The Wrigley Mansion was built by the Chewing Gum Mogul of Wrigley’s Gum William Wrigley Jr. and eventually was purchased by Geordie Hormel of Hormel’s Food Products that are……MANY many pork products and canned pork called Spam, LOTS of other meat products, Skippy Peanut Products, Chi-Chi’s Products, Wholly Guacamole, Herdez Products and many more!. The Mansion is a private club. But for a small fee $5.00 (that’s donated to charity……currently a dog charity…. you can be a member for a day and take a tour and or dine. Other reasonable options are offered. On my visit the front is under construction and it’s safer to enter from the valet entrance. I should add that the front has (or used to have) the longest trail of steep steps I ever walked. You had to be in excellent shape to do the front steps. Or at least it used to be that way….It looks like they are putting in new steps so it might be better after the construction is done. The valet side also has steps. I don’t know if this building is handicapped friendly.

When you enter you check in at the desk.

You can sign up for a tour, you are also free to roam around yourself and check out the charming decor or you can go straight off to dine. I forgot to photo the really cool antique operator’s switch board that is by the detailed carved entrance door.

But I took a photo in the Ladies Room….It’s just adorable! You have to see!

Then we went off to dine.

Walking threw to the Dining Room.

Here we are!

The dining room is very formal with big blue velvety high back chairs, set tables with linen and big windows with views of Phoenix.

Here’s my view from my seat.

They started us off with small thin slices of baguette and butter.

I started with Corn Gazpacho.

The chilled soup is refreshing and has a nice vinegar-ree tomato-like cucumber taste. Oddly I don’t taste corn. My husband doesn’t taste corn either……. The corn kernels in the center are tasteless…..However the soup does taste like gazpacho and is good, light and refreshing………it just lacks a corn taste that I was expecting.

Any who

The Smoked Salmon from Christopher’s was SUPERB and I hoped that since Chef Christopher is the Executive Chef at Wrigley Mansion that it might be similar here so I had to order it.

The Wrigley Smoked Salmon is colorful and pretty enough to be a picture. I think I might paint it and hang it on my wall……Brightly colored flowers, herbs, frilly greenery and oil enhance the fish. Tiny squid ink croutons, dabs of creme fraiche and caviar complete the plate. It’s not a bad plate in any way……..but …you know me if you read my reviews……………It’s not my intention to knock the Smoked Salmon plate from The Wrigley Mansion………but……….The Forking Truth is that even with the caviar it doesn’t compare to the Smoked Salmon from Christopher’s (pictured below). I just have to get out how spectacular Christopher’s plate was so you can understand the difference.

The fish seemed like a different quality. Christopher’s Smoked Salmon was cut with expert execution of a surgeon and was sliced paper thin. The Fish was silky and melted in my mouth. The rest of the plate was out of this world too.

Wrigley Mansion

To be fair I do need to note some pieces of fish were better than others. The Wrigley Smoked Salmon had several thicker smaller cuts placed together. This fish wasn’t so silky and was slightly leathery. It also was saltier and not as sweet tasting. ………….. Christopher’s was extraordinary and Wrigley was just good.

My husband went with the Spam Cubano Sandwich.

This sandwich is filled with roasted pork, lightly grilled Spam (a Hormel Product) whole grain mustard and a thin spread of mayonnaise (not listed on the menu) The sandwich arrived  pressed panini style and came with pickles and a Spam Can ( a cute nod to the Hormel Ownership) filled with mixed fries. I hear that this was a very good sandwich despite the thin spread of mayonnaise it contained. Both of us weren’t expecting the Cubano to be so generous in size.

I had room so I helped with a side of Summer Truffle Macaroni and Cheese.

It was creamy cheesy and satisfying. What arrived was Cellentani Pasta that’s prepared perfect in a creamy cheesy parmesan tasting sauce with a little bread crumb crunch on the top. Neither of us tasted the truffles but that is a good thing because that means they didn’t use artificial truffle aroma. For a $10.00 side you can not expect to taste real truffle as they are very expensive. Two ounces of fresh summer truffles cost $95.00 from Marky’s.

The Mousse Tower that Christoper is Famous for is on the menu and should still be divine at The Wrigley. But I didn’t go with that today.

The Famous Chocolate Mousse Tower from Christopher’s

My favorite dessert was the Lemon Tart from Christopher’s. It always has the perfect amount of lemon tart flavor combined with the perfect sweetness with a velvet mouth feel. The frozen ices in pastry shells were amazing too! Christopher’s was one of the few restaurants where the desserts were special and were just as amazing as the food.

So I made sure I saved room for it and tried the Lemon Tart from The Wrigley Mansion.

The Lemon Tart from the Wrigley is not as detailed, might differ slightly and does have a thicker crust. However it still does have a good lemon tart to sweet flavor.

Here was my first taste from Geordie’s at The Wrigley Mansion.

Polenta from the Wrigley Mansion

The Dinner I had at Wrigley Mansion from years ago

I remember the asparagus was loaded with salt and that smear of artichoke had flavors I don’t want to go back too.  I will also never forget the polenta tower.

The Polenta Tower was very strange, very stiff and Forking looked like it was on Viagra.

I was afraid to return to dine here again until I heard about Chef Christopher’s arrival this year.

My second visit was very improved in service and food from my first visit. Some things were better than other things but that is how it goes at nearly any restaurant.

The help were all very friendly and very professional.

I enjoyed the company, atmosphere and the professional service.

www.WrigleyMansion.com

The Forking Truth is that Every Thing is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.

The Forking Truth

Szechuan Cuisine Restaurant is a casual restaurant in Glendale that serves a mix of American/Chinese Favorites and Szechuan Cuisine. They offer two menus but many items offered are on both menus…..BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME…….when you order Kung Pao off the regular menu it’s Americanized…….and when you order it off the White Menu it’s Szechuan……Just Chicken and lots of heat………This is  not a fancy restaurant but it’s certified clean with a grade “A” health inspection at this time August 2018.

The food I tried last week was pretty darn interesting, especially the Casserole Style Chicken.

Casserole Style Chicken

This food was way better than other Chinese Food I tried in Glendale and so many other dishes were calling my name so I had to come back and try some other things.

We started with an unusual dish called Pork Juicy Dumplings.

This is a hard to find dish that even people in New York are looking for.

You don’t just eat the dumplings.

You give them a little dip in the ginger/soy sauce.

Then you bite a little hole in the top and suck out the soup.

Now you can eat them.

The dumpling wrapper is very delicate so I recommend diving in there before the soup leaks out.

We shared two dishes and one was Water Boil Style Fish. The owner Paul was very hesitant  about me ordering this dish. He didn’t know if I knew what it was. I assured him that I was familiar with water boil and told him a few places I tried water boil at. He felt very relieved when I mentioned Szechwan Palace because he told me that he opened Szechwan Palace and also the other Chinese Restaurant at the Cultural Center but left to open Szechuan Cuisine when the Cultural Center got sold.

This dish was a big jolt of fire and very mouth numbing. The heat becomes fun and isn’t painful. For some reason it makes you happy when you eat it. The fish was very tender and this dish also contained bean sprouts and cabbage.

The dish that we both enjoyed most on this visit was another “New to us Dish we never had before”……It was the Spicy Chicken Noodle. This dish has no description on the menu…I thought it might be a soup but it was more than that.

This dish contains tender chunks of chicken leg meat on the bone, potatoes, peppers and noodles in an aromatic spicy and mouth numbing sauce. This dish had much more going on with it than the Water Boil Dish. Don’t get the wrong idea….The Water Boil was good but this dish was Special….It was a Magical Bowl of Yumminess!!!!! They didn’t make this dish as fiery as the Water Boil but it had more flavors and sensations going on.  We both thought it was delicious….Everything tasted different…when I got to the onions for some reason they tasted extra sweet to me. We were told that you need to wait to eat the noodles last….so we did. If you wait maybe 20 minutes to eat the noodles they pick up all these great extra flavors……This dish was really Forking Good!…….Maybe the best Szechuan Dish we tried so far….

Last week we tried-

Grandma Salad

Chongqing Spicy Fish

Casserole Style Chicken

We know the owner a little better now and his name is Paul. He told us that he opened Szechuan Palace and another restaurant in the Cultural Center called Beijing House. He said he left and opened this restaurant when the Cultural Center got sold. Now that Paul knows us he said that he wants to order for us when we come back………This is sort of Deja vu…….The former restaurant owner of Lucky’s King Wah Hong Kong Cantonese Restaurant used to do that too…………..

I think it’s really GREAT that Szechuan Cuisine is in Glendale AZ!

This visit was even better! Worth a Fork!

Worth a Fork!

3rd and 4th visits did differ……

For my third visit the owner wanted to pick for me and my my husband. I thought he’d pick out special plates for us…

We received.

Americanized Jalapeño Chicken and Duck that was on the dry side…..oh well. I guess he meant well. The plates weren’t horrible but not great enough to recommend.

For our 4th visit we tried Sour Spicy Cabbage Salad and Kung Pao of the Authentic Chinese White Menu.

The Sour Spicy Cabbage Salad was good and was made with some Szechwan Peppercorns. The Kung Pao was on the mild side in a thick sweet sauce and was made without Szechwan peppercorns. I was displeased that I got an Americanized Kung Pao Chicken..that is not what I ordered but nobody checked on us so I didn’t say anything…..

Seems like communication is a problem here………

I didn’t find a website or Facebook page for Szechuan Cuisine so you just have to visit them at 5158 W.Olive Ave. in Glendale AZ -7 days a week Lunch and Dinner.

EVERY THING is subject to change and YOUR experience may or may NOT differ.

The Forking Truth

Confluence is an upscale casual restaurant in Carefree Arizona. They serve unique detailed elevated Modern Cuisine and quality big pour wines in a casual cozy environment. They offer comfortable  indoor seating and outdoor seating with mountain views.

I enjoyed an amazing dinner here last month and thought I had to run out and have lunch there since I read on Facebook that they had fresh snapper just flown in and made into a lunch special.

We stated out by sharing one of the vegetable plates called Cucumber.

Here’s an up close look.

There are four unusual kinds of cucumber in here.  One might have been lemon cucumber and another was super unusual and very much like an actual finger lime….. there also was radish, shiso (possibly micro shiso), miso, finger lime and sesame seeds, cashew and maybe a few other things as I thought I tasted lemon grass and serrano peppers too. This was very unusual, complex and most of all thrilling in the mouth with so many delicious harmonizing flavors going on in it ….As much as I really loved this dish ……….and I really did I just wish I got a little more finger lime in the parts I tasted…….because finger lime is so special. But don’t get me wrong this was a fabulous dish.

I know most people are not familiar with finger limes that are sometimes referred to as fruit caviar because they burst in your mouth similar to caviar. They are tiny citrus fruits of different colors and most from America look like the picture below. (Finger Limes are also grown in Australia and come many beautiful bright colors.) You squeeze the fruit caviar out to use them. I used to find them at a few AJ’s Fine Food Stores around Halloween time but usually you have to special order this fruit from California if you want them. I just LOVE LOVE LOVE them and had to order this salad when I read finger limes were in the Cucumber Dish.

I read on Confluence Facebook Page today that fresh flown in snapper was going to be a lunch special. I asked about it and I was told they didn’t have it today. Latter the owner comes to our table, apologized to me and said, due to bad weather it wasn’t available. They took the snapper off the Facebook Page and I went with something else. For my meal I tried the Halibut Tacos. I had my choice of side salad, house made chips or a $2.00 up-charge for their amazing fries…….(the fries are famous here and are really great!)………. but I thought they’d be too heavy with what I was having so I went with salad.)

I started with the salad. It had a few types of arugula and other greens. What stood out about the salad was the texture of the greens. They had a crispness about them that was super fresh and different…really super crisp. It really was the simplest of salad but was prepared in a masterful way. The Halibut Tacos are packed with crisp cabbage, grassy cilantro, really tasty lime pickled onions, piccolo de gallo, cream fraiche on flour tortillas with lime wedges. What’s best about this dish is how well the halibut was prepared. Halibut is an unforgiving fish that was prepared moist and perfect. It can be difficult to prepare a small piece of halibut to perfection. You all know me….I have to tell The Forking Truth (that’s my thing incase you are unfamiliar with my blog). The Tacos were GOOD but these were explosively drippy tacos.

My husband had the Prime Rib Sandwich.

The Prime Rib Sandwich was served on crusty baguette and was packed with a mix of rare and medium thinly sliced tender Prime Rib. A creamy ultra flavorful Horseradish-Tallegio sauce embellished the juicy meat. Pickled red onions cut threw all the richness and peppery arugula was the finishing touch to the sandwich. This sandwich is very well made and also well thought out with a lot going on. The sandwich also came with a crisp house made pickle and what seemed like oil free seasoned thin crisp potato chips.

We are full and I wasn’t planning on dessert but they felt bad for me reading about the snapper that wasn’t available so they surprised us with a Vanilla Creme Brûlée. They sure didn’t have to do that…….but it was mighty nice of them.

As you can clearly see that this is a very detailed Cream Brûlée. It had a nice hard sugar crust that’s embellished with carefully carved marinated fruit and also adorned with tender shortbread cookies. It was a nice sweet ending to an incredible lunch!

Last visit was an incredible dinner…..among the best I had this year.

herb focaccia

cured farm egg with faro

snapper with the crispest skin I ever had anywhere

duck

mousse

www.RestaurantConfluence.com

Worth a Fork!

Worth a Fork!

Everything is subject to change and your experience may or may not differ.

The Forking Truth