Belle’s Nashville Kitchen recently opened in Old Town Scottsdale. They are a small restaurant with a bar. They offer a limited casual menu. Some of the items that they offer are Nashville Style Hot Chicken Sandwiches, Burgers, Grilled Mac & Cheese Sandwiches, Salads, BBQ Salmon, Tacos and Jambalaya.
We both wanted to try the Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwich.
They don’t have an outdoor patio but the tables are well spaced. The atmosphere is western inspired. It all looks shiny and brand new.
This time we did take out.
We both got Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwiches. Mine came with a very large side salad. My husband got fries with his. My picture isn’t the best and it’s hard to see how unusual the fries are.
The fries are shaped almost in-between a fry and a chip. It’s like you get a fry and a chip in one.
Here is a closer look at the sandwich.
The chicken breast is moist with a crispy coating that is very cayenne and paprika forward. It is spicy but is more like medium hot instead of hot. The chicken is surrounded by a creamy slaw, pickles and a creamy sauce on an eggy soft bun.
That was a little taste of Belle’s Nashville Kitchen in Old Town Scottsdale AZ.
The AMAZING (FORKING AMAZING) FnB Restaurant is located in the arts district by Old Town Scottsdale AZ. The chef and co-owner is James Beard Award Winning Charleen Badman. She serves an ever changing menu of global farm focused contemporary sharing plates. The menu usually features a few special obscure vegetables and is a vegetable heavy menu but always offers enough meat items to please meat eaters. Arizona wines are always featured on the menu.
Things have changed since my last visit. FnB (at the moment during the pandemic) is currently out door only dining. The patio has been expanded.
Astroturf has been installed in the courtyard between the buildings and cheerful red lights line the restaurant perimeters. Tables are well spaced and all the help are wearing masks and or face shields.
They always start you off with local Noble Bread and extra high quality olive oil.
The menu is always amazing and it’s always hard to decide on what to order. The solution to that problem is to order more than you need and take the amazing leftovers home. That’s what we always do here.
Tonight we started out with rosemary socca (chickpea) bread with cardoon (obscure vegetable that looks like a monster with teeth cloned with a celery) relish with Calabrian chiles (delicious mild heat Italian pepper).
Next was roasted beets, smoked salmon, cream cheese, chives and poppy seeds, other seeds, flower petals, and an unusual but delicious herb.
We had to share another small plate.
Delicata squash, rosemary, tepary beans, in potlicker vinaigrette.
For our dinner course we shared the Mexican Pink Grouper (from Chula Seafood), sungold salbitxadas (unusual tiny sweet extra flavorful tomatoes), iitoi onions (special green onions only found at farmers markets or farms), almonds, rice.
We had TWO really great boxes of food to bring home for latter.
These days a $20. deposit a person is required for your reservation that gets deducted off your bill.
Here are only a few of past plates we enjoyed at FnB.
Langos Hungarian Fried (potato) Bread SaladButterkin SquashThis is 1/2 of the Pink GrouperApple SharlotkaKale FalafelsLeeks, chickpeas, beet falafel plate pickled eggspork shankpoppy seed tangerine cakeGilfeather rutabaga with onion ginger creamdeep chocolate whiskey cakesnap peas, macadamia nuts, chives, mint, tarragon
Twist Bistro and Gallery is a restaurant and art gallery located in north Scottsdale Arizona. They opened during the pandemic around May of 2020. Twist Bistro and Gallery offers a seasonal menu of modern detailed foods that swing towards Mediterranean cuisine. This restaurant is a husband and wife team. The husband is the chef and the wife runs the front of the house and did all the beautiful artwork on the walls that are also offered for sale.
To the left is a long bar with bar stools
Today we sat on the patio and they started us off with a generous serving of these delicious fresh warm complimentary feta and dill studded muffins with scallion honey butter. (YUM! these are really great!)
My husband tried one of the special crostini.
It was made with that special luxury Iberico ham from special black footed pigs that eat mostly acorns from either Spain or Portugal. This kind of pork is more marbled and red than regular pork. There was also melty brie cheese and blackberry mostarda on the toast.
Then we shared the farm to table salad that they were offering today.
This salad had all kinds of things in it tied together with some sort of lavender vinaigrette. There was grilled squash, arugula, radicchio, almonds, cheese, cranberries, and apples. It sure was unique and different!
I tried the chef’s fish special.
It was broiled wild caught mild fresh tasting lemon sole in a basil white wine broth with house made pasta and topped with fennel salad.
My husband tried the Sonoran Paella Verde.
It was a very detailed dish that was packed with grilled Main scallops, gulf shrimp, chicken, chorizo, crusty – green chili tomatillo rice, pumpkin seeds, hominy and tortilla hay. My husband kept saying that this was really REALLY good!
Since I wasn’t doing take out I didn’t have to worry about my dessert melting. We tried the light refreshing lemon sorbet.
I was surprised that it was topped with mixed berry jam. I am surprised again…This lemon sorbet taste just like Rosati Italian water ice to me. I haven’t had this since I left Pennsylvania. That water ice is everywhere there. Haven’t tasted water ice like this in a long time.
Here are some of the other foods we tried from Twist Bistro and Gallery.
shrimp and sausage diablo – vegetables, cheesy polenta
beignets
everything flatbread with house made lox, wild boar meatballs with gnocchi, chicken and dumplings with goat cheese and blackberry mostarda, strawberry rhubarb cobbler and muffins
falafels, steak sandwich pallard, a very detailed Mediterranean salad with added salmon and mascarpone cheese cake
southern breaded shawarma kabobs with minted cucumbers, olives, jalapeños and preserved lemon basil syrup, loch duart salmon, shrimp and sausage diablo, muffins mascarpone cheese cake
Moroccan festival soup, grilled Hawaiian opah special, steak sandwich.
Everything from every visit was delicious! *****TWIST BISTRO IS NO MORE******SAME OWNERS TURNED THIS INTO GINNY”S WITH A NEW MENU
Twist Bistro and Gallery in North Scottsdale is Worth a Fork!
Worth A Fork!
www.Twist-Bistro.com
Every THING is subject to change and your experience can possibly differ.
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 only sign with the Tacos Calafia name of the restaurant is on the back of the restaurant. Tacos Calafia is a casual restaurant that serves what they call street size tacos of five varieties, quesadillas, mulitas, vampiros, burritos and taco nachos.
According to The Arizona Republic they say that Phoenix Magazine awarded Tacos Calafia as the BEST tacos in Phoenix. The Phoenix New Times wrote that it is worth driving from all corners of the valley to taste Tacos Calafia Tacos. On The Phoenix New Times this restaurant is mentioned often as a BEST so since I’m a foodie I wanted to try it for myself. I am very picky about tacos. Most I taste are not my favorite. I’ve been to Mexico a number of times. I don’t claim to be an expert on tacos but I ate many tacos in the streets of Mexico. I thought most tacos that I tasted in Mexico were more delicious than the majority of tacos I try here in metro Phoenix. They were more developed with flavors. Most tasted very slow cooked. They all had a special freshness to them as well. That is why (not all) but most tacos here are not as good and I’ve also tried tacos from many taco festivals. Well I’m giving Tacos Calafia a try today.
I see they have a patio so I will eat outside today.
Here’s the menu.
According to the Phoenix New Times Tacos Calafia was a BEST NEW Restaurant in 2017. Also according to Eater Tacos Calafia is one of the 11 Hottest restaurants in Phoenix.
It’s very casual inside. You order at the counter, pay and pick up at the window. Then you make a trip to the taco bar and load your tacos up.
Here’s the taco bar.
We wore gloves to use the taco bar.
Our tacos came out like this. They are generously stuffed with meat.
pastor, cabeza, cabeza on corn tortillas chicken on corn tortillas and carne asada on flour tortillas
Then I made them look nicer with the taco bar and we tried a variety of salsas.
The first taco I try is the grilled chicken.
I add lime to all the tacos. The green and red salsas are a very thin consistency ……almost like water. The green salsa has a nicer flavor than the red so I try a little of that and a little bit of guacamole cream on the chicken taco. …………It’s ok and not bad. The tortilla is not as flavorful as others I’ve tried. The chicken is very average. It’s not bad because it is tender but it doesn’t have a lot of flavor or char taste to it. It taste like plain grilled chicken.
Next I try the carne asada. The meat is tender but also lacks any flavor and even a char taste. I use a small amount of the spicy smoky thick sauce on this one to give it some flavor. Flour tortilla is average. Don’t take what I say the wrong way…..This is not bad taco…I’ve had much worst……..but it’s not up there for me.
My husband eats one more tacos than me and tries the pastor. He said it was different but I couldn’t get him to explain to me why it’s different. he said it was ok….he thought good but he said it was like the asada…not so flavorful.
The last taco I try was the cabeza (pulled beef cheek) This one is much different from all the other tacos. This taco is very good. …..(finally)….The meat is infused with a good slow cooked beefy flavor. I’m not a beef person but this is the best and most flavorful of the tacos that I tried today. My husband agrees with me.
Well that is how the tacos from Tacos Calafia were today. I imagine that it is possible that when the Phoenix New Times, Phoenix Magazine and Eater were here they made some of the tacos different. Did they changed their recipes since???????….. Or maybe it’s just someone different cooking today?
That was my trip to Tacos Calafia in Peoria.
www.TacosCalafia.com
Every THING is subject to change and your experience may indeed differ.
The Craftsman Cocktails and Kitchen is an American Restaurant and distillery in North Scottsdale AZ. If you were a fan of the fine dining Italian restaurant Sassi then you might be a fan of this restaurant because the same chef is here now. This restaurant offers a big dog friendly patio that wraps around the restaurant.
They also have garage door style windows that add even more patio space during nice weather days.
Inside is open, modern and airy.
Another dining area and the distillery is on the other side.
On my last visit we did take out but I thought if I got here early that the patio would be quiet.
Two weeks back I got to order from the all day menu but they now serve brunch on the weekends.
From my take out last time I did try the AZ Hot Chicken Lollipops over blue cheese slaw. They were tender and tasty but not really hot. We also tried the wagyu pastrami sandwich and the hammer and anvil porchetta sandwich.
I asked the waitress about the fried AZ hot chicken biscuit sandwich and she said it was the same heat as the lollipops. I prefer more heat when I eat something hot so I ordered something else. I left my normal comfort zone (chicken and fish) and decided to try the Distillers porcini crusted burger with a side salad slightly special ordered. I LOVE cheese but I think cheese makes my burgers too salty so I asked for the cheese on the side so I could put it on my salad.
The burger is large and is a blend of brisket and short rib. It is topped with caramelized onion, arugula and garlic aioli and a soft fresh brioche bun. The mushroom rub gives the burger a unique taste. I like that they prepared my burger to a perfect medium like I asked for. The side salad is especially good. Everything taste very farm fresh…..
My husband tried the short rib hash.
The eggs didn’t come seasoned so my husband had to ask for salt and pepper. The short ribs in it are fatty and succulent.
This spacious restaurant is almost empty-
and suddenly three tables walk in and the hostess clusters them all around us……
That was our brunch at The Craftsman Cocktails and Kitchen.
www.TheCraftsmanAZ.com
Every THING is subject to change and your experience may indeed differ.
Here is just a little taste of the newly opened The Craftsman Cocktails and Kitchen in North Scottsdale. By the time you go there a permanent new sign might be on the building. They offer lots of patio dining that wraps around the building. There are also windows on garage type doors that open up to extend the patio.
The inside is bright, airy, rich and modern.
To the left of the entrance is an in-house distillery and also another dining area.
To the right is the main area of the restaurant.
The menu offers many interesting sounding things to try. The menu is mostly American. The chef is from the fine dining Italian restaurant that used to be located in North Scottsdale called Sassi.
For our first visit we did some take out.
We started out by sharing (top left) a small order of lollipop wings over blue cheese slaw. They were manicured very nicely and were tasty and tender. They were not too tangy or too hot so most people would like them. The slaw seemed fresh made and liked getting the big chunks of blue cheese every now and then.
For my main I tried the wagyu pastrami on pretzel bun with a side salad.
The pastrami is flavored very nicely. The pretzel bun is also very good and is toasted to perfection. I got some crunchy fresh slaw on the side. But the roll It’s just too large for my taste so I eat the sandwich on just the smaller bottom part of the bun and I still have a good amount of bread. They forgot to give me the caraway mustard that it is suppose to come with so I don’t know how that would be. I do have to say that the side salad was very above average for a side salad. All the vegetables tasted unusually fresh and flavorful. Even the carrots didn’t taste like supermarket carrots and I like the flavorful house dressing too.
My husband tried the hammer and anvil porchetta sandwich on ciabatta with house potato chips.
He got a sandwich packed with pork shoulder, Craftsman sausage, rapini, cheddar, and for him herb aioli on the side. Perhaps from the car ride home the porchetta got sort of dry……But need to mention that the sausage, rapini, herb aioli and cheese were exceptionally good. The potato chips were also very good. Nice and thin and seemed free of oil.
That was just a little taste of The Craftsman Cocktails and Kitchen in North Scottsdale.
www.TheCraftsmanAZ.com
Everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.
Two weeks in a row I got to visit two brand new restaurants in North Phoenix. Last week I got to try out Jalapeño Inferno in Peoria at Park West. It is a Sonoran Style Mexican restaurant with a few outside patios and a beautiful bright modern decor and lots of outside patio seating on multiple patios.
This time I did take out.
We started out with chips and salsas.
Their red salsa is extra mild and is only mildly seasoned. The jalapeño inferno sauce (green $3.00 extra) is so hot that you can’t eat it. It does have good flavors to it but as someone who likes hot food I can only use a drop of it on my food.
For my main I went with the naked poblano.
I thought the poblano would be stuffed but it is on the side of cubed chicken breast, corn and black beans in a creamy corn sauce that was sprinkled with pomegranate. It’s tasty and doesn’t seem too heavy. A little fresh cilantro and scallions would go a long way here….but it’s still good.
My husband went with a combo plate.
He got a tamale, a burrito and a chili relleno with rice and beans. He was happy with it and said that everything was tasty.
That was what we tried from Jalapeño Inferno in Peoria at Park West.
www.JalapenoInferno.com
This week I got to try Just Biryani in North Phoenix. It’s an Indian Restaurant with over 20 different Biryani dishes on the menu. It’s also a cheerful and clean looking restaurant.
Today we did take out.
We started out by sharing the samosa chaat.
It’s chana masala (seasoned chickpeas) with sauces and wet bread (might be the samosas but it seems like bread in here). It’s full of exotic flavors herbs, onions, fried vermicelli and some mild heat. I think the sauces on the side might be chutney and raita but are unlike any I had before. These are both have a water-like consistency and are ultra delicate with flavor.
We then shared the gongura chicken biryani.
It’s mainly fluffy rice with a little raw onion, half an egg and some seasoned very tender boneless chicken with some exotic flavors and slight heat.
We also shared the ulavacharu chicken biryani.
This one is also mostly fluffy rice, raw onion and half an egg with a small amount of chicken on the bone. This dish has very little flavor. I never had an Indian dish like this before.
www.DosaGrillAZ.com (this restaurant was previously a Dosa Grill)
Those were my experiences at Jalapeño Inferno at Park West in Peoria and Just Biryani in North Phoenix two of the new restaurants in North Phoenix AZ.
Everything is subject to change and we hope things do change for the better.
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.
Twist Bistro and Gallery is a small modern Mediterranean style restaurant, bar and art gallery located in North Scottsdale Arizona. They opened for business during the coronavirus pandemic sometime around May 2020. I haven’t stepped in yet but my husband snapped the next two photos.
It’s colorful and cheerful. The walls are accented with colorful artwork.
On the other side (not shown) is the bar.
All four of our take outs included complimentary biscuits with honey butter.
The biscuits did differ some on every visit but all of them were tasty. Most of them were studded with feta cheese and some had fresh dill. The texture differed. Some were scone like and others were light as a feather.All were delicious.
On one visit we tried a mushroom crepe that was stuffed with black truffle ricotta cheese.
On two of my visits I had the Loch Duart Salmon. It’s EXTREMELY GREAT! It’s prepared to perfection. It came with delicious seasoned black rice, vegetables, tomato salad and pistou sauce. It’s very rare in metro phoenix to get salmon that is this good and prepared this well. …It’s grilled nice and is medium/mediium rare in the middle.
My husband enjoyed the shrimp and sausage diablo just as much as I enjoyed the salmon and he also had this meal twice. It comes with cheesy polenta.
We tried the house made beignets.
They are powdered doughnuts with delicious house made sauces.
Then we did take out again.
In the upper left hand corner is the southern breaded shawarma kabobs with minted cucumbers, marinated olives, jalapeños and preserved lemon basil syrup. We had the same dinners as last time (salmon & shrimp and sausage diablo). This time we tried an amazing dessert (left hand lower corner) It was the mascarpone cheese cake. It came with pistachio praline, salted caramel, whipped cream and fresh strawberries. It was a really great dessert. Just like from a fine restaurant that has their own pastry chef.
We tried a few different things on our third take out.
In the middle is an everything flatbread topped with house made lox. (yum!) On the right are two different dinners. Upper right is willed boar meatballs served with an different style of gnocchi. Bottom right is their “Twist” on chicken and dumplings. It’s really delicious marinated chicken that is moist and flavorful but because of my 30 minute car ride home in the hot heat the sauces and dumplings sort of baked together. It would have been much better to dine in with this one. However it still was delicious. There was all kinds of goodies here like goat cheese, berries, braised greens and a different kind of dumplings that they call gnocchi. On the left are the complimentary biscuits and a strawberry rhubarb cobbler (minus the ice cream because I knew it would melt).
My forth take out was really great too!
Top left corner we shared the Moroccan festival soup. It’s a vegetarian soup with spiced vegetables lentils, chick peas , preserved lemon and cilantro. It’s deep earthy and fabulous! I went with the grilled Hawaiian opah. The fish was prepared to perfection and came with a orange basil beurre blanc sauce, vegetables and scallion almond rice. My husband had the steak sandwich pallard. It’s a grilled tenderloin with mustardy horseradish sauce, mozzarella cheese, demi sauce on a garlic Noble Bread baguette. I tried a small piece of the tenderloin and it was so tender with a really great taste. WOW it was crazy good!
Those were my first four take outs from Twist Bistro and Gallery in North Scottsdale.
www.twist-bistro.com
Everything is subject to change and we hope it does for the better.
