Gallo Blanco Visited 4/9/2014 2 Forks

Gallo Blanco 401 W Clarendon Ave., Phoenix, AZ 85013

I was excited to try another Mexican place in Phoenix and I was even more jazzed when Michael's friend mentioned that this place served one of his favorite sandwiches, the naco torta - which was described as a sandwich grilled rib eye with a fried egg and avocado.  Yum! 

The restaurant is actually inside the Clarendon Hotel and it was totally hoppin when we arrived on a random Wednesday night.  We had originally asked the waitress if we could sit outside and she said it would be a 5 minute wait.  Ok, no biggie.  So we wait and we then calls us over and walks us to our table - which was inside.  We had to stop and remind her that we wanted to sit outside and she was like "oh, yeah, sorry!".  That should have been our first clue that the service was going to be off that night.  Then we notice all the commotion at the tables next to us and the waiter and other stuff apologizing profusely.  That should have been our other clue.  Then we waited and waited and waited until finally someone comes over to take our drink order.  Then we waited and waited and waited for our drinks to actually show up and Michael comments on how they are now half the size they used to be before.  I start to notice that the table next to us is quite agitated because their waiter was MIA and they then proceed to walk over to the serving station, get a pitcher of water and re-fill their own glasses.  Clearly, it was just a really bad service night.  Even though this place is known of tacos, I decided to get that yummy sounding sandwich ($10) that Carlos had mentioned plus a small mixed green salad ($5) and we split a guacamole for the table ($6.50).

Usually I say that guacamole is really hard to get wrong but this one wasn't all that great.  It was very lumpy and had large chunks of citrus fruit it in that I thought was a bit weird.  Plus it was missing salt to it.  While I ate it, I can't say that it was a great guacamole.  The salad was pretty decent although it might have been too heavily dressed for my liking.  As for the sandwich, it had such potential but it was a letdown.  First, the bun was way to bread-y and big.  Even though I'm not afraid of carbs at all, I had to just stop eating the bun as some point because it was just too much carbs.  The rib eye was also too chopped up and it was hard to hold together all the pieces of meat.  By having it so cut up, it really allowed the meat to dry out quickly and it wasn't as moist or juicy as I would have liked.  Plus I felt like they skimped on the avocado.  The slices were too small, at least in relation to the huge bun.  At this point I wished I had ordered the fish tacos instead.  I did like the fried egg component but it wasn't enough to really make the sandwich a winner in my book.

Maybe it was an off night for this place or maybe it was a sign of things to come but the overall experience that night wasn't a great one.  I can see how it could have been a great place and I liked how everything sounded on the menu but the execution of the food and the service were just not on point that night.  Total bill:  $30/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Thai Basil Signature Visited 4/9/2014 3 Forks

Thai Basil Signature 114 W Adams St, Ste 104, Phoenix, AZ 85003

Day two of my conference and I was having a hankering for Asian food and luckily stumbled upon this Thai place randomly while looking for another restaurant.  I have always had a soft spot for Thai lunch specials in NYC, so I was curious if a Thai place in Phoenix would have the same deal.  And sure enough they did.  This place is smack in the middle of downtown Phoenix so it was full of people on their lunch break and a few of us from the conference. 

Their menu has the usual line-up for Thai dishes:  pad thai, curries, fried rice, drunken noodles, etc. You get a spring roll and soup included in your meal as well.  While I usually would just go for a pad thai, I was in the mood for a broad flat noodle and got the spicy noodles with shrimp ($9.95) and a thai ice tea.  I chose that dish over the drunken noodle because it had all the same vegetables as the drunken noodle but it also had bean sprouts too which I love.  I guess I didn't read the menu too carefully because I soon discovered that the spicy noodle was a pan fried skinny noodle and not the wide noodle kind.  Opps, that was my bad.  They first serve you a clear vegetable soup, which honestly with the heat I would have preferred a salad instead but it was totally fine.  The noodle and spring roll came out on the same plate and it was a pretty good sized dish of noodles.  I had asked for medium spicy but it still had a big kick to it.  Again, it was totally my fault for not reading the menu more carefully but I was disappointed that it was the wide noodle but it was totally fine with the skinny noodles.  It was really just your basic standard spicy noodle dish.  Nothing bad nothing great.  It got the job done in terms of filling me up and satisfying my craving.  The shrimp were decent sized and cooked well and the vegetables were aplenty on the dish.  

All in all, I'm glad I found this place and it was a nice affordable lunch option compared to my almost $30 Pizza Bianco experience the other day.  Next time I'll just learn to read the menu more carefully or just stick with a pad thai option.  Total bill:  $15 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp 

Geisha A Go Go Visited 4/8/2014 3.5 Forks

Geisha A Go Go   7150 E 6th Ave., Scottsdale, AZ 85250

Who doesn't love a good happy hour? So I was pretty psyched when Michael suggested this place that was walking distance from my hotel and right in the middle of downtown Scottsdale for happy hour here (3-7pm).   During this time, all appetizers, house maki, sake bombs, specialty drinks and seasonal wine/sake are half off.  Yes, this place is cheesy, it also kind of sexualizes Asians and is most definitely not a purist type of sushi place but hey, I just took it in stride.

I wasn't sure what house maki meant and was worried that it was going to be a choice of like 3 blah rolls but it was a choice of over 15 different kinds of rolls ranging from your basic california roll to soft shell crab roll.  They did have a list of really insane specialty rolls (with totally ridiculous names like Geisha Lips and Harajuku Lover - did I also mention this place is also a karaoke place too?)  but since they weren't a part of happy hour I didn't even bother to look at them.  I opted for the rainbow roll (regularly $10.75) and the spicy yellowtail roll (regularly $6.50) while Michael got the edamame (regularly $4), the  chicken lettuce wrap (regularly $10) and the gyoza (regularly $7).   There was also a very long list of good sounding appetizers to choose from so if I ever come back here, I would totally mix it up and order some sushi and some appetizers to make it a full on meal.   We also managed to sneak in two rounds of the Kinki Kooler (regularly $9) before happy hour closed.  The Kinki Kooler was Stoli Strawberry, fresh slices of kiwi, lime and soda - it basically tasted like candy.  I'm not even sure how much alcohol was in it but it was a fun refreshing drink for a hot afternoon.  I was a bit weary of the sushi but honestly they were surprisingly good.  The spicy yellowtail was the chopped up version (no spicy mayo on the top) and the rainbow roll was just as good as any basic sushi place in NYC.  I didn't try Michael's food (except for the edamame which were totally fine - well boiled in that they still had some crunch to it and salted well) but they looked like good snackies for happy hour.  The lettuce wrap was a make-your-own version where they give you all the ingredients and a plate of lettuce and you wrap as little or as much filling as you want.

All in all, despite the incredibly cheesy vibe and name of the food and drinks, this place is a super fun place to go for happy hour.  Obviously it's not on the level of a Sushi Nakazawa or even a Yama but at half price, you absolutely can't go wrong here.  Total price:  $42 for 2 people including drinks, tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Pizzeria Bianco Visited 4/8/2014 3.5 Forks

Pizzeria Bianco 623 E Adams St, Phoenix, AZ 85004

Ok, I kind of lied in my last review.  I did know about 1 famous restaurant in Phoenix and it's Pizzeria Bianco.  It's written up in many many blogs and websites as being one, if not the best,  pizza place in the country. I know, how weird, right? The best pizza place is in Phoenix?  So I had to try it out myself to judge. Luckily it was right down the street from the convention center which is where my conference was.  So it was an easy 7 minute walk over and apparently I got there at the perfect time (around 2pm) because there was no line and I had my pick of seats inside or outside.  Apparently during it's busiest hours the wait can be more than 2 hours long. 

The place is cute enough with a nice outdoor patio/cafe area and a pretty small indoor area with a brick pizza oven in the middle of the place.  When I looked at the menu it immediately reminded me of Roberta's in Brooklyn.  In fact, the whole vibe of the place reminded me of Roberta's just minus the hipsters.  I started with the local organic green salad ($6) and then was torn about what kind of pizza to get.  They are all of the thin crust variety and all sounded pretty tasty but I decided on the wiseguy ($18) mostly because it was the only pizza that came with sausage.  When I ordered it, the waiter mentioned that it was a white pizza meaning that it had no sauce and he wanted to make sure that I was ok with it.   I honestly didn't even think about it but when he said it, it kind of made me think that I wanted something with tomato sauce on it.  He mentioned that I could order half and half, which was a nice idea, so I went for half of the margherita - which is your standard pizza of fresh mozzarella, tomato sauce and basil.  The organic salad was nice and fresh and I really enjoyed the red wine vinaigrette that it was dressed with.  I just kind of wish that there was something more than just greens to it - some tomatoes or mushrooms would have been nice.  Next came the pizza.  At first I was worried that I wouldn't be able to finish it by myself and I was staying at a hotel that had a mini fridge the size of my foot so there wouldn't be any place to store leftovers.  But that ended up not being an issue.  The pizza is very very thin, so even though it's cut into about 6 slices, they aren't very filling on their own. I tried the wiseguy side first and it came with roasted onion, house smoke mozzarella, and fennel sausage. Despite not having any tomato sauce, it was very flavorful and each was tasty bite.  The fennel flavoring to the sausage was a nice touch.  As for the margherita side, it was what you would expect of a margherita pizza.  It was good and I was glad I was able to have half a pie of it but I was glad I didn't get a whole pie of it because it would have been a bit boring on its own.   My one small gripe about the pizza was that there wasn't enough cheese on it.  I know, traditional Italian pizza isn't drowning in cheese either, but just a bit more gooey cheese would have been nice. 

While the food here was fresh and I had a very enjoyable lunch, I'm not sure I would say it's the best pizza in the country (in fact I still think Roberta's is better) nor would I ever wait over 2 hours to eat here.   But if you happen to find yourself by the convention center and can come on an off hour, it's definitely worth a stroll over.  Total price:  $28 with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Blanco Tacos and Tequila Visited 4/7/2014 3 Forks

Blanco Tacos and Tequila 2502 E Camelback Rd, Phoenix, AZ 85016

I'll be honest and say that I don't know much about the Phoenix food scene, so when I was headed there for almost a week for work and a conference, I had no clue as to where to go.  The only thing I knew was that it was probably worth trying Mexican food there.  My first night there also coincided with the NCAA Finals so I had wanted to go to a place that also had a few TVs for me to catch the game.  Enter Blanco.  Eric actually found it on Yelp and it was about a 5 minute drive from my hotel, was Mexican food, had TVs AND outdoor seating, so I was down with everything that I heard about it.

The one nice thing about Phoenix during this time of the year was that the weather was fairly pleasant. It was about 85 degrees but it was a nice dry heat and I love the fact that almost every place had an open air feeling to it.  The menu here is as you would have expected:  nachos, guacamole, burritos, enchiladas, tacos and a few other main entrees.  Eric and I split the nachos (regularly $12 but we just made it under the wire for happy hour where appetizers are half price) to start since we were starving and I opted for the fish tacos ($13.50).  The nachos were served with guacamole, crema fresca, black beans, sour cream and pico de gallo...so kind of your typical nacho dish except the creama fresca was this weird white melty cheese instead of the neon yellow kind or even the freshly grated kind.  It was kind of what you expected from bar nachos.  The fish tacos were 3 to the dish and served with avocado and pico de gallo and served with rice and beans.  The fish was of your generic grilled white fish variety and the tacos were of the corn variety (although you can also ask for flour tortillas) - they were perfectly fine fish tacos but they didn't blow my mind like the ones I had at ABC Cocina.  Despite being full, Eric and I still left room for dessert and since I wasn't dying for dessert, we tried to go with Eric's choice of the sopaillas which are essentially fried donuts.  But just our luck, as soon as our waitress put in our order they "ran out".  Boo! So we opted for the flan instead ($5).  So here is what I loved about the dinner...the chef actually came out of the kitchen to personally apologize about running out of the sopaillas and even compted us for the flan.  I thought that was so incredibly nice of him and totally unnecessary.  I don't know if that is AZ charm or what but I really did appreciate the nice gesture.  In fact, the service all around was pretty great.  When Eric asked for a coke, they said "Is Pepsi ok?" and they must have realized it wasn't, so the manager actually went into their staff fridge and brought Eric a coke - again a nice and totally unnecessary gesture.

While I didn't think the food was anything spectacular and sadly the drinks were pretty bad (don't order the white sangria unless you like drinking sugar through a straw), the setting and service were on point for what I was looking for.  From what I heard, this place is a chain in AZ and normally I'm not a huge fan of chain restaurants but I would probably come back to this place if I was back in AZ and just wanted a nice place to chill out.  Total bill with tips, tax and drinks:  $83/pp

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Taboon Visited 4/4/2014 3.5 Forks

Taboon 773 10th Ave., New York, NY 10019

When my dad told me that he was coming to NYC for an Art Expo that was located on 12th Ave and 54th and wanted to me to find a restaurant nearby, I was really perplexed.  I mean besides being in a total waste land,  I couldn't even think of anything within a 5 block radius except the Gotham West Market and I didn't want to go there since it was a bit too casual.  I finally found out about Taboon on Opentable and luckily they had a 7:45pm reservation.  

The food here is Greek/Mediterranean which I love so I was excited to try it out.  I was and wasn't surprised by how crowded it was on a Friday.   I'm surprised because it's in such a removed area but also not surprised because if you live/work in that area, it's probably the best dinner option.  My one gripe about the menu is that everything was about $3-5 more expensive than it needed to be except for the dips.  But regardless the menu has a lot of delicious options.  To start we got the red snapper ceviche ($14), the crab meat salad ($14.50) and the sautéed calamari ($11) and then shared the lamb duo ($36) for an entree.  I was tempted to get a tzaziki dip for the bread but figured we had ordered enough food that we didn't need it.  While the bread was delicious, I definitely wished that I gotten the tzaziki because there was just something missing while we were eating the bread.  All the appetizers came out together and at first glance, while they looked great, they definitely looked small.   The ceviche was served chopped up and mixed together with lim juice, avocado, bulghur wheat, cucumber, shallots, cilantro and mint served on a romaine lettuce leaf and then topped with slices of radish.   When I think ceviche, I usually think they are chunks of fish marinated in lime juice not chopped up - while I wasn't a huge fan of this format, the flavor profile was still great.  Very refreshing and light but it was a bit difficult to really taste the fish because it was so cut up.  Next I moved on to the crab meat salad - this came with fresh crab meat, feta cheese, oregano, croutons, tomato and microgreens.   Again, nice fresh flavors but not sure if it really needed the feta cheese in it, but I'm never one to not eat feta on anything.  The calamari was sautéed with lemon oil and fresh herb salsa verde and served on a bed of arugula and cherry tomatoes.  As my dad said, it was a great dish but very small - it only came with 4 small pieces.  So while we had ordered 3 appetizers, I was still really hungry and totally ready for my entree.  The lamb was served two ways - as grilled lamb chops and as lamb meatballs and this was served on a bed of lentils and root vegetables. I'm not sure if they did this because they knew we were sharing but it was nice that there was 2 of each kind, so we didn't have to fight over who got what.  Again, these were also a bit on the smaller side as well but the root vegetables did help fill me up.  The lamb chop was delicious and grilled medium rare.  It fell off the bone and had a nice small amount of fat around it to keep the meat moist.  The meatball was also fabulous and juicy but flavored well with herbs and tasted just like a lamb kebab.

So while it sounded like we ordered a lot of food, I was still a bit hungry at the end of the meal.  Based on the waiter's recommendation, we ordered the date sponge cake ($10).  It was a date sponge cake soaking in rum and then topped with a date compote and English cream and fig reduction.  At first bite it was wonderful but as you start to take more bites of it, the intense sweetness really hits you.  It was to the point where I just really couldn't eat anymore of it because I was starting to feel sick from the sweetness.  All in all, I was glad that I found this place and if I was stuck all the way on the west side again, I would come back here if I needed a fancier establishment than Gotham West.  But do be aware that it's a bit pricey and the portions are on the small side.  Total bill:  $70/pp with tax, tip and drinks

Photo Credit:  Yelp

Momoya Visited 4/3/2014 4 Forks

Momoya 185 7th Ave., New York, NY 10011

I had just been complaining that I had been in a very long "meh" restaurant rut these days.  I couldn't figure out if every place I had been to recently really was mediocre if I have just been in a bad mood these days.  I even contemplated discontinuing my blog because I have been so uninspired lately.   But luckily Anuja recommended Momoya and it totally brought me out of my restaurant rut.   Despite the slightly chaotic wait, the food was delicious and made me excited to get back out into the restaurant scene again.

As I said, the wait is kind of crazy.  It's smack dab in the middle of Chelsea and we went on a busy Thursday night but luckily our wait was no longer than 30 minutes.  We opted to start with the mixed green salad ($6) and the tuna avocado ($12) and then split the Black Dynamite roll ($15), the yellowtail scallion roll ($7), the spicy scallop roll ($10), and the salmon crunchy roll ($13).  The mixed salad was a notch better than other mom and pop sushi places because they used dark mixed greens instead of a bunch of iceberg lettuce and they tossed the dressing in with the greens instead of just kind of plopping it on top of the salad so it really coated each piece of green.  The carrot ginger dressing was delicious and made me want to go out and buy it for my own consumption.  The tuna avocado appetizer was served raw (in cubes) and then topped with more mixed green salad and it laid on top of sesame ginger soy dressing.  I thought it was missing some salt or other kind of seasoning.  While I do like my raw fish to be very fresh and it the cleanest state as possible, the tuna here was missing something and it kind of tasted a bit bland but it still didn't keep me and Anuja from eating the whole thing.  Then came the rolls - they were nicely presented all together in a large circular plate but the one that bother me was that the waiter didn't tell us which roll was which, so we kind of had to figure that out on our own.  It wasn't really difficult but that's not the point.  I tried the spicy scallop first because that is my all time favorite roll of any kind and it was pretty damn good here.  It's not the kind with a bunch of spicy mayo on top of it but the more chopped up kind but it really hit the spot and made me happy.  The yellowtail scallion was incredibly fresh and reminded me of why I don't order more yellowtail rolls because it's a great fish.  The Black Dynamite roll was one of those large cut up rolls and it had spicy tuna, shrimp tempura, cucumber and avocado.  I normally don't love the big rolls because they are so hard to eat but this one was just right.   Lastly the salmon crunchy roll had mango, avocado and spicy salmon with crunchy rice on the outside. I don't recall tasting any mango (and I normally don't like rolls that have fruit in it) - maybe it was because I was so intrigued by the crunchy rice on the outside since that was so different.   Even after all the food, we were still a bit hungry and contemplated ordering more food - especially after I saw the table next to us order the rock shrimp tempura that looked amazing.  But we opted for some dessert and got the mochi ice cream ($7).  It was 3 mochi pieces cut in half - strawberry, green tea and red bean.  They were all delicious but I particularly liked the red bean one.

All in all, I glad that I ended up at Momoya because it reminded me of how much I do experiencing new restaurants and enjoying good food.  While it's not like Sushi Nakazawa, it's a perfect place for a more affordable fun night in Chelsea.  Total bill:  $44/pp with tax and tip

Photo Credit:  Yelp