Day one:
We arrived at our hotel, Firesky Resort, around 3pm. It was "only"92 degrees outside, which was the coolest day out of the four days. Dry heat is good, thank goodness, because humidity I cannot tolerate. Most Kimpton hotels give their members some incentives. In our case, we requested foam pillows, received free turn down services, and also got a pet goldfish for companion. But the sad story was that our goldfish Zola was found dead when we checked into our room....but the service manager replaced it within minutes. Goldfish?? it's silly I know, but it was cute! The replacement wasn't a goldfish but its name was Oseana.
Our room had a great view of the lagoon/garden, but the first thing I saw when I looked outside were four fratboyish looking guys walking by, carrying a keg!! awesome!! Anyway, Joe and I head down to the lobby lounging area where they had some very chic and comfy couches and found a chess set.
Master Chu taught me how to play, but I mainly just trash-talked my way through the games. Lounged by the sandy pool, sipping on cocktails, ahhhh vacation is good.
For dinner, we met up with two of Joe's former co-workers. We went to Elements at the Sanctuary Camelback Resort. I picked the restaurant mainly because the executive chef, Beau MacMillan, was on Iron Chef v.s. Bobby Flay and WON. I had to taste his food. This was a five star resort and a five star restaurant, with a young crowd and an amazing view of the Camelback mountains. We saw the sunset and countless lightnings up on the mountains, it was definitely a rare sight for us Californians.
Anyway, moving on to the food. It was one of the best meals I have ever had (not counting my mom's cooking of course.) Joe ordered a bacon wrapped filet, served with garlic mash, balsamic onions, mushrooms, and bleu cheese.
Hands down the best steak and mash I have ever had. Every bite I was in foodie Heaven. I ordered the Ahi Tuna Tartare with cucumber herb salad. Delicious as well. The coolest part of my dish was that they made the cucumbers looked like noodles. I also ordered a side of truffled mac 'n cheese.
I really am a sucker for good ol' mac 'n cheese so I couldn't resist it. It was soooooo GOOOOOOOD. The pasta was almost like gnocchi, with just the right amount of seasoning and flavoring. The truffles, OH MAN, the truffles... Joe and I almost picked up the bowl to lick the sauce. (BUT WE DIDN'T!!) Dessert was Chocolate and Peanut Butter Decadence.
We were both speechless. Joe's coworkers also got ridiculously delicious food that we all drooled over. I said to Joe, "it's going to be pretty tough to top this meal." (Little did I know what we got ourselves into on Day number 2.)
Day two:
Lounged by the pool and tanned some more. It was already 90 at 9am in the morning. We hopped into our pimping and free hotel shuttle, (a red Escalade) and headed over to Fashion Square to do some shopping. The stores were mostly the same as the ones we have in the bay area so I wasn't too excited about that. We had lunch at Kona Grill inside the mall. It served american food with hawaiian accent, as well as a full sushi bar. I know Hawaiian cuisine is heavily influenced by the Japanese but still, it was interesting to see a customer eating a burger at a sushi bar. We ordered onion rings as appetizer. but it was actually a mountain of onion strings!! It was served with Pineapple chipotle ketchup.
Joe ordered the Kona Pizza that had lots and lots of cheeeeeese, and I got a Salmon salad with sommen noodles and tofu.
We also walked by a cafe called P.B. Loco that serves all kinds of peanut butter sandwiches and also sell flavored PB. If you know me well, you would know I am a biiiiiiig peanut butter freak and you would be very proud of me because I resisted!!!!
We ventured outside the mall to see what was around. We stumbled upon Scottsdale Waterfront and stopped by little boutiques to shop, but mainly for the nice and cool AC. All of the sudden we saw Sprinkle's Cupcake!! There were about 15 people in the stores looking lost because they didn't know which flavors to get. We settled with a red velvet and a chocolate peanut butter (haha peanut butter AGAIN.) Called our pimping escalade driver to pick us up and went back to the hotel to enjoy our cupcakes with a couple cocktails. I gotta say, I think my red velvet kicks Sprinkle's red velvet's butt!
Tanned and napped, we headed over to Roka Akor for a late dinner. My friend Leslie recommended this restaurant and I was drooling over their online menu, so I decided to take Joe here to celebrate his new job/promotion. This place was rocking. It was fusion, it was contemporary, yet it incorporated the Japanese traditional Robata grilling. They take purified water and make ice blocks out of them, and then hand carved mini "icebergs" and use them in drinks or on food presentations. Since we were celebrating, we splurged for the 12-course tasting menu. (There was a 9-course tasting menu, but all the items I wanted to try were on the 12-course menu) Joe said we were going to regret it by the time we get to number 9 or 10, but OH WELL, we were on vacation and we didn't care!! Ok brace yourselves, (I looked like an idiot taking pictures of every course but who cares?) here they come:
1st course: A simple shrimp tempura with some chilli pepper and other seasonings (I thought I tasted Saffron.)
2nd course: spinach salad with sesame dressing. It cleansed our palates
3rd course: Butterfish Tataki on top of white asparagus, with yuzu shallot dressing.
4th course: Wagyu beef sushi, served with Oscietra Caviar, spring onions, and chrysantemun petals. I wanted to eat 5 more of these babies.
5th course: soft shell crab sushi with chilli mayo. It was still hot, yet not overfried. Best soft shell crab I had. None of those spider rolls crap you get at restaurants.
6th course: Sashimi Moriawase. tuna, salmon, and yellow tail. They also served it with chrysantemun petals and mustard cress. Very tasty.
7th course: Foie Gras wrapped in Nori (Seaweed), served with squid ink toast and Umeshi plum that has been sitting in wine. Mmmm rich and buttery goodness.
8th course: Simple asparagus with sweet soy and sesame sauce.
9th course: Rice hot pot with nameko, eryngii, shimeji mushrooms, and edible wild plants. (we could only eat a few bites of these because we were getting so full, but the leftovers were great for breakfast!)
10th course: black cod marinated in yuzu miso and homemade hajikami ginger. One of my favorite. The fish just melts away when you bite into them.
11th course: lamb cutlets with korean spices. I forgot to take a picture of this!!
12th course: Dessert!!!!! We actually waited quite a bit for the dessert, but we had time to let the food digest a little bit. The waitress brought over new plates, and new fork/knife/spoon. Joe and I looked at each other and said "uh-oh, we need all these for dessert???" Then we looked over, and the server brought us this.
chocolate molten cake with green tea filling/cream.
Sorbet: Green tea, pear, chocolate, and raspberry. (I didn't think chocolate cream-less sorbet can taste so good.)
"Exotic" fruits: Not too exotic to us, but there were berries, lychee, dried dates, and asian pear.
Fruit Chawanmushi: Custard with fruit chunks and honeycombs. Served with almond flavored lady finger.
First time in history that I admit defeat to desserts. Joe and I were still full the next morning when we woke up.
Day three:
Of course we tanned some more since neither one of us were hungry. I'm surprised that I wasn't sunburnt!!
The waterfalls in the picture were great for back and neck massages!!
Anyway, we were being lazy bums and just lingered around the hotel and played a couple games of chess. I also improved my trash-talking skills. Met up with another one of Joe's coworker at Old Town Scottsdale. We went to Grimaldi's Pizza. This place uses coal brick-ovens, and also won numerous awards for their pizzas, and have several locations in the states, including the original in NY. We chose our own toppings and the waitress recommended the ricotta, which was a GREAT choice! the crust was just right!
We each managed to stuff down a canoli afterwards. Joe is still raving about their canolis. Overall, award-winning pizzas, nice looking interior, not too snooty upscale, but not a mom-'n-pop's look either. The owner (or manager) seemed to know everybody in there and was very friendly.
After lunch, we walked around Old Town Scottsdale to kill some time and visited many souvenir stores. The whole outlook of old town is very western.. lots of cowboy merchandises. There was a store that sold only cowboy boots and each pair was at least 200 big ones. That's the price to pay for good quality leather I guess...but I can't afford it. I will have to settle with DSW because I really want a pair. There were also a lot of Indian, Navajo merchandises. Lots of gemstones, rocks, and jewelry. I bought some little trinkets because I am, afterall, a tourist.
We went for a nice swim when we got back to the hotel. The water was so warm it almost felt like a hot tub. Afterwards we went to pick up our boarding pass (The hotel is nice enough to do check-in for customers so they can get "A" seatings on southwest), and pick up a glass of wine from the lobby. They host a free wine reception every afternoon for an hour. Free booze, what's not to love?
For dinner, we decided to eat at the hotel's restaurant, Taggia, which offers Italian Coastal Cuisine (meaning, a lot of seafood) as well as all organic ingredients. I got the Bay scallop risotto, and Joe got the seafood spaghetti.
But my favorite part was the gazpacho. honey dew and tomato. it was a yingyang presentation. Tangy, garlicky, yet refreshing. delicious!
We wolfed down the panna cotta and my Montepulciano wine. For the remainder of the night, we chilled outside by the firepit. It was nice.
Day four:
Last day here. I was not happy to go back to reality... =( Anyway, squeezed in some more pool time and ate our leftover from Roka Akor. The front desk was nice and let us use their microwave. There was a mob of people checking into the hotel for a convention when we left. We actually caught a driver of a limo service who just dropped off some guests and was about to head back to the airport. That was pretty sweet, no waiting around for a cab. He took some quick detour around the freeway and got us to the airport in less than 15 mins. PHX airport is really cool, at some parts it almost looked like a shopping mall.
Anyway, the flight was so smooth and i dozed off in absolute content. This is what a vacation should be about. Just get away from everything and do nothing but eat and sleep. It was stress-free. I love it. Except the crew at w.o.m. managed to pull a prank on me saying the computers were down from virus...They got me going for a while, stressing about how I will be spending the whole day tomorrow fixing them (since I also double as the company's I.T. girl haha) Anyway, that was a good laugh, and a realization of the vacation ending. We are thinking about future vacation plans in Arizona. Possibly Sedona when it's not so hot. I heard it is beautiful there. I would also like to do one of those ATV or Hummer tours, that would be sweet!
I will be working out furiously for the remainder of the month because I gotta be ready for VEGAS!!!!!!!!!
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