Celebrating Arizona’s more than 8,500 restaurants and their 260,000 employees while making Arizona a top culinary destination.
With the always popular Arizona Restaurant Week www.ArizonaRestaurantWeek.com starting in just 10 days May 18th- 27th, the Arizona Restaurant Association invited myself and a few other lucky media people to take tour, and taste, of 4 of Scottsdale’s newest restaurants participating in Spring 2013 celebration. Here is a sample of what you can expect.
We met at Taggia at The Firesky Resort & Spa to taste a sampling of the 3 choices they will be offering for their 1st course.
The Cappuccino dei Fungi was a personal favorite as I love all things mushrooms, this mushroom soup uses Portobello and porcini along with some truffle spuma.
The Caprese was a soft burrata, yellow heirloom tomato slice and pink peppercorns.
Insalata Manago is roasted red peppers wrapped in thinly sliced mango tossed with pickled red onions and arugula.
All were prepared by executive Chef Massimo De Francesca and his staff. To read more about Taggia see my post about Massimo’s coastal Italian cuisine https://pullingcorksandforks.com/?p=840
On to our next stop at Searsucker we were provided with transportation by Uber www.uber.com the newest way to catch a ride with their app on your cell phone for on-demand car service with professional drivers.
Greeted at Searsucker with a Peter Rabbit cocktail we enjoyed a sampling of Farm Bird lollipops with snake bite hot sauce for those of us who enjoy a little heat with their chicken.
The squid “sweet heat” is Searsucker’s unique take on calamari with sweet and spicy a taste.
www.searsucker.com/scottsdale
After a quick ride in one of Uber’s Escalades we arrived at Ben & Jack’s Steakhouse for our main course of Sirloin steak or salmon filet. My filet was perfectly cooked to medium rare and was served with mashed potatoes and steamed broccoli. There is nothing wrong with a good steak from Peter Luger’s alums Ben & Jack and their first foray outside of NYC. www.benandjackssteakhouse.com
Almost full, we all saved room for dessert and we were off to Davati Enocteca for executive chef Peter DeRuvo’s Millie Foglie which is berry sauce and whip cream in between a puff pastry and a drizzle of creme anglaise. A perfect way to end the evening as the dessert was not to heavy and cured my daily sweet tooth. www.davantiscottsdale
Based on what I tasted and saw this should be another record-setting week for the twice annual culinary celebration and reservations are highly recommended if you plan to check out your favorite restaurant or get to a new restaurant you’ve been wanting to try.
