Tarbell's

We celebrated Valentines with a great dinner date! My husband knows me, and knows what I love! He took me to Tarbell's in Phoenix. My husband is so great at coming up with surprises. Sometimes I wonder if he has a secret helper.(JK) Tarbell's is owned by Mark Tarbell and to some of you that probably means nothing. To us Mark is the proud winner of a 2007 episode of "Iron Chef America". That's right his "cuisine rains supreme". Me and Richard have watched food networks "Iron Chef" since we were first married. When it was filmed in Japan, with the dubbing and all of that. I know we are dorks, what can we say? In case you don't know what Iron Chef is. It originated in Japan (I think I already mentioned that). Competitor's take on fierce top notch chefs. There is a secret ingredient and they have one hour to prepare, and plate their dishes. Then it is judged to see who is the best. America started it's own version a few years ago. Hence the "Iron Chef America".

Back to the date. It was awesome!! We don't get to do gourmet a whole bunch. You know, budget, blah, blah, blah. But every once in a while it's nice to splurge, and we always enjoy it. Mark was there with what we assumed was his wife, and daughter. We were definitely the youngest in the joint (besides his daughter). We enjoyed the atmosphere, and trying new cuisine. We had

• Tempura calamari - This was a first for the both of us. We both liked it! I personally couldn't eat a whole bunch of it. But it had a wonderful salsa verde, and spicy tomato dipping sauce. YUM!


• Grilled Mahi Mahi - I ordered the mahi mahi. It was delicious it came with roasted parsnips. They were tender and, oh so good!


• Grilled Scottish salmon - Richard ordered this. He said if this is what the food tasted like there he would definitely take me. It was served on top of a crispy potato cake, and had a molasses lime glaze.


• Marscapone Cheese cake - I have always wanted to try marscapone (its supposed to be like an Italian cream cheese). It was topped with a carmel sauce, and plated with pralines. It was so stinking good, and although everything was delicious this was definitely my favorite.

I forgot to bring my camera but the picture above was taken from almost exactly where we were sitting. So this was our view. Well technically Richard's view. My back was to it.

Oh, and just in case your wondering. I give it 5/5 stars!