Tag Archives: #foodie

Bad and Disappointing Food I had in Metro Phoenix AZ Part 2

Leave a reply

During the pandemic I’ve been doing takeout instead of dining in because it’s less risky. Since I’ve been just doing take out I noticed that the food has been better in general. I usually get a few HORRIBLE dishes a few times a year. Outside of dry chicken a couple of times I really haven’t had any bad food. I’ve been more careful with my restaurant selections and mostly but not entirely go to restaurants that I know. Here is a collection of NOT ALL but some more of the BAD and or DISAPPOINTING foods I had in Metro Phoenix. My bad experiences might be humorous for you to see.

The crust taste burnt from this deep dish pizza restaurant. I waited around an hour for this to be served to me. They told me that they pre-bake the crust and these pizzas come out that way. WOW if I did that like this nobody would tell me to open a pizza restaurant.

Bad food can come from a food truck. The next one came from a food truck in Metro Phoenix.

The fried dough had a rancid taste and was suppose to be stuffed with corned beef. I think they used the deep fryer for frying not fresh but very old road kill.

The next one seemed like a culinary wonder after this.

This restaurant serves the most uninspired fajita salad I ever had with the worst salsa and chips I’ve ever tasted. Bagged chips and jarred salsas are superior to what I tasted. Not to mention that somebody dripped something with strawberry into one of the salsas on its way to me. I have no idea why this is a popular restaurant.

The next restaurant was very good when they opened. Unknown to me at the time the chef left and they must have let the dishwasher take a shot at cooking for them.

Smelly tasting fish topped with lots of raw tomato paste and served with two styles of splats of blended corn.

That wasn’t the only bad dish.

Below are the gooiest pierogi in the world.

This restaurant went out of business shorty after this.

This steak was so chewy that I didn’t even bring it home for my dogs. I was able to eat the potato cakes but something was wrong with them and that side of pond slim on the plate was disgusting. This upset me so much I didn’t eat any beef for a year.

Last week I gave you the worst taco I ever was served so here is the 2nd worst taco I ever tasted.

The 2nd worst taco I ever tasted came from the 2019 Taco Festival. This taco wasn’t just salty but it tasted like it was made with 50% salt. Some poor boob must of accidentally dropped a container of salt into the taco mix and said oh well. This was so salty I thought I was going to turn into a pillar of salt. I spit this out so I wouldn’t get sick.

You know of lava cakes?….. well the French name for lava cake is fondant. Well these people served me a Fon-DON’T

The chef from this restaurant didn’t put a molten filling in this thing. He gave me a lump of solid frosting. Who wants a solid lump of frosting? It seemed like someone besides the chef wrote the menu for this restaurant without training the person in charge of cooking. Although this was a promising restaurant that did serve some delicious dishes this restaurant has closed for business)

This next one came from a well known Asian Restaurant.

Guess I hit them on an off day. The dumpling were soggy and falling apart.

This comes from another well known restaurant. It was made special to look like vomit for me.

EVERYTHING was HORRIBLE from this Meditertanean Restaurant that is out of business now.

They served me falafels that I almost broke my teeth on because the chick peas weren’t cooked and were hard as rocks in them. The shawarma tasted like it was grilled chicken baloney and all these goodies came with a decomposing pickle.

I enjoyed lunch a few times at a well known Italian Restaurant so I thought I’d enjoy dinner there…..Well I was wrong again.

My dinner was overcooked and my vegetables that came with my dinner seemed like they were over cooked many times for like maybe two weeks.

I heard about a fish fry restaurant and wanted to give it a try.

The owner seemed very nice and was very conversational. But WOW EVERYTHING WAS AWFUL. It seemed like it was a combination of poor cooking skills mixed with restaurant equipment failure. The macaroni was gooey and cheese seemed water downed. The sweet potatoes seemed old. The tarter sauce was thinned down…..but the fish……was FREEZER BURNT. It’s was like eating crunchy astronaut dehydrated fish. My husbands plate had similar and different problems. After we tried everything and everything was horrible we threw it all out in the trash. This place is still in business so there is a possibility that she improved the food she serves there.

This next one was very disappointing from a restaurant that was newly opened at the time.

On the left was suppose to be corn and jicama slaw. There wasn’t any corn or jicama in the slaw so that was disappointing. The sandwich was also disappointing. Besides being impossible to eat as a sandwich the white sauce was suppose to be green curry coconut that sounds very good but it was just a tangy loose white liquid. I did mention these things to the manager before I was about to write about them. They told me not to criticize them because they were busier than expected and newly opened. I just told them that if someone told me that they might be out of a few things then I would be alright and know what to expect. That’s fair shouldn’t a paying customer know what to expect? Later the owner said nasty things to me on line and told me never to go to his restaurants again. A few weeks later he sent me another email that just read – You Suck!

Anyways-

Over cooked and over salted fish can happen at one of the finest restaurants in Phoenix. (but the rest of the meals were excellent)

Sometimes desserts can be horrifying. It really upsets me when desserts have foreign objects in them that I have to spit out.

I complained about this and the waiter told me it was part of the dessert. (jerk)

I went to a certain Filipino restaurant where I enjoyed the meal so we splurged for dessert. My fork couldn’t penetrate the dessert because it was hard as a rock. It took my husband a long time but he finally busted it apart with his hands.

The owner said nothing was wrong with his dessert. He said if I heated it up it would turn soft. WOW! I didn’t know that I should bring my own oven to heat up his hard as rock desserts.

*****THE I ALREADY ATE PLATE******

Sometimes food can be disappointing because they serve you “The I already ate plate” I do note that this wasn’t a tasting menu for lunch…….This was a regular lunch entree.

This was my $16.00 lunch salad that came from a restaurant that is out of business. (and WTFork did they do with the other half of the egg?….I was still hungry and could have used it)

******THE I ALREADY ATE PLATE********

Here’s another “I already ate plate” The food was very good from this restaurant but this is not a tasting restaurant.

This restaurant is also closed for business.

This last one is a bonus extra and was something my husband had somewhere in metro Phoenix at one of the places I showed you bad food from last week.

It might be the WORST crispy chicken sandwich in Metro Phoenix. They sure don’t give a cluck about what they served there. My husband said the cheese was a mix of hard and melted. Chicken seemed like processed and prepared over done in a microwave because of the rock hard texture and the blown out chicken middles.

Well those were only some of the bad and disappointing foods Part 2 from Metro Phoenix Restaurants.

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

The Forking Truth

Easy No Measure Basic Salsa Verde Recipe

Leave a reply

There are all kinds of salsa verde recipes out there. The Mexican Style Salsa Verde made with tomatillos is very popular. Other salsa verde recipes are basically herb sauces. My favorite salsa verde recipe that I’ve come across is the chef Richard Blais recipe for salsa verde. I’ve discovered that now I’m making salsa verde semi regularly. It’s so delicious and goes so well with just about any protein. The other reason why I’m making it so often is because it’s a great delicious way to use up your fresh herbs so they don’t go to waste.

Below is a picture of what I put in my no measure salsa verde.

In the orange colander is all my leftover tarragon, lots of parsley leaves, scallions and a little cilantro. (tarragon is really delicious in salsa verde………)

You need a chopped up hot green or yellow pepper ….I like using my own pickled hot peppers (the pickled adds something and it helps make the sauce stay fresh.

You need something sweet I used honey because it is a preservative.

You need fresh squeezed lemon.

You need olive oil

capers are very good in salsa verde.

Depending one how it taste you might need salt.

Maybe you might use a small amount of water to thin the sauce.

It comes out amazing all the time. You can play around with the sauce. Maybe add something like almonds for a different taste. Richard Blais uses golden raisins for sweetness and also uses anchovies for depth and salt flavor.

Easy No Measure Basic Salsa Verde

This taste amazing on most proteins.

Enjoy!

The Forking Truth

27 Fish Take Out Dishes We Took Out in Metro Phoenix AZ in 2020 so far

Leave a reply

Unless I make a trip to Nelsons or Chula Seafood it is hard for me to buy fresh fish. I have purchased inedible fish from Frys, Safeway and Costco. I have paid top dollar from AJ’s Fine Foods and got less than fresh. For those reasons I mostly gave up preparing fish at home and enjoy eating fish out or taking it home these days. The dishes below are not in any particular order. Here are some of the fish dishes I took out from restaurants since around March 2020.

On the right is the grilled salmon from Cucina Tagliani in Glendale/Arrowhead/#UpperWestSide. It’s a good size portion that is prepared reasonably well and I like that you can have healthy options like double vegetables instead of pasta. I had spaghetti squash and asparagus. My husband had a shrimp and pasta dish that night.

The best tacos near to my house are from Taco Fusion on Glendale. My favorite taco from them is the mild habanero chicken taco with pineapple salsa but all their tacos are good. They even use hand made tortillas. On the right is their fish taco. Doesn’t taste like a fish taco from Mexico but it is a good taco and is better than most fish tacos I try out . My husband says that the shrimp tacos here are really great so I’ll take his word for it.

Everything from Confluence in Carefree is extraordinary!

These are the halibut lunch tacos from Confluence. Nobody prepares fish as masterfully as from Confluence. The crispy skin on fish actually can taste good and stays crisp from beginning to end. Even the finest restaurants anywhere can’t do that as well. If you like to eat fish than you must take the splurge and try one of their fish dinners.

You can even get fish from Rocket Burger in North Phoenix.

On the left is a double cheese burger with a really big fried chili pepper but on the right is their super tasty Mexican Fish Sandwich. It’s delicious I have to have one once in a while. The slaw and rocket sauce are so darn tasty that you can slap it on a hamster and the hamster would taste good.

I would say among the top fish take outs was from Twist Bistro and Gallery in North Scottsdale.

I had the Salmon dish twice. It was really great both times. Very few restaurants in metro Phoenix prepares salmon this well. My husband is just as found of their Shrimp Diablo dish below.

Aiello’s Italian Restaurant in Phoenix offers three course dinners with a bottle of wine and a candle for ($50.&$65.)

I got a generous pan of salmon with artichokes and a tasty potato croquette. The other dishes were tasty too!

In Peoria (#UpperWestSide) is the Twisted Italian and they offer a Friday Night Walleye Special. (It’s that BIG PAN on the left in the picture below.)

It’s more food than a human can eat and I tried to order it a few weeks before and it was sold out. Now I know why.

I also got a salmon salad from Chula Seafood in Phoenix.

It was prepared well and everything was fresh. My husband got some sort of grilled tuna sandwich that day.

Below was our take out from Vincents Market Bistro in Phoenix.

To be honest (like I always am) I didn’t order the salmon dinner but wound up with it. When we called them to let them know of the mix up they quickly took care of things. VMB has been a long time favorite of mine and I have enjoyed dining in here for a decade or so now. Dining in they always give you delicious fresh baked croissants and some of the best desserts in town.

Below is the really great Halibut from Fabio On Fire in Peoria #UpperWestSide.

The halibut was cooked to perfection and also was a large portion that came with fancy vegetables in a delicious sauce. This was really great!

We did take out from Wally’s American Gastropub in Scottsdale.

My husband said the meatloaf from here is really great. I liked the healthier grilled salmon with tomatoes and really tasty cauliflower. It was filling but light enough to add on one of their really delicious slices of pie.

FnB in the arts district of Scottsdale usually offers delicious wood grilled seafood.

Upper left hand corner is the Blue Nose with Citrus and Couscous

One of the plates to get from Scott’s Generations Restaurant and Delicatessen is the fish plate supreme (middle). It’s suppose to serve one person but I always get three servings from it.

It think it’s kind of special because you get to pick three kinds of fish for it. One fish I always pick is the smoked sturgeon because it cost around $40 a pound and you seldom find it anywhere. They offer belly and nova lox. (Belly is better but sometimes it runs too salty) and then I pick something like white fish too. I think it’s fun to get once in a while.

Banh Mi Bistro Vietnamese Eatery in North Phoenix offers a few fish dishes. Bellow is the middle is the Lotus root salad.

I think it only cost $5.00 and comes with shrimp.

Nayana Japanese Kitchen recently opened in the Arcadia Area of Phoenix,

On the left side of the picture is a spicy tuna roll and the very tasty salmon yuanyaki.

Below is the amazing house smoked salmon from the Barrio Cafe in Phoenix (Lower Left)

WOW! it was all so delicious! YUM!

From Szechwan Cuisine in Glendale (on the left) I tried the fish with fungus in egg white sauce.

In the middle my husband tried the kung pao shrimp.

Also in Glendale we did take out from Taylor’s Chowder House.

On the left my husband got the dish that is called 2 plus 2 (2 cod 2 shrimp) and I got the Sole Florentine. They were very generous with the potatoes and fish in the 2+2. I like that they serve vegetables with the dishes.

We even did take out by Old Town Scottsdale and did take out from Starlite BBQ.

I tried the Hot Fried Catfish there and it was very good!

Went back to Twist Bistro and Gallery in North Scottsdale.

The Grilled Hawaiian Opah Special was really good! (and so was everything else!) That beef sandwich and Moroccan Vegetable soup were really great too!

We did take out from a really special Thai Restaurant in Phoenix called Glai Baan.

On the left corner is their famous Mackerel fried rice. Everything was really great!

Stratta Kitchen recently opened in Scottsdale. I had another one of the best salmons there.

On the left is the mistral salad with added salmon. WOW this was a really great salad and a spectacular salmon. This was really special.

Those were 27 fish dishes we took out in Metro Phoenix so far in 2020.

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

The Forking Truth

Take Out During The CoronaVirus Pandemic in Metro Phoenix AZ Week 22 – Taco Fusion, La Piazza Al Forno, CHZBURGR, Aiello’s East Coast Italian, Chino Bandido

Leave a reply

All restaurants are struggling these days. ABC News reported that 16,000 restaurants across the country have permanently closed after temporally closing from the pandemic as of July 25 2020. We LOVE going out to eat so we are giving as much support to independent restaurants as we can. Take out dining is less risky than dining in during a pandemic so we do take out instead of dine in.

Our first take out of the week was from Taco Fusion in Glendale.

They serve a good variety of mesquite style tacos on hand made tortillas. They are smaller sized tacos that are a little bigger than street sized and are stuffed more than street tacos. Today I got a carne asada on flour, a mild habanero chicken on flour and the fish on corn tortilla. They are all so delicious! I very rarely like carne asada because it’s usually not tender enough and doesn’t have enough flavor but the carne asada is much better here than from many other places and the tortillas either flour or corn ALSO taste better than from most places. I also enjoy their fish taco on corn….but my favorite is the mild habanero chicken taco with pineapple salsa. I’ve had a lot of chicken tacos from many places and also Mexico. The mild chicken habanero taco is really great. My husband had several tacos that were different than what I ordered and his favorites are the different asada tacos and his other favorite is the shrimp taco. He said they do shrimp better than from most places. The only thing that is difficult is asking for the salsas because you don’t know what they have. I saved some meat for the dogs and they were very excited to try some.

Next was La Piazza Al Forno in Old Town Glendale. They offer certified Neapolitan pizzas and the popular in Italy Roman type pizza. So we got one of each, a salad and their amazing cheese cake for latter.

WOW it smells really great! The basil is very aromatic. We start with some salad. Then we dig into the pizzas. They are both really great pizzas made with house made mozzarella that is really great and the certified San Marzano Tomatoes. The Roman Style Pizza is unique and the dough is thick but very light because it’s mostly air and looks sort of like a sponge. Saving the cheese cake for latter. I always share some food afterwards with the dogs.

CHZBURGR is a small casual restaurant that serves extremely good flat style burgers, outrageously GREAT chicken sandwiches, all beef hot dogs, milk shakes and more. I wasn’t planning on coming this week because I came here last week but when I heard about the crispy boneless chicken leg special sandwich I had to try it.

One the left is the triple cheese burger my husband loves. On the right is a crispy boneless chicken LEG with chipotle honey, house made pickles, asadero cheese and green leaf lettuce. WOW! another great sandwich from CHZBURGR! Of course my dogs wanted to try some.

We also did take out from Aiello’s East Coast Italian.

The food all looks great! They got mixed up there and gave me someone else’s dinner. We called to let them know and something was worked out. I don’t eat veal but I enjoyed the cannoli. My dogs were very happy with the result.

Our last take out of the week was curbside pick up from Chino Bandido in North Phoenix. This is a popular mishmash restaurant of sort of Asian, Mexican and Caribbean Inspired creations. Food Network figured out that you can order around 90,000 different combinations here. You get a big pan of food that comes with complimentary snickerdoodle cookies and the combination pans start at less than $10.00 each and might be more than one meal for some people. This is better than fast food and priced cheaper than fast food.

I got the chile relleno, emerald chicken, white rice and black beans. My husband got a carnitas quesadilla, matchacha beef, white rice and refried beans. We had plenty to share with the dogs.

“Don’t worry we are in this thing together and are here to help you eat all this delicious food”

The restaurants we did take out from on week 22 –

Taco Fusion – Glendale

La Piazza Al Forno – Old Town Glendale

CHZBURGR – Glendale

Chino Bandido – North Phoenix

Aiello’s East Coast Italian – Phoenix

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

The Forking Truth

Moroccan Spiced Beets Recipe (www.BBCGoodFood.com Moroccan Spice Rub Recipe)

Leave a reply

I had some beets and wanted to do something new and different with them. I was thinking about Moroccan Food so I looked up recipes for Moroccan Spice Rub. WOW all the recipes I found are so different. The only common ingredients in most of the recipes were ginger, cinnamon and coriander. Other than that they differed greatly. So I picked one that sounded the most delicious for beets. It is from www.BBCGoodFood.com for Moroccan Spice Rub. Well I picked a great one because these beets came out amazing! I served the beets with pickled onions, olives, gooseberries, feta cheese, urfa pepper and fresh mint so it was delicious. This recipe is only for the beets but you can easily put it together in a similar way. I do note that my idea of serving size might differ from your idea of serving size. This makes around 8 small servings.

Ingredients for around 8 servings

2 lbs beets – peeled and cut in any shape you like

water to almost cover beets in pan

1 teaspoon ground cumin

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon sea salt

3/4 teaspoon ground black pepper (I rounded up to 1 teaspoon and it came out a bit spicy)

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon coriander

1/2 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

optional pickled onions to taste (recipe can be found on this site)

optional olives to taste

optional gooseberries to taste (apricots or other fruit would work)

optional feta cheese to taste

optional urfa pepper (taste really great on the feta cheese)

optional fresh mint to taste

Directions

Set oven to 400 degrees F.

Your peeled cut up beets go in a loaf shaped pan. Then I poured all the spices on top of the beets. The cumin, ginger, salt, black pepper, cinnamon, coriander, cayenne, allspice and cloves. Then I added enough water to almost cover beets. The pan gets covered tight and goes in the middle of the oven till beets are tender. Around 45 minutes to an hour. Timing will differ because all ovens differ and beets differ depending on size and freshness.

When ready to use drain beets and suggested serving is pickled onions, olives, gooseberries, feta cheese, urfa pepper and fresh mint.

Moroccan spiced beets

Most people will enjoy this! Even my husband enjoyed them and he isn’t a fan of beets!

The Forking Truth

Roasted Choyote Squash with Golden Raisins Coconut and Almonds in Pomegranate Cocoa Vinaigrette

Leave a reply

Choyote squash is different than the other squashes that I know of out there. This one is crisp when it’s raw almost like an apple. When you cook this squash it’s slightly sweet with little flavor. I picked up one choyote squash not knowing what I’d do with it. It just so happened that maybe the next day I came across local chef Tandy Peterson’s recipe for Cocoa Pomegranate Vinaigrette recipe in a Phoenix Home and Garden Magizine. Instantly I thought her vinaigrette or a similar vinaigrette would be great with Choyote Squash. After I read her recipe I figured I’d have to make a similar but different recipe because I didn’t want to use a whole cup of oil and I didn’t have pomegranate juice at home. Instead I used only one tablespoons of oil, some dijon mustard and a few spices that Tandy doesn’t have in her recipe like smoked paprika and cinnamon. My recipe is an inspiration of Tandy’s recipe and is meant to give flavor to the squash with less fat. Tandy’s recipe is a true vinaigrette recipe. You might prefer to do Tandy’s Cocoa Pomegranate Vinaigrette – 1 t. minced shallots, 2 T. pomegranate molasses, 3 T. pomegranate juice, 3 T. apple cider vinegar, 1 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1 t. cocoa powder, 1 pinch cayenne, 1 teaspoon salt. Just shake it up in a mason jar till it’s done. Below is the recipe for Roasted Choyote Squash with Golden Raisins, Toasted Coconut, Toasted Almonds, Scallions in Pomegranate Cocoa Vinaigrette. I did make it a 2nd time and I really enjoyed it more with a little charred cabbage added so that isn’t in this recipe buy it’s something you might want to add.

Ingredients for around 2 servings

1 choyote squash – washed well – cut in rough chunks or cubes – cut around the pit

drizzle olive oil

fresh ground sea salt to taste

fresh ground black pepper to taste

2 Tablespoons unsweetened coconut flakes – toasted at 300 degrees F till brown- (maybe 5 minutes)

12 almonds – crushed – toasted at 300 degrees F (maybe 6-7 minutes)

1 Tablespoon golden raisins

1 scallion – chopped

1/2 teaspoon shallots – minced

1 Tablespoon pomegranate molasses

1 Tablespoon + 1 1/2 teaspoon apple cider vinegar

1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

1 1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon cocoa powder

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

1/8 teaspoon smoked paprika

pinch cinnamon

pinch sea salt

Directions

Set the oven to 425 degrees F

Put the squash on a small baking sheet and lightly drizzle with oil. The squash stay in till slightly brown on a middle rack in the oven. Mine took about 20 minutes but timing may differ.

While the squash is roasting make the vinaigrette.

In a small mixing bowl ass the shallots, pomegranate molasses, apple cider vinegar, olive oil, dijon, cocoa powder, cayenne, smoked paprika, cinnamon and salt. Mix till emulsified and the golden raisins and let it sit.

As soon as you take the squash out of the oven hit them with fresh ground salt and pepper to taste. If you didn’t toast the coconut and almonds do that now and lower the oven temp to 300 degrees F. The coconut toast really fast like in 5 minutes and the almonds only take a couple minutes more. When ready to serve toss the squash in the vinaigrette and top with the toasted coconut, almonds and scallions.

Roasted Choyote Squash with Golden Raisins Coconut & Almonds in Pomegranate Cocoa Vinaigrette

A SPECIAL THANKS to Chef Tandy Peterson!!!! For sharing her recipe for Cocoa Pomegranate Vinaigrette. I think similar flavors go really well with Choyote Squash Golden raisins, coconut and almonds. Actually I made this a second time and it was even better when I added some charred green cabbage to the Choyote Squash.

The Forking Truth

Forking AWESOME Mexican Inspired Marinated Chicken Breast Recipe

Leave a reply

Safeway has had some pretty good buys on chicken breast recently so I’ve been busy making lots of different dishes with chicken breast. Today I played around with a Mexican tasting marinade for chicken breast. WOW DID IT COME OUT FORKING GREAT! It is NOT a traditional Mexican marinade but the flavors swing that way. I then pan seared the breast and they were full of juice and flavors. The outside I forgot to write down exactly what I put in my dusting mix but it was a LIGHT DUSTING of masa flour (VERY LIGHT) that was mixed with salt, pepper and Emerils’ recipe for Bam (a cajun seasoning) I just pan seared the chicken in a regular fry pan that I sprayed with non stick canola oil.

recipe for up to 2 pound of skinless boneless chicken breast

2 pounds chicken breast – skinless, boneless, pounded some, butterflied and cut in reasonable sizes – room temperature

4 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 large garlic cloves – ground to paste

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper

1/4 teaspoon dried oregano

1/4 teaspoon ground cumin

1/4 teaspoon ground annatto

1/4 teaspoon coriander

1/4 teaspoon chipotle powder (I buy at Sprouts)

non stick spray

Directions

In a gallon ziplock bag add everything but the chicken first and squish the bag so the liquid is mixed. Then add the chicken and squish it around till the chicken looks all coated. Leave this sit on the counter and squish it around a few times during the hour.

Get your fry pan on medium high heat with non stick spray.

Take maybe a 1/3 of the chicken from the bag and blot them off with paper towels. Season the chicken on both sides LIGHTLY with a seasoned masa flour dust.

Timing will differ but put the chicken in the pan and don’t crowd it too much. Cook the chicken till it looks half way cooked on one side and then flip the chicken over to finish the other side. Timing will differ but with my stovetop and my pan mine took around 5 minutes on one side and around 4 minutes on the other side.

Place either on a cooling rack with a liner or a pan that is lined with paper towels.

Repeat till alll the chicken is cooked.

Serve with fresh cilantro, lime, pickled onions and other vegetables.

Forking AWESOME Mexican Inspired Marinated Chicken Breast

Everyone will love this!

The Forking Truth

FORKING FUNNY IMAGINARY Foods Out There on the Internet

Leave a reply

Since the pandemic I’ve been researching food more on the internet. I’ve found many imaginary food products that seem amusing. I think a few I found might actually be for real but the majority and part of someones imagination. I found many odd flavors for Oreo Cookies. Up above are McDonalds Cheeseburger Cookies. Can’t you mustard that?

Next are Spam Oreos made with 100% Spam that you might want to pig out on.

They even have the U kosher mark on the package (lol)

How about-

Limited Edition College Flavor Oreos made with pot and ramen.

Or maybe Limited Edition Zombie Brains is more your thing?

They are artificially flavored with Blood Orange.

Lets move on to something different but also weird.

Tastes Like Grandma – Homemade Black Raspberry Jam……Sounds like someone was licking up grandma……

Then there is Fuke brand ??? Not sure what this is suppose to be? Is it meat shredded by a child? Is it meat for children? Or is it bottled meat from children?

The next one is “R” rated.

Grace Brand Cock flavored soup….It looks real? …Maybe it’s male chicken soup?……Don’t know if it is?

I heard of monkey bread…but this is not that.

Roasted Monkey Nuts……Product of China…. (eat before December 23 2010….LOL…OLD NUTS)

Next is 100% “HAND” Reared Pork.

Pinky’s Sausages….Can you handle this?

How about some Limited Edition Pop-Tarts?

But just the crust?…….

Maybe potato chips are more your thing?

Lay’s Sour Milk Potato Chips…That might taste something like sour cream, yogurt or buttermilk?

Maybe some Fagottini?

???

Found another Oreo Cookie!

Nabisco GOreo made with blood cookies that are artificially flavored.

Well that is some of the Forking Funny (mostly) IMAGINARY Foods Out There on the Internet.

The Forking Truth

Old Bay Beer Battered Lobster Mushrooms and Onion Rings with Anchovy Caper Sauce Recipe

Leave a reply

I got these lobster mushrooms so I knew that I had to do something special with them. Lobster mushrooms are different from other mushrooms and do have a faint seafood taste. I thought seafood and that is how I came up with Old Bay Beer Batter and Caper Sauce. They came out delicious but I made about twice as much batter as I needed so I also battered onion rings and a couple small heirloom tomatoes. My idea of serving size might differ from your idea of serving size. For us this made 8 small servings. I used almost a half a pound of lobster mushrooms and one large onion. (I am guessing around a total of 8 servings) I do note that reheated servings did become crisp again when reheated in the oven.

Ingredients for around 8 servings

canola or vegetable oil to fry with (about thumbs length in pot)

1 can beer (I used almost the whole can….the amount of liquid will differ slightly depending on the flour you use)

1 cup flour

1 egg – beaten

1 Tablespoon Old Bay Seasoning – plus extra to dust afterwards

1/2 lb lobster mushrooms cut in strips

1 large onion – thick slices for rings

6 anchovies

1 Tablespoon anchovy oil from can or bottle

2 Tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 lemon – just the fresh squeezed juice

1 garlic clove – ground to paste

1 teaspoon capers

1/4 cup parsley leaves

Directions

Make sauce. Blend together the anchovies, oils, lemon juice, garlic and parsley. Set to the side.

Line a pan or two with paper towels for your fried food.

Get your sauce pot for frying. Fill about a thumbs length with oil. Set it on medium high. Once hot turn down around medium. When oil is ready make the batter. In a big bowl add the flour and old bay seasoning. then add beer and egg and mix well. Do a sample piece first before you fry all of them so you can adjust the flour and beer ratio. It will be very hot so be careful. When you are happy with it drop some mushrooms into the batter and coat them. Shake off excess batter and BE CAREFUL. Use tongs to drop them in the oil. They get done really fast but need to be turned over to brown on both sides. Do the same with the onion rings. Dust lightly with more Old Bay Seasoning. Serve.

Old Bay Beer Battered Lobster Mushrooms and Onion Rings with Anchovy Caper Sauce

Everyone will love this.

The Forking Truth

My Four Take Outs from Twist Bistro and Gallery in North Scottsdale AZ

Leave a reply

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.

The Forking Truth