Posts Tagged ‘Mexican food’
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!
I had a friend visiting from out of town and we both had a hankering for a burger, so we went to PJ’s Pub in Oak Creek to check out the burger menu. They got lots of offerings on their menu from Prime Rib Sandwiches to Fish and Chips to Mexican, but we wanted burgers or cheeseburgers I should say. I was torn between The Western Burger which had BBQ Sauce, Swiss Cheese and Onion Rings on it, or the Signature Burger, “The Boomer”, which had Swiss and Pastrami on it. My friend went for the Western, so I had the Boomer. Ordered a pitcher of beer for $6.25, got 2 frosted glasses and off we went. PJs is a sports bar. We were watching World Cup Soccer and the Belmont on different TVs. I bet when the Cardinals play, the place is packed. Jukebox was playing, lots of sports memorabilia to look at, pool tables and on the weekends it looks like live music takes over. One of the bands that was going to be playing was called the Knuckleheads. You gotta love that!
OK, so here comes the food. The cheeseburgers look fantastic. Like picture perfect! I wish I had brought my camera. And they tasted great too! I got a huge mound of French Fries with mine. My friend got potato salad and the serving looked on the small side. If you’re hungry, get the fries. The pickle spear was cold and crunchy and went perfect with my burger. The beer was ice cold. Finished everything. Friendly, pretty waitress. Sports on TV. It don’t get any better than that. The only problem was we had to go, and go out into the noonday sun of a very hot day! Ahhhh, Sedona!
The best fish and chips in Sedona! Without a doubt! Went there at 1:30pm on a Friday. Crazy busy. What recession? There was going to be a twenty minute wait but two seats opened at the bar and we were there. Got our food fast, even though it was busy. My wife had the Grilled Tuna Sandwich (bread on the side) and I had the fish and chips. Good tuna sandwich as always and the fish and chips were fabulous. I’ve had them all over town and this version is the best. Great batter on the fish, perfect waffle cut fries, great cole slaw, plus the tartar sauce was great too. Not a bad place for beer either!
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!