half or a little more than half and saved the rest for the next day.
Tonight we tried the flourless chocolate torte called boca de muerto on the menu.
The torte was laced with Grand Mariner and a special hard to find chili called chimayo. It also was adorned with a candied orange slice, some crumbles, and salted caramel gelato.
It was a perfect sweet ending to an amazing meal.
Mariposa Latin Inspired Grill must be a gem of Sedona.
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.
Maya Ice Cream Rolls serves a variety of Thai Style dressed ice cream rolls. The ice cream is made right in front of your eyes on a special metal sheet that freezes the cream. Then the ice cream gets scraped off the sheet into a roll shape.
In addition to the ice cream rolls Maya offers sweet and also savory crepes. Some of the crepes are tiki masala, fajita, Nutela, and Biscoff.
You can seat yourself inside or on the patio.
Doors to the patio.
I tried the tropical fusion ice cream rolls.
The ice cream is vanilla based with added mango, pineapple, coconut and condensed milk. This one is delicious!
Here’s the choco loco.
This one is chocolate based with brownies, chocolate chips and chocolate drizzle. This one is only mildly chocolate flavored.
There is another location of Maya ice Cream rolls in Arrowhead Town Center (The Mall).
Their website is incomplete at the moment but you can find Maya Ice Cream Rolls on Facebook.
Halo Halo Kitchen is a casual Filipino Restaurant located in Phoenix Arizona. This restaurant is mostly cafeteria style and also offers some grocery and desserts. Parking is easy because they are in a strip mall. You might be wondering what does Halo Halo mean? The restaurant might be named after Halo Halo the popular Filipino dessert of shaved ice, evaporated milk, and may contain boiled beans, coconut, palm tree starch, jelly, potatoes, and fruit.
Halo Halo Delux
Here is the cafeteria line.
You either order what is on the line or order off a menu board. They offer all day Filipino breakfast plates called silog plates that were only $8.95 today. (subject to change)
Today (Saturday) They also have Lechon (roasted baby pig). I noticed that the Sunday special is Filipino spaghetti with fried chicken.
Halo Halo offers many other Filipino foods that are a fusion of Spanish, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Indian & American. I made a cheat sheet of some of the dishes so I’d know what they are.
fish case mostly sold out alreadymenu
Halo Halo is also part grocery store with dry goods, frozen foods and refrigerated food and also sells pastries and desserts.
Once you decided on your order you pay and seat yourself with a number card. They will run out whatever you didn’t get to pick up.
After your meal you might want to visit the dessert bar for a Halo Halo, a boba slushy or a flan.
Some of the dishes we tried here were.
all day breakfast Sisig plate with pork.
corned beef Sisig plate (our mutual least favorite)
grilled pompano fish with bittermelon vegetable medley and steamed rice
tofu, eggplant, vegetable dish with rice
coconut chicken
adobo pork
beef dish
adobo pork more recently (this plate was only $6.75….subject to change)
It doesn’t cost much to dine here. Two meals today were only with tax $18.00.
That was a taste of Halo Halo Kitchen in Phoenix AZ.
Pane Bianco is a small casual urban gourmet sandwich and more restaurant in Phoenix Arizona. Pane Bianco is a sister restaurant of the famous Pizzeria Bianco by James Beard award winning chef Chris Bianco. Pane Bianco focuses on serving a limited but high quality menu of foods that lean towards Italian. The bread made here is from wood fired fermented heirloom grain dough. The most popular sandwich here might be the split focaccia bread stuffed with tomato basil mozzarella sandwich made with house made mozzarella cheese. Pane Bianco offers sandwiches, salads, focaccia slices, calzone, specials, desserts, wine, beer and some dry goods for sale.
Before the pandemic Pane Bianco looked like this.
Today it is pretty much the same but the community tables outside were removed and only one table was on the patio that is now partially enclosed.
It looks like this when you walk in. You can order from the counter or seat yourself in the dining room.
The inside is mix matched in a charming way with lots of character.
We started out by sharing the salad of the day. It was a refreshing but simple watermelon salad with fennel, parsley, salt, and pepper.
For my main I tried the spinach calzone.
It is made up of house made mozzarella, parmesan, ricotta cheese, a little bit of spinach and Bianco tomato sauce.
The dough is paper thin. This calzone is large with a lot of cream rich delicious melty cheese. For some people it might be two meals.
My husband got the Italian combo sandwich today.
It’s made of crusty bread, mortadella, spicy soppresatta, romaine, provolone cheese, and a little vegetable salad garnishes the plate.
Currently but SUBJECT TO CHANGE…Pane Bianco is only open for lunch..But that does change every now and then…….11-3 Monday-Saturday.
I’ve been here for dinner before and used to enjoy the pizza here.
Here are not all but some of the things we tried from Pane Bianco.
soppressata and aged provolone with wood roasted red bell pepper
Tuna Salad
Albacore tuna salad sandwich
Chicken Salad
soppressata with aged provolone and wood roasted onion
focaccia
nutmeg Italian ice
Available for purchase.
I have to say….
Pane Bianco in Phoenix is Worth a Fork!
Worth A Fork!
www.PizzeriaBianco.com
Everything is subject to change and everything usually does eventually change.
Bobby Q Restaurant is la BBQ restaurant located in Phoenix Arizona and also does have a location in Mesa and a smaller location in the Biltmore area of Phoenix. The original Phoenix location is very unique with mature plantings and very large old trees seldom seen in Phoenix. The old building has character and rustic charm of yesteryear. According to Opentable Bobby Q is one of the best 30 BBQ restaurants in the country.
Patiobar areainside looking in by hostess desk
The above dining room isn’t always used and a wall rolls down to close it off.
This place is enormous.
Oh and they sell some souvenirs.
They start you off with complimentary Johnny cakes and soft creamy butter and the rest is up to you.
We shared some of the Q Rolls appetizer.
They are pastry wrapped around the signature 16 hour BBQ beef brisket served with a BBQ sauce and a chipotle ranch dressing.
Each Q roll is very large and is PACKED with lots of tender smoky brisket.
Today my husband got a two meat plate of BBQ sausage and BBQ pork with BBQ beans and macaroni and cheese.
I got the Bob’s salad.
It’s a humble rotisserie chicken salad adorned with some apples, walnuts, cranberries and goat cheese tied together by dijon vinaigrette.
On a past visit I did try the salmon.
I remember that I thought that the salmon was better here from Bobby Q than the more expensive seafood chain restaurant nearby across the highway and it cost around $10. less at Bobby Q.
Once at lunch my husband had the three meat lunch plate.
I tried the BBQ chicken sandwich with peacan slaw as my side.
The apple pie here might be like something a neighbor or a relative might serve you.
They always send you off with bag of complimentary PIPING HOT thank Q doughnuts.
Taco Boys is located in south Phoenix Arizona. They serve tacos al carbon. That translates to meat over fire. It’s actually mesquite charcoal fire.
Here is part of the actual grill inside Taco Boys
They keep bags of the mesquite charcoal under the counter that you order at.
They offer carne asada, pollo (chicken), tripe, cabeza (beef cheek), pastor (pork), barbacoa (beef). You pick well packed street sized tacos in either four or corn tortillas. They also offer vampiros (grilled crispy with cheese), burros, and quesadillas.
This isn’t a fancy place but you come for the food. You can see that they don’t have a cocktail bar here. Beverages offered are sodas, horchata (Mexican rice/milk cinnamon), beers, micheladas (Mexican beer cocktails), and bottled water.
Most of the seating is indoors but a few outside tables are on the side of the building by the parking lot.
A few tables are also to the left side of the front door.
It can get busy in a second here.
You order and try to find a table. They ask you to pay when you are done.
While you are waiting you can make a plate of toppings and sauces for your tacos.
Our order is ready.
Between us we tried all the tacos except for tripe. Everything is good and nothing lacks flavor or is dry so that is a win!
Here are the beef tacos that they offer.
Upper left is barbacoa. It’s flavored nicely and is tender and very succulent. It’s something like a stewed beef cube…
Upper right is the cabeza (beef cheek) This one is very tender with nice developed flavor.
Lower beef taco is the carne asada. It’s tender enough and does have a nice mesquite flavor to it. It is a very good taco.
The flour tortilla tacos are grilled to sort of crispy.
The corn tortilla tacos are best suited for the saucy meats and double shelled like in Mexico.
We were surprised that the Mexican Style beans are spicy and very soupy today. They lack whole beans today. They might have chorizo in them.
Superstition Meadery is a award wining producer of ancient honey wine called mead. The original location is in Prescott Arizona and they have a location in downtown Phoenix Arizona. The Phoenix location also offers chef crafted food parings of sharing boards, small plates and large plates. Parking is easy because they have their own parking lot.
They have the fanciest bike racks that I have ever seen.
When the weather is nice you can bring your furry best friend or friends on the patio.
The patio is much larger than the view I got. It goes down the whole side of the building.
Inside it looks like this.
At the end of the bar are big bottles of mead and maybe some ciders.
I’m not sure if I ever had mead before…..
We decided to share the flight of 12 for $24. (subject to change)
My favorite was the one called lemonade in retrograde. It was bright, refreshing and had a nice lemon zing and wasn’t too sweet. My least favorite was the one called Tahitian Honeymoon made with Tahitian Vanilla bean mead aged in oak…..
There were many sharing boards, small plates and large plates to pick from.
We started out by sharing the piri piri chicken small plate and the warm cannellini bean salad.
The piri piri chicken is spicy chicken breast covered with crushed peanuts and served with some sliced grilled baguette bread.
The warm cannellini bean salad is made up of beans, farro, spinach, Thai basil, and wood roasted onion dressing.
Our main was the gorgonzola & herbed butter skirt steak. Today it came with wood roasted shitshito peppers, radicchio (Italian chicory), mushrooms and arugula.
I thought we were done but the desert of the day sounded too interesting to turn down.
It was blondies with chocolate nibs with Marion berry mead sauce, caramel and whipped cream.
I thought we were done.
But I was wrong again.
They gave us complimentary cookies with the bill.
Everything was delicious and detailed nicely. Service was very attentive and helpful.
The Miracle Mile Delicatessen is located in Phoenix Arizona. This is a cafeteria style deli that is family owned and ran since 1949. The well known dishes here are hot pastrami, corned beef, beef brisket, stuffed cabbage, and turkey dinners. Lesser known dishes are the baked cod with puffy cheese and the honey dijon veggie wrap of avocado. peppers, carrots, lettuce, cucumbers, crispy onion strings with honey dijon dressing in a spinach tortilla. You order while walking threw the line, pay and seat yourself indoors or outdoors.
corned beef and pastrami
Here are the sides that you can pick for your sandwich. There’s fresh fruit, apple sauce, carrot and raisin salad, Cole slaw, macaroni salad, potato salad, Not sure but I think the one on the end looks like pasta salad.
They also offer desserts. The bread pudding is made in house.
main dining areaWhat would Bernie get here?
We shared a pastrami sandwich and a corned beef sandwich on marble rye bread.
pastrami sandwichcorned beef sandwich
The sandwiches come with very good pickles.
They both are Arizona style sandwiches. Well we are in Arizona so that is what I should expect……….The bread and taste of the meats does differ from East Coast Style. (east coast bread is crusty and usually thin and toasted while AZ rye bread is soft, thick and cold) (east coast pastrami taste smoked and has a peppery rub…we don’t taste much of that here) (east coast corned beef is seasoned more than AZ corned beef) Everything was fresh tasting and the restaurant seemed clean. Plates were cleared quickly.
Parking is easy because they have their own parking lot. Service is speedy because you go threw the line quickly, you pay and seat yourself.
That was a Little Taste of The Miracle Mile Delicatessen in Phoenix AZ.
