Month: November 2011

The Mission in downtown Scottsdale is one of our favorite places to eat.

The food is what we would describe as Arizona-Mexican (as compared to Tex-Mex or authentic Mexican).  The servers are terrific and bring each table chips and salsa along with the menu.  We always ask for a special kind of salsa made with Indian Ghost Chili Peppers called fantasma  It is very spicy and one drop goes a very long way.  Here’s a picture of the Chips and Salsa.  The smaller bowl is the fantasma and the larger bowl is the standard salsa (much milder).  We like to put a few drops into the standard salsa.

The chips are delicious – and are made in-house.  Another favorite appetizers of ours is the guacamole.  The guacamole is made tableside.  Here is a picture of the guacamole-maker.

And here’s a picture of the guacamole:

And of Anya enjoying the guacamole:

The guacamole is very creamy and has so many ingredients that I can’t even begin to imagine it-juicy tomatoes, cheese, and crispy bacon.  The server will ask how spicy you would like the guacamole.  We always ask for super spicy.  And if it is not quite spicy enough, we add a few drops of fantasma to it.  Nearly every table orders the guacamole and it is easy to see why.  Their guacamole is the best that Scottsdale has to offer (besides mommy’s – she make guacamole for football and basketball game days).

An unusual appetizer is their gorditas – made with huitlacoche (a mexican delicacy from corn fungus).  It is incredibly delicious, warm and perfectly cooked.  Mommy says that very few places in the US that offer huitlacoche.

We always order tacos.  Karsen likes the mahi-mahi and Anya likes the pork shoulder tacos.  For variety, mommy ordered the shrimp.  We order different tacos, so that we can trade when they arrive.

Above are the Mahi Mahi Tacos.  Karsen loves them because the fish is delicate and fried nicely.

The Shrimp Tacos shown below are also mouth watering. The Shrimp bursts in your mouth like an inflated balloon (that is a simile.  Anya’s English teacher, Miss Gale would be impressed).

The Mission is known for their pork tacos. They are sweetened with pineapple and have a tangy taste to it.  These are the BEST tacos.  Here is a picture of the pork tacos:

The pork tacos are SOOOOO delicious.  It is important to note that every Sunday after 2pm, The Mission offers all-you-can-eat pork tacos.  We’ve been and it is MMMMM delicious.  You won’t need dinner!!

We read that the Kobe Hot Dog (wrapped in bacon and served with chili peppers) was delicious so ordered that to try.  Here’s a picture of it.

The Kobe taco was good but much too filling for us.  It has beans, cheese, jalapenos bacon and more on it!  We’re glad we ordered it but we will probably stick to our tacos in the future.

Unfortunately, we are always too full to order dessert so have nothing to report on dessert.

As always, the overall ratings are out of five smiley faces.

Rating: 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

The Mission also has friendly servers.  Our server was Karlie.

She has an excellent website called-www.culinarycrumbs.com

We’ll be back!  We want to have dessert someday. . . . .

p.s.  Mommy likes the margaritas and Karsen always gets to lick the salt!  Here’s a picture of Karsen licking the salt off mommy’s margarita:

p.p.s.  We went to the Mission again.  And we have some additional pictures to show you.  First, we got the “street corn.”  This is one of their signature dishes and it is delicious!!  This is what it looked like:

And finally – we managed to get dessert!  Two of their more notable desserts are the pumpkin bread pudding (our favorite) and the fried bananas with peanuts and dulce de leche.  Here are those pictures:

MMMMMMM! Delicious!  Here’s a picture of our cousin Matthew – he’s enjoying every bite – you can tell because he is using both hands and sticking the food in his mouth!!

As usual – we had a great experience!  We highly recommend The Mission!  Here’s a link to their site:

http://www.themissionaz.com/

Maybe we’ll see you there soon!

We spent a weekend in the Bay Area.  During that time, we saw our cousins Mina and Annika, ate at Curry Up Now!, and watched the Homecoming Stanford-U. of Washington football game.  

Mina and Annika

When we arrived in the Bay Area, we were HUNGRY. l.  For dinner, Uncle Ben grilled a bunch of food. Here is a picture of the delicious meal:

There was Steak, Salami, Prosciutto, Cheese, Butter and Bread, and some vegetables – including something called Chayote (that’s the green one). Chayote is a delicious squash!  The steak (ribeye) was cooked just the way Anya liked it: Medium Rare!  

On a scale of 1-5 smiley faces (with 5 being best), we give Uncle Ben’s grilling:   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 

FIVE SMILEY FACES!!!

While we were enjoying the yummy food, the grown-ups were enjoying wine:

The next day, Mina and Annika had to attend a Halloween Party and invited us to go with them.  For the Halloween Party, Mina wanted to dress up as a butterfly with rainbow wings. Annika dressed up as a turtle.  This is what Mina looked like in her costume:

When we were in the house, Annika started crawling around in her turtle outfit. Here is a link to the video:

Bay area-Video-Annika in costume crawling

While we were at the Halloween party, we took a group picture with Annika sitting on Anya’s lap and Mina on her right. Karsen was on the left.  We were wearing Stanford shirts because of the football game that day:

It was a fun party, but as usual, it made us HUNGRY.

Curry Up Now!

Our hunger brought us to Curry Up Now!  (recommended to us in our Poutine post, http://www.sophisti-kids.com/2011/10/14/our-canadian-fall-break-apples-niagara-falls-and-poutine/).  This is what their sign looked like:

It features Indian Street Food.  Here is their menu:

You’ll notice a Kids Menu but the other sections of the menu looked much more interesting.  We ordered the Sexiest Fries Ever.  Here’s a description:

Of course, we had to order two kinds of the sexiest fries – one with paneer tikka masala and the other with chicken tikka masala.  This is what they looked like:

You’ll notice the same gravy, onions and cheese on sweet potato waffle fries.  The only difference is that one has chicken and the other has paneer.  Anya liked the paneer one better and Karsen liked the chicken better.  

We also ordered some fancy drinks.  Here’s a picture of the Indian-lemonade that mommy ordered:

It was not nearly as delicious as the mango lassi (lassi is a yogurt drink that tastes like a smoothie) that we ordered.  Here is a picture of Anya drinking mango lassi.  

And we tried some kathi rolls:

A kathi roll is like an egg/tortilla rolled sandwich, filled with whatever you’ve ordered.  Papa got both the paneer tikka masala and the chicken tikka masala to try.  He says that this is typical Indian Street Food and was delicious.  It also came with a great salad.

Mommy will eat anything as long as there is good chutney.  Here is a picture of the chutney:

It was a cilantro and mint chutney.  And SPICY just the way we like it!!

We shared a thali.  A thali is a meal with lots of different dishes.  This is what it looks like:

There was papadum (papadum is a crispy round thing).  There was roti (roti is Indian bread) and saag paneer (saag means spinach and paneer is the indian cheese – that’s the dish on the top left).  There was a cucumber salad and keema matar aloo (keema is ground beef, matar means peas, and aloo means potato).  We loved the papadum and the saag paneer.  We thought the keema matar aloo was just ok.

Here is a picture of Anya enjoying her food:

And of course, when there is Indian food, we need to take a picture of Karsen happily eating with his hands:

There was even something for our cousin Mina.  Mina is only four years-old and is very particular about the food she eats.  She had sweet potato waffle fries:

No – that is not ketchup.  That’s Indian Maggi Sauce.  It’s much tastier than regular ketchup.

And of course, we ordered dessert.  But for some reason, dessert took a little while.  That was okay because Papa and Karsen got to watch cricket!

Our desserts finally arrived.  We ordered two kinds:  kulfi (a pistachio ice-cream) and gulab jamun (described as Hot Balls on their menu).  This is what they looked like:

The kulfi was creamy and nutty.  And gulab jamon was hot and sweet.  That is a sweet syrup smothered over the hot balls.  

On our 1-5 smiley face rating, we would give this place:

🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 1/2

Overall – everything was delicious.  We would definitely go back!  We especially like the sexiest fries ever!!!!!!!  (It’s important to note that Papa did not like the sexiest fries ever.  But he was the only and he’s crazy).

Just in case you feel like eating the sexiest fries, here is the link to the restaurant:

http://www.curryupnow.com/restaurant/

Homecoming Football:  Stanford vs. University of Washington

Mommy decided to take us to a Stanford football game (that’s where she went to college) because Stanford finally has a good team!  This is the FIRST football game we have ever seen LIVE.  Here is a picture of Papa and Anya enjoying the game:

And Karsen:

We had terrific seats – right on the 50 yard line:

There are a few differences between watching the game on TV and being at the stadium.  At the stadium, there is no yellow line to let you know if the players have crossed the 1st down line.  Also, in the stadium, it is much more exciting.  Even Anya enjoyed watching!  We high-fived everyone around us everytime Stanford scored.  And just in case you didn’t watch the game, there were a lot of Stanford touchdowns!  Stanford won 65-21!!!!!!

Overall, we had a fantastic weekend with Mina, Annika, Uncle Ben, and Pei pei Ahyi.  Thank you so much for sharing the weekend with us!  Overall, it was a five smiley face weekend!!!   🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 🙂 !!!