Posts Tagged ‘desserts’
Too much serious talk lately. Let’s lighten things up by talking about food. I’ve been eating good lately. Maybe a little too good. I don’t want to step on that scale until I fast and exercise some! I cooked some chicken breasts on the grill the other day. Also grilled some poblanos, tomatillos and onion to make a green sauce. Fill ed up some corn tortillas, topped it with Cotija cheese, fresh chopped cilantro and it was great. Had lobster tail for dinner on our 33rd wedding anniversary. Traditional meal with baked potato, asparagus and melted butter. Had a Wedge Salad before that. Wedge of iceberg lettuce, bacon, blue cheese dressing, tomato and a little red onion. Very tasty. Took the leftover lobster and chopped it up and mixed it with my version of elote. I grilled some corn on the cob. Cut off the kernels. Mixed it with some lime juice, mayo, cilantro pesto, and Cotija cheese. Added a little celery and some chopped up grilled veggies from the other nigh. Stuffed it all in a corn tortilla and loved it! I had a hankering for turtles (the candy not the soup) the other night. Made some caramel sauce, chilled it, put it over chopped walnuts, topped that with chocolate ganache, chilled it and they were delicious! But the caramel ran if I didn’t keep them chilled. So, a couple nights later, I made ice cream added the chopped up turtles to it and man, was that great! It was great. Went over to a neighbors house for dinner. He made pork tenderloin three ways, had sweet potatoes with pistachios, a very al dente green been salad, and a Jezebel sauce. Somebody else brought Chicken Liver Pate for appetizer and I brought Crepes Suzette for dessert. There was also Angel Food cake cupcakes with Raspberry cream frosting.
Again, been living it up too good lately. Time to fast and exercise, and then, get on the scale!
Fork in the Road Bistro in the Village of Oak Creek (Sedona, Az.) is a great place for dinner, tapas and happy hour. Check out their website at www.forkintheroadbistro.com My wife and I have eaten there plenty of times. We had a friend visiting from Chicago and took him to dinner there. It was a Thursday night and the place was not crowded at all. Lots of people in the bar though. Happy hour! It was freezing and breezy in the dining room, which I like. My wife and friend would have sat outside, but they gave the inside a try for me. My wife had to put one of the pillows that were on the bench seat over her shoulder to keep the cold draft off her, but I was in heaven!
We ordered glasses of wine and a couple of appetizers. I always get the Smoked Salmon Quesadilla and my friend ordered the Onion Soup. I love the Smoked Salmon on top of the crispy tortilla with creme fraiche and fresh dill. With a squeeze of lemon to brighten the flavors, its perfect! My friend thoroughly enjoyed the Onion Soup.
Our three entree selections included the Turkey plate, Pork Chop and what they call their Fish and Chips. My friend loves Turkey and was very satisfied with what he got. Not your typical Thanksgiving Dinner, but good to the last drop! My wife’s Pork Chop was huge and perfectly cooked. We enjoyed the leftovers for two additional meals! My Fish and Chips featured Walleyed Pike as the fish and was good as a fish entree, but I wouldn’t call it Fish and Chips though. Nothing was crispy like what you would get out of a deep fat fryer, which is where traditional fish and chips are cooked. The Walleyed Pike was maybe pan fried and tasty. The thick Lincoln Logs of French Fries were cooked through, but again not crispy or crunchy. The slaw was great as was the sauce. Again, everything was great, I ate it all, but call it Walleyed Pike with Slaw and Potato Sticks or something. Fish and Chips it is not.
Now for dessert. My friend ordered the cobbler with seasonal berries. My wife and I were going to split a dessert and I was torn between the Creme Brulee and Chocolate Mousse. Since I had the Creme Brulee the last few times, I went with the Chocolate Mousse. When the desserts were put down in front of us, we all laughed (to our waitress’s confusion). A huge cobbler was put down in front of my friend and the tiniest of Chocolate Mousse servings was put down in front of my wife and I to share. It was a quinelle of mousse. You take two tablespoons and form a nice football shaped piece of chocolate mousse and put it on a plate of spider webed chocolate sauce, orange peel confit and one small strawberry with a dollop of whipped cream. Nice presentation, but short on quantity. My friend’s cobbler was made with apples. I did not know that apples were classified as berries? I must have missed that memo. But he enjoyed it and ate all of it. Needless to say, my wife and I ate all of our Chocolate Mousse.
Fork in the Road has good, quality food. As long as you’re having fun and can be flexible, everybody wins!
My wife and I met 2 couples in the Home Depot parking lot to go to the Walk on Main Street event in Cottonwood. I got to Home Depot early and was sampling the fare from the food vendor that’s set up just outside the store. It was pretty good. Then my friends showed up and we had to leave. We had a great time at the Walk on Mainstreet event which included wine tastings from 6 local wineries, live music, a car show and art vendors. After wards we were trying to decide where to go for lunch. My thoughts were with the vendor outside Home Depot but most wanted to go to Page Springs Restaurant.
So, off we went. Page Springs Restaurant has been in the family since 1974 and its been around long before that! Now the family did sell it a while back. But those owners went belly up and its now back in the original owners hands. So they’re back to doing good and I think they’re going to be around for a long time (unless they sell it again!). We were given lunch menus, but other people at the table knew about things that weren’t on the menu. One of them was the pork ribs. So, I ordered the pork ribs as did two others. Another person ordered the steak sandwich, another ordered the Page Springs Special (a ham, beef and cheese sandwich) and the final order was for a Green Chili Burger. The rib dinners got salads with their entrees. One person ordered the broccoli cheddar soup.Three ice teas, one coke, one water and one beer. A slice of peanut butter cheesecake for dessert. Everything was great. The bill was $93, so with a 20% tip that’s $111 for 6 people and that’s almost $20 per person. For lunch. Wooo! I don’t know about you, but that is not a happy meal!
I figured if we ate at Home Depot, the bill would have been around $50 and would have been every bit as good. Value equals a good price for what you get and nowadays that’s more important than ever. Page Springs Restaurant has a nice view over Page Spring, its in a nice building that’s homey and comfortable, there’s waitresses and bartenders. You gotta pay for all that. So the prices have to be up there. It may not sound exotic, but the next time I’ve got a hankering for ribs I’m going to try the guy by the Home Depot for those Ribs and Pulled Pork, Beef Brisket, Hamburgers and Hot Dogs! When I do, I’ll write a review and let you know how that was!
If you’re looking for more than just eating at a restaurant, there’s always something going on at the Marketplace Hollywood Cafe in the Village of Oak Creek.
Opened in 1997 by Jeff and Michele Moore, both with a background in the film and television industry, Jeff as a prop master and Michele as a make-up artist, the couple used their collection of film and television memorabilia to decorate their restaurant in a Hollywood theme.
The restaurant offers special dinners, buffets for the holidays, group parties, Oscar parties, etc. The Hollywood decor is great and it’s always interesting when there’s live music or a special event happening.
One word sums it up: “Fun!” Although lunch is pretty much just lunch. The memorabilia is great. I like reading about the Twin Peaks stuff and just looking at the old posters can keep your mind going full tilt until the food arrives.
The lunch entrees consist mainly of burgers, BBQ sandwiches and ribs, fish, beef, and chicken sandwiches, pizzas, wraps and salads. For an appetizer there’s calamari, onion rings, and fries, to name a few. Entree prices are generally in the $10-$15 area, and the appetizer prices generally range from $6 – $10.
Include steaks, chops, fish, and Mexican food, a wide assortment of margaritas, martinis and wine; and add $5-$10 dollars and you get an idea of what the dinner menu is like.
MPC says it is revamping its menu to include healthier choices like vegetarian, organic, and negative calorie foods.
My wife and I go in there for lunch on one of your typical middle of the week, nothing going on, a typical lunch shift. It’s still a nice place to go in even if there’s no special event happening. Just look at all the movie posters hanging on the walls. A little eye candy to keep things interesting. The staff was very nice, friendly and very attentive. There were other customers, so some people watching too.
I ordered onion rings to split with my wife as an appetizer.
The onion rings came out first. Really thin cut, breaded of course. Our waitress assured us we were going to love them. Well, we liked them. We ate all of them. The onions rings come with either ranch dressing or cocktail sauce. I asked for ranch and got two dressing containers; way too much dressing for the amount of onion rings you get.
At $6 for an order of onion rings I was waiting for a big, gigantic, blooming onion. That didn’t happen. We got a small paper container of onion rings. They tasted good and dipping them in the ranch dressing was good too.
When I think about it, I’d rather get large onion rings, batter dipped and deep fried, the kind that you can take one at a time, dip and eat without too much fuss. These were kind of a pain to grab and eat, a big clump of them were stuck together, crumbs flying everywhere. But they were good!
For the main course, my wife got her Chicken Sandwich. It was the Apache with bacon, BBQ sauce and Swiss cheese. The bun was a beautiful Ciabatta roll and the sandwich was tasty. It would have been a good choice for a hungry guy. For me that would have been a great, filling, tasty sandwich that I would have had no problems paying $11.95 for, almost.
I ordered the Catfish and Chips. Lots of food. And it was good. They called this tempura battered, but I didn’t get it. Tempura usually means some kind of liquidy batter that kind of puffs up while you’re deep frying it. This just seemed to be breaded catfish pieces. But it was good. The tartar sauce was good and the fries were hot and crispy. The cole slaw was very good. The hint of cilantro in there is perfect. Great cole slaw.
I wanted to order some type of entree dish, but there is nothing like Chicken Marsala, Veal Piccata or a breaded pork chop with mashed potatoes and gravy on the lunch menu.
Overall, this was the best quality lunch I’ve had in Sedona (Village of Oak Creek) in a while. But this lunch, with tip, cost over $40 for two people.
When you have 4 million tourists going through town a year (in the good old days), with many of them never coming back, this might be an okay approach to pricing. But if you want locals to come back again and again, it’s not going to work. But that’s why Michele has a rewards card and offers many discounts. All you have to do is look in the paper, or sign up for emails.
And you can’t beat Wineaux Wednesdays! A free wine tasting and complimentary appetizers from 5 to 7pm. Its fantastic! Plus all the live music happening from Wednesday through Saturday usually starting around 6:30 or 7pm and going to 9:30 or 10pm is great. very now and then there’s a murder mystery dinner or belly dancers. You never know whats going on. So check out there website at www.mpcsedona.com for there calendar of events.
Holy Elote Batman! Even the popcorn was delicious! We were the first to arrive for dinner on a Tuesday late afternoon. When my wife and I walked into the restaurant I smelled popcorn. I said that to my wife and the bartender overheard and said “we have delicious popcorn at the bar, fresh made, buttered and sprinkled with a variety of spices”. I went to the bar took a handful and tried some. It was the most delicious popcorn I ever had and I’ve had a lot of popcorn! But we’re here to talk about more substantial things than popcorn, but it certainly was a good indication of things to come.
We tried a couple of special Margaritas and they were big and tasty. We settled on two appetizers. The Elote, which is fire roasted corn with spicy mayo, lime and cotija cheese. I had a Mexican sous chef in my restaurant for a few years and when corn was in season, he’d make this for the staff. It was good, certainly a different way to eat corn on the cob than with just a ton of butter and salt. But this was fantastic. It was cut off the cob, all mixed together in a bowl with two oversized taco chips. I couldn’t stop eating it until it was all gone. The second appetizer was Fundido De Charro. Homemade chorizo, rajas and melted Mexican cheeses. I am a sucker for melted cheese and this was good, and the chorizo was even better. Spooned into a warm corn tortilla it tasted fantastic and I’m thinking this is real Mexican food. Very good quality. And so far, all I’ve gotten to is the popcorn and appetizers!
Now for the entrees. I ordered the Carne Asada which is a grilled organic skirt steak served with guajillo sauce, shaft blue cheese, avocado and rajas. Steak cooked perfectly, sliced thin, arrangement beautiful, tasted great. My wife’s dish was Shrimp con Espinacas with spinach and chipotle cream. Man this was good! Five large shrimp, sweet, tasty, cooked perfectly, when I closed my eyes to savor the dish I thought I was eating lobster! And it was very reasonably priced. I’ve noticed in a lot of places we go, the prices are kind of high for what you get, but not here. Plus the quality was way high end. Good value for the money. We had two glasses of Page Springs Barrio Tinto, a great full bodied red wine, that went well with our meals.
For dessert, we ordered the Lime Creme Brulee and the Chocolate Tamal. Again, beautiful presentation and delicious. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the wonderful, attentive, friendly and accommodating staff. Everyone was perfect.. They really seemed to be a fun, happy team. I can’t wait to go back again and again and again! See you at Elote Batman!
That’s right! A bakery has great burgers. My wife and I were waiting for our car to be serviced across the street, so we went to get lunch at Desert Flower Bakery and Bistro. Its in Oak Creek on 179. Lots of outdoor tables, you can’t miss it. The burger meat was very tasty, charred but perfectly medium. Served on a Ciabatta bun with tomato, red onion and a small organic greens salad with a little toasted sesame oil on it. It was very satisfying and just right for the both of us. We split lots of lunches and this was a perfect portion.