In a group discord tied to the CTD community there's long been a running joke on how put over California is for having clearly the best Mexican food. I've always stanned for Texas, specifically Houston which has tremendous high concept (e.g. Hugo's) and street stuff. Well, we may be overlooking what lies between California and Texas. Arizona has been phenomenal so far.
Taco Boys was the early star, however today is the first day I didn't go there. Instead, I ventured out beyond Taco Boys and the assorted Taco trucks that line Roosevelt Avenue bars. For lunch today, I went to Testal Mexican Kitchen, off of Grand Avenue to the West of Phoenix. The place exemplifies what I love about the authenticity of the Mexican food here. The menu is simple, a selection of food that is authentic to the Chihauhau state of Mexico, a series of burritos (far smaller and less imposing than the normal burrito) or gorditas (something of a pocket gyro with Mexican food), with four or five fillings. That's it. This may imply a very basic place, but the restaurant was decorated beautifully, had a full bar. It was something out of creation - a high-concept style on a low-concept idea executed to perfection. I got two burritos (again, they're small - priced slightly above a taco), one with chicharron, the otehr with a spicy "red" pork stew. Both were excellent.
The reason I didn't go to Taco Boys today was dinner with my colleague was at a Mexican restaurant called Vecina, another high-concept (admittedly, this was downright fancy) take on latin cuisine. And again it was excellent, this being a lot fancier. They have a really well thought out menu of dishes mixing traditional Mexican and other latin cuisines, including peruvian-based seafood dishes, moles, tacos, and more. I got pork belly tacos, which were excellent and he got hiramasa tacos which were also great. I go the mole smoked chicken main which was great but big - at least it was nice food to have at 2am in the AirBNB to close the night.
When not imbibing Mexican food, I was experiencing a lot of what else makes Phoenix a great city. First was, truly, one of the better focused museum's I've been to in the US. This one is called hte Heard Museum, built to honor the native population of this area. There's a large history exhibit at the start called 'Home' that details quite sharply each of the tribes that once controlled this whole part of the world. In there are a host of artifacts from pottery, to weaving, to dress, of them. The rest of the museum was around art, but again dedicated to the native population. The exhibits were all excellent, a couple personal favorites was a large two-story exhibit on native tapestries and weaving, which were all excellent, and a giant exhibit showcasing the art of a Leon Polk Smith, apparently a faily well known modern-art dynamo who had native heritage. It was great - one of the better "modern" art exhibits I've been to. What really impressed me with the Heard museum was how well set up it all was. This was a museum that highlighted such important topics and did so with class and reverence. Kudos to Phoenix here.
The other aspect of Phoenix that showed itself again today was how close it is to really nice natural beauty - and also how the dry heat makes fairly rough (for me) hikes somewhat manageable. This one was closer to Phoenix than yesterday's in the "South Mountain State Park" that is about a 20 minute drive south from downtown. The hike starts soon as you enter the state park and goes up to Dobbins Lookout about a 900ft elevation rise over 1.9 miles - most of that rise occurs in the back-half of the hike. You can drive up to the lookout, but what's the fun in that. This hike wasn't as beautiful as yesterday's, though that could be largely due to the fact it was tougher and longer, it didn't afford the same amount of time to just take in the beauty around you. After a good 75 minutes, I reached the top, and you can see so far out in every direction. Phoenix, with its fairly compact downtown is visible, but so is Glendale with its University of Phoenix stadium, and mountains in the background everywhere.
After the hike, and me guzzling down a cold gatorade in record time, I met up with my colleague and we headed over to Grand Avenue Brewing Company, another perfectly picturesque brew-pub. They brew their own beer, had about 12 things on tap, and a fairly extensive food menu featuring a lot of variations on their signature 'smoked' baked potato. I passed over that for a bratwurst, and we split a couple flights before having a pint of a full beer - me choosing a really nice nitro black cream ale. Granted I came at maybe the perfect time of the year to visit Arizona (in that its not unbearably hot) and at this point every major city has a thriving brewery scene, but I'm truly impressed and in love with Phoenix's output here.
Post dinner, we did do something different checking out Platform 18 at Century Grand, a fairly snazzy cocktail bar. It was the usual type of new age cocktail place with all the trappings one would expect at such a place. After that we did do a quick repeat of the prior day, with a stop at The Wandering Tortoise (a lot more crowded today) and then finishing Phoenix off (at least in terms of nights) at The Theodore. On the whole, Phoenix has mightily impressed me. I still have an afternoon basically on Tuesday, but left very little for that given I don't know what time I would be able to make it back.
