Phoenix seems like a city with a deeply entrenched identity crisis.  It is the 5^th largest city in the country, but when I tell people I’m headed to Phoenix, the response is usually “… (blink) … (blink) … Oh.”  I think this is because no one has any idea what goes on in Phoenix.

Add to that the inverse relationship between what Phoenicians like about their city and what you’ll probably think is unique or interesting about it, and the whole Phoenix tourism industry goes down in a heap of confusion and bewilderment.

For example: Before our trip, we watched a travel show about Arizona, and my husband whined, “You know, why do they have to make Arizona seem like it is all freaks and weirdos all the time.  Spooky desert stories and mysterious flying objects.  Phoenix is a NORMAL CITY.” (pause) “Oh hey, my mom said a roadrunner was chasing her car the other day!”

Phoenix!  We get it, you’re sophisticated and cosmopolitan!  Now show us some desert kitsch!

Modern Phoenix can be a maze of twelve lane highways and an unfathomable sprawl of protected communities, shopping malls, golf courses, and palm trees.  But, there is a fascinating, unique city behind all that.

First, the name is pretty cool – a firebird from mythology that is reborn in a nest of flames.  Plus, Phoenicians call their region “the Valley” short for “The Valley of the Sun.”  Much cooler than “the tri-state area,” am I right?

Second, Phoenix is the land of desert lore and mountain kitsch: the Superstition Mountains, Picketpost Mountain, Gold Canyon, Saddleback Mountain, and the Gila River.  You know, “there’s gold up in them there hills” and “gallop east until the Red Twins hide the Eagle’s Nest” etc.  Pretty darn cool.

Third, Arizona is geographically awesome.  You will be awestruck.  Phoenix is surrounded by the Sonoran Desert, where Saguaro Cactus (cartoonists’ go-to cactus with a tall stalk and bent arms) dot the landscape and contrast spectacularly with the ragged red mountains.  The Sonoran Desert is vibrant and plentiful, not at all the barren, drifty desert you might think it is.

Finally, Phoenix is a diverse community with centuries of troubled history.  At least six Indian reservations surround Phoenix, and the last census showed that a quarter of Phoenix is Hispanic.  There is a lot to discover here.

Are you intrigued yet?  More intrigued than when I started?  Maybe we’ll start a new movement, letting Phoenix know that it’s kinda cool.  Here are some highlights from our latest trip…

1. Kai Restaurant at the Wild Horse Pass Resort

Kai Restaurant is located in the Wild Horse Pass Resort, which is owned and operated by the local Pima and Maricopa tribes in the Gila River Indian Community.  The Pima have lived here for millennia, and the Maricopa arrived in the Valley in the 1500’s.

Every single detail is perfect.  You enter the resort on a one-lane road that winds up and down, around, through Saguaro-studded desert.  Even once you pull up to the valet station, the resort is so nestled into the desert landscape that you have no idea what awaits.

What awaits is a beautiful two-story lobby with a wall of windows facing the desert mountains and, if you’ve timed it properly, a glorious sunset.  The grand staircase, descending into the auburn and sandstone colored bar area, is built around a mountain of fake boulders with a trickling water feature weaving throughout.  As you make your way down the steps, looking out on the view, you don’t really mind the Arizona shtick because it is all done so beautifully.

The restaurant itself is, and I don’t mean this lightly, a once in a lifetime experience.  The chef fuses Pima and Maricopa ingredients and preparations with more traditional haute cuisine fare, for a truly original and unique dining experience.  Cavier is paired with an Aloe Vera sorbet.  Heirloom tomatoes come with a Buckwheat and Saguaro Seed Tart.  Seared tuna is served with Saguaro Blossom jam.  And Pork Belly comes on Fry Bread with a Meyer Lemon Nage.  There was no dish on the menu that I’d ever seen on a menu before or knew every ingredient of.

The food was incredible (matched only by the service, which was also fantastic and diligent and perfectly choreographed without being stodgy).  My dessert of Maize Cheesecake rolled in local seeds with a Huitlacoche Syrup was brilliantly and subtly executed.  The restaurant said huitlacoche is a moss that grows on corn, but google tells me it is more of a fungus.  Whatever it is, it gave the cheesecake a nutty complexity that was as fascinating as it was delicious.

 

2. Old Town Scottsdale

My Phoenix family is mortified every single time I ask to go to Old Town Scottsdale, Phoenix’s faux saloon and general store district.  They think it’s tacky with a side of gauche.  Too bad for them that it’s actually totally awesome.  Yee-haw.

Old Town has every kind of southwestern craft you’ve been pining for – hand woven baskets, silver and turquoise necklaces, cowboy boots, pottery – all within a few square Western-themed blocks.  My favorite shop is Bischoff’s, which sells antique wood cabinets, cowboy lamps, hand-loomed southwestern rugs, estate silver and turquoise jewelry, as well as old Western photos and coffee table books.  Another favorite is Gilbert Ortega, your one stop shop for an endless selection of silver, turquoise and coral jewelry.

There are also a few restaurants and snack shops tucked in between all the western art shops.  If you’d like something a bit more artsy and a bit less crafty, I’d recommend walking across North Scottsdale Ave to enter the fancier gallery district.  Special bonus: there is a two or three story parking garage, absolutely free, off East 2^nd street.

3. The Fry Bread House

Have you had fry bread before?  I’d never heard about it until I started dating my husband, and our trips to Phoenix devolved into him searching frantically for all these road-side fry bread stands that are “everywhere.”  We found none.  Finally, we came upon the Fry Bread House.

Fry bread is a flat circle of fried dough, about the size of a large tortilla.  Now, the real joy is the Navajo Taco – a piece of fry bread covered in refried beans and melted cheese.  I have no idea why anyone in Phoenix ever eats anything else.  This is delicious.

You also have to get the classic fry bread with powdered sugar and honey.  Yes, it tastes exactly how you think fried dough covered in honey and powdered sugar would taste – no surprises here – but for a brief moment, it tastes like dietary perfection.

 

4. Papago Park in Central Phoenix

 

Arizona is home to some pretty crazy rock formations.  Most people know about the fire-engine-red pillars of Sedona, and everyone knows about the Grand Canyon.  But, there are also the stacked boulders of Texas Canyon outside of Tucson and the Wave Rocks near the Utah border.

If you just want to see some cool rocks on your way to dinner in Scottsdale, though, you might want to visit Papago Park, conveniently located in central Phoenix, just across the river from downtown Tempe. The curved and sloped sandstone rock formations of Papago Park are over 6 million years old.

Most importantly, though, “there is a HOLE in that ROCK.”  As we passed the hundredth cactus and mountainous boulders, I shouted just that as we parked the car.  We later heard the kids in the car behind us shout it, and as we were leaving, a family pulling in all shouted it.  It is aptly named Hole-In-The-Rock.  There’s just something about a large hole in a large rock.

You can scramble up the mostly-smooth path behind the rock to reach the hole, and you can then sit in the hole, like thousands of people have probably done for millennia before you and look out over downtown Phoenix, framed by the Estrella Mountain range on the horizon.

There is also George W. P. Hunt’s tomb, a blindingly white tile pyramid, on top of the next rock over.  As the plaque says, Mr. Hunt was the first, third, fifth, and seventh Governor of Arizona.  Hunt’s Tomb has a few wooden benches surrounding it, which makes it an ideal spot to sit down and take in the view for a while.

5. Queen Creek Olive Mill

The bread service at Kai included a locally-produced olive oil that wowed us.  It only seemed fitting that we needed to give this Phoenix-based olive farm a visit, in remote Queen Creek, AZ.

Queen Creek became slightly infamous a few years ago in the world of urban planning.  Real estate developers built thousands of houses in the remote community, with only a two lane highway to connect it to jobs in the Phoenix metro area.  Traffic jams, overcrowded schools and hospitals, inflated real estate prices, the eventual real estate crash… and now the foreclosure troubles.

The Queen Creek Olive Mill predates all that, and so you have a lovely olive farm right in the midst of otherwise suburban Queen Creek.  Unlike the actually-industrial farms of California, the Olive Mill is mostly a cute, “industrial” store with a small patch of olive grove on the side.  Inside, you can sample all their odd olive oil concoctions (vanilla bean olive oil, chocolate olive oil, white truffle olive oil, Meyer lemon olive oil) as well as balsamic vinegars and tapenades.  The store unfortunately does not give you bread to help sample the oils at the olive oil bar – perhaps they had a problem with people spending their lunch hour there?

I’d recommend planning a meal at the Queen Creek Olive Mill, as they have an extensive sandwich bar with dozens of unique sandwiches made with their homemade spreads and tapenades.  My brie and apple sandwich, with their caramelized red onion and fig tapenade was wonderful.  They also sell cupcakes and cannoli using their vanilla bean olive oil, which we were too full to taste this time around, but you can bet I’ll be back there for more on our next trip to Phoenix.