The day before we left, we took Mr. A out to lunch at Joyride, a local taco shop. The owners of this restaurant are known for taking old buildings and converting them in to trendy new restaurants. We love their other restaurants, Postino and Federal Pizza, so we were pretty excited to try it out. The decor is funky and fun...I wanted to take pictures of everything, but i showed some restraint.
We both ordered their lunch special which includes 2 tacos of your choice and either a side soup or salad. Cass got the tortilla soup with a crispy fish taco and a shrimp taco. She wasn't crazy about all of the slaw and fixings on the taco...she'd prefer a street taco. I got a salad, The Standard taco and a carnitas taco. I thought it was all delicious. The standard taco is made with chicken and honestly, I would not normally order chicken tacos, but it was really good! It's topped with Aji Amarillo, which is something that Cassandra's dad uses in his Peruvian cooking and what lead me to order it in the first place. It was tasty!
They also serve ajuas frescas, which are refreshing juices that are made from fruit. They offer different kinds and the option to make them spiked! So you can build your own with rum, vodka, tequila, gin, Frangelico or Amaretto. I got a strawberry and watermelon mixed with rum. Yumm!
And of course, I had the best lunch dates ever!!
The next day Cass and I dropped the little man off with her parents and headed to Wild Horse Pass Hotel and Casino. This casino is pretty small, but the rooms are really nice and we had a blast! There was a band called Powerdrive playing at the Encore Lounge and we sat and watched them for 3 hours! They played a lot of diverse styles of music and had the crowd dancing! It was fun!
Then we headed to the slots where I won $228.00! Everything about the stay was great and we want to do it again with some of our friends.
Woohoo!!
The day after that, my mom was in town and my brother, the world traveler (he just returned from his European vacation so we're teasing him about having crepes in Paris) had just gotten back so we all went to breakfast. We went to the ever so popular Matt's Big Breakfast. This is a small restaurant that is exceedingly popular and almost always has people waiting outside...even in the AZ heat. We were fortunate enough to walk right in and get a table. This was my first time going there and I liked it. They have fresh squeezed orange juice, make their own jelly, and used cage free eggs. This place is such a big deal in Phoenix that I feel like I'm being sacrilegious by saying this, but besides the toast and jelly, it didn't really stand out to me. It was good, but I'm not sure I'd want to stand in the heat for it. If you do decide to give it a try (why wouldn't you?), then I recommend getting the home fries and trying the toast and jelly.
I'd love to hear from you, and your opinions about any of these places.