Visiting Downtown PHX, AZ...

[jlee]

so I'm back in the land of Cali - guess the earthquake wasn't "the one" to create Arizona bay.


PHX is actually a really nice city, at least the parts I visited. Lots of good food, cool architecture, all the stuff I'm looking for from a big city. It also has brutal AZ sun, which definitely is a big fucking negative. But that COL though...

Tempe Beach Park - pretty cool concert venue, but not a venue built for 30k.

Had a lot of good eats, but the biggie here is Pizza Bianco. Went to the 20th street location, not the DT PHX location. Got there at 130pm on a Sunday, was prepared for a long ass wait but lo and behold lots of empty tables and sat our asses right down.

Bread and olive oil were terribad, cold bread and terrible olive oil.

The caprese salad was good, but I'm not a big fan of caprese's so not much else to say here. I could recognize the quality of ingredients however.

Cherry soda was OMG good, so good we ordered 2 even @ $4 a pop.

Now the pizza...I always order a margherita as a benchmark for this style of pizza. Quality of ingredients top notch, perfect crisp (to me). Was able to fold, no knife/fork required HOWEVER I recognize knife/fork and wet center is actually the standard for a naples style pizza. This, however, was crisp enough to be folded NY style (I'm a heathen I know). Crust was almost impossibly thin with a beautiful chew.

Now, best pizza in america? Dunno about that. Best margherita pizza I've had in America? YES. Would I wait 2 hours for it? NO. As a benchmark against known locations, I would say that Bianco margherita is definitely way better than Mozza & 800 Degrees.

Oh yeah, TOOL FUCKING KILLED IT. They busted out No Quarter for the first time in 17 years...dressed as Led Zeppelin. And like, a 10 minute version of Opiate to boot.

SUGOI - adam jones channeling his inner jimmy page w/ the double necked gibson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhiFeFYE978&feature=youtu.be

I love Phoenix. Come back in a month or so and leave before May and it's effectively paradise....no salt or snow on the roads, sunny, clear...sigh.