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| - I was in the Scottsdale area on business this week and after seeing the Kitchen Nightmares tv show about this place decided to check it out for myself to form my own (and fair) opinion. This was a couple of days ago, but as I recollect back from my visit I decided I owed Samy and Amy an honest review.
I went in with a friend who lived in the Phoenix area who had never even heard of the place. We arrived near closing time. It was just Samy, Amy and someone they were chatting with inside. Samy greeted us at the door in a friendly manner and asked if we were interested in dinner or dessert. We said both and he apologized that he had just shut the kitchen down for the night, but we were welcome to get a dessert, to which we were fine with.
Samy showed us the HUGE selection of desserts which actually took us a few minutes to make a decision on. Samy explained in detail what each dessert was and every single one of them looked amazing. We chose the chocolate with peanut butter cake as well as the cheesecake. My friend got a coffee and I got a soda.
While we were waiting for the food to be delivered to the table (which only took about a minute) we noticed how flawlessly clean the entire place was. I remember on the show Gordon Ramsey was remarking about how the kitchen itself was amazingly clean, and that obviously extended into the dining area as well as the restroom which I used. It really is one of those places where you could "eat off of the floor".
The desserts arrive and we sampled each other's. Both desserts were absolutely delicious! Quite possibly the best desserts I've ever had. Just phenomenal. In addition my friend said his coffee was excellent and likewise the Coke I got came from a machine that was clearly perfectly calibrated and had good water filtering on it.
Furthermore as they had let the wait staff go home by the time we got there, Samy's attention to us as a waiter was spot on perfect. He seemed to know exactly how to leave us alone to enjoy our food, but not for too long before checking up on us. There is nothing worse than a waiter who ignores his customers or a waiter who simply keeps coming by asking if everything is ok. Samy was spot on.
At this point I'll say that yes the tv show made the food look bad and it also made the service appear to be bad, but we did not experience even a hint of ANY of that. Reality tv shows are often heavily edited to make things appear worse than they really are in order to initiate drama because drama sells. I have to wonder just how much editing and provoking off-camera was actually happening. For all we know the entire customer base on the day they shot that episode was all hired employees of Kitchen Nightmares told to go in acting as customers to provoke Samy and Amy.
Regardless that is only speculation because I've no involvement with the tv show, nor have I ever met Samy or Amy before in my life until last night, but what I CAN say is GIVE THESE GUYS A CHANCE! Either the restaurant used to have major problems and they have since fixed them, or Ramsey's show misrepresented and twisted things around for the drama and to gain tv ratings. My guess is it was possibly a little bit of both, but that doesn't change my 5 star review in the slightest bit. My entire experience on Thursday night was flawless and I couldn't recommend Amy's Baking Company any higher.
This will ABSOLUTELY be a stopping point for me any time I am back in the Phoenix area. Likewise my friend was so impressed he said he is going to start bringing people here as well.
Samy and Amy, thank you for a lovely dessert and excellent service. I look forward to having dinner with you soon.
And Mr. Ramsey, I must say the ridiculously overpriced steak I had at your restaurant in Caesar's Palace last spring was dry and bland. I didn't complain because I was with business clients, but THAT experience was a rip-off.
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