Week 22: First Friday Phoenix

Every week in 2011, for 52-straight weeks, I hope to try something new and blog about it here. This is the 22nd week of the year, when I had my first food truck meal! Here you can find a list of all my weekly adventures in 2011.

All week long I was looking forward to Food Truck Friday in Downtown Phoenix. One day I randomly stumbled across @PHXStreetFood on Twitter and have been reading about all the awesome food trucks around the area. However, there was one small problem. I failed to notice that Food Truck Fridays only takes place at lunch and not dinner!

But tonight I got lucky (don’t be gross, I’m talking about eventually stumbling across the food trucks). It just so happens that they all meet up downtown on the first Friday of each month! So I picked up J.D. from work at 5 p.m. and we headed over to the meeting area (thank you, Twitter) in Roosevelt Row. While it was small scene, it sure hit the spot!

 

In attendance were a Cajun truck, grilled sandwiches and BBQ truck, Asian fusion truck and the best for last: ice cream truck! In the past we’ve found a creme brulee truck, but I can honestly say I’ve never had a full meal from a food truck until this evening.

Let me back up a bit… we arrived early while everyone was still setting up and decided to take a walk around the area first. It’s a very trendy, hippie co-op type of place. In fact, we found such a market and wine bar. We would have ordered wine or beer in a bottle, but instead I went with some mango kombucha – quite the change of heart – to have with the food later. We explored the streets and found some neat bars before heading back to the trucks. Coincidentally enough, there was also a little street festival going on as well.

As the sun set, we found a shady table and ate our dinners. The catfish/andouille bowl and fried pickles (from the Jamburritos Cajun truck) for J.D. and a coconut curry chicken burrito with a cucumber raita sauce  and jasmine rice for me (from the Sunshine & Spice Asian fusion truck).

 

We both agreed how AMAZING everything tasted! I was very surprised, and sufficiently full. Except, if you know me you know that I couldn’t pass up on ice cream. Instead, the street festival started gaining steam really quickly. Basically, as soon as the sun set Phoenix’s finest came out to play. I felt like I was at a rave, with people dressed up in the craziest costumes and outfits roaming the blocked-off streets. It was kind of like being at an emo/hipster/goth/hippie party. If you can imagine that.

So I did a little research online. Turns out First Fridays are actually for all the local artists and musicians! All the art galleries and exhibitions downtown were free to the public and open very late hours.

First Friday is organized by Artlink, a nonprofit organization “...dedicated to bringing together artists, the public, and businesses for a greater understanding, appreciation, and promotion of the arts and the development of a strong and vital downtown Phoenix arts community.”

Basically this was an open-door urban jungle. And it was so rad. I really don’t know what to say about it, so I’ll let my meager offering of pictures try to do it for me :)

  

Fun times, right?! Wrong. The night was incomplete until I had my coveted ice cream!!! And then it was a solid night :) I tried the basil lime sorbet from Sweet Republic. It was light and refreshing and amazingly packed a punch of basil. I can’t explain how good it really was :) I’m glad I opted for that instead of the mango margarita sorbet or salted butter caramel swirl ice cream... flavors for another time! Trust me, there’ll be another time. Just like the three times we’ve sought out the creme brulee truck at farmer’s markets.

Like I said, I really don’t know what I can say about this. It was amazingly fun and the food trucks were SOGOOD!!! I was way bummed when I moved to Arizona because gourmet food trucks were starting to get huge in the San Francisco area where I used to live. Unfortunately I was never able to visit the food truck rallies before moving. But now, the void in my life has been filled. Phoenix has a very large and active food truck community. This was merely the tip of the iceberg :) So glad we decided to splurge on a meal out and do this! If you have food trucks nearby and haven’t gone yet, YOU MUST!

Week 12: Exploring the Phoenix Zoo

You're all so encouraging! Since my last post, I've decided to go ahead and accept my grad school/TA offer! Beginning in August, I'll be back in school again, while still working in baseball :) With that, we'll head into last week's "new thing."

Previously, I had never been to the Phoenix Zoo. Nor had my parents (who were also in town over the weekend). After catching a few Spring Training baseball games, I noticed the backs of the A's tickets offered a discount for zoo admission. With nothing on the agenda for Sunday, we ventured out and explored Phoenix. After my morning shift at work, my dad wanted to try a bar/restaurant that was noted in a local magazine as one of the area's top 50 bars to visit.

This place was a total throwback to decades past. Not only did it feature a boxing ring, military surplus shopping, soda fountain and a vintage Airstream trailer that doubled as a kitchen, but there was also a full menu for brunch, lunch, dinner and an array of "vintage cocktails and beer."

While we waited for our lunch to come hot out of the Airstream, we could choose from a pile of vintage (notice a theme here?) board games to pass away the time. My dad grabbed Scrabble, we chose a shaded table in the sunlight and enjoyed the afternoon.

(I won, in case you were curious)

Scrabble is serious business.

I don't know how many times I need to tell you people how much I adore vintage culture and the 1950s, but this really hit it out of the park. The Duce was probably one of the best finds in Phoenix thus far! And we've been to some really cool places in the past eight months. I bet it's crazy fun in the evenings and for happy hour as well. The best part is this is blocks away from my work ;) Needless to say, I will be back. If you're ever in Phoenix you HAVE to go there!

Pleasantly surprised with our afternoon at The Duce, we set off to use those Zoo discount tickets and spend the three hours until closing looking at all the animals.

I loveeeee animals and enjoy going to zoos and water parks, etc. The Phoenix Zoo is supposedly one of the top five zoos in the country and I would completely agree. I've been to zoos in about half the States and even in Europe. The best part about this one was the monkey exhibit.

You literally are in the monkey habitat and they ran past our feet and jumped from tree-to-tree overhead. It was one of the coolest things I've seen in a long time.

Other things I thought were neat:

• I finally got to see Black Swan

• We were face-to-painted face with some baboons (who, apparently, have rainbow-colored hineys, I missed the opportunity to snap a photo of that one)

• Witnessed a domestic dispute between two rhinos. That was intense.

• Speaking of domestic issues, we got to hear a male and female lion roaring at one another. It's crazy how loud that is! The lioness even rumbled and shook a little every time she yelped.

• I watched a really big kitty bathe itself

• I crossed paths with some peacocks. They were everywhere, I even had to wait in line behind one of them at a soda vending machine.

Is it weird I had the following song stuck in my head the entire time?! (Disclaimer, while I LOVE Katy Perry, I do think this is the weakest song on her Teenage Dream album)

• Met a rude lizard (dragon, whatever)

• And beat a golden eagle in a staring contest. It was like taking candy from a baby.

In all seriousness though, it was a really fun way to end the weekend! I had such a blast. I'm glad I'm challenging myself to try something new each week, or else I might have missed out on a great day! Now I'm off to brainstorm what to do this week...