running from summer & eating every single meal outside while we still can.

a downtown phoenix staple. 

a place where you'll be greeted by the owners, have delicious pizza to the sounds of live music and if you don't want food, you can just pull up an adirondack chair and enjoy a cocktail on the patio. 

 we waited an extra 35 minutes to make sure we got a patio seat. because it would have been a sin to be inside.

sushi for two.

just one of those random weekday nights that we decided to skip the gym and bail on our list full of errands for sushi happy hour and then tunes on our back patio. ting was lookin' extra tasty so i snapped a pic. and i love it. that's it.

we gave the new sushi brokers in arcadia a whirl.

happy hour until 6:30 pm (major plus), good vibe, tasty sushi & you're guaranteed to bump into friends. 

two thumbs up. 

smell ya later, stingray.

oh the PASTAbilities!

said the tings one recent saturday night at the old spaghetti factory. that's right, folks. the OSF.

and you know what? it was delicious and pretty damn fun. the weather was wet, the wind was cold and we wanted some hot italian food at a restaurant that didn't require us changing out of our cozies. so off to the OSF we went.



as we were being seated, danny spotted the old train car inside the restaurant and got excited. i was like, yeah - that's kinda their thing. and then i realized this must be danny's first time to the old spaghetti factory. to confirm my suspicions i asked him what you got after dinner... he had no clue. spumoni in a silver dish! duh.



ting loved it. we had our private booth. our paper placemats and all the italian food one could want for the lovely price of $11.95 a person. bread, soup or salad, an entree plus dessert. amaze.

a booth fit for royalty.

the famous OSF spumoni. 

 pretty exciting!!!

aaaannnnd that's a fat kid wrap, folks.

it was pretty fun and nostalgic for me. i grew up going to OSF. did you? 

have you ever been? maybe it's an SM thing.

pizza parlor date night.

for some reason our happy hours at The Parlor always turn into multi-hour dinners (as also seen here). we totally get sucked into the cozy neighborhood pizza parlor. i particularly love snagging a bar seat next to the window overlooking the herb garden. The Parlor was an upscale hair salon in the 1960's, and the restaurant owners kept some of the original architecture and decor - the decorative cinder blocks in the front and my personal favorite, the old salon chair and retro wallpaper framed in the ladies room. just another one of phoenix's many fantastic restaurants. 

{great herb garden out front}

{the bar. we're totally bar eaters}

{the awesome cinderblock}

{hmmm... which cheese & meats shall we have?}

{ting being annoying with the camera}

{yum. speck, salami, cheeses & spreads. i love the red sweet jam spread}

{keeping a bit of the 1960's salon alive}

{i always try to snag a window seat}

scottsdale date night.

we recently gave Scottsdale's newest hotel, The Saguaro, a whirl. for you locals, The Saguaro was formerly The James Hotel turned The Mondrian turned Hotel Theodore and now The Saguaro (and that's just since I've been an Arizona resident).

like it's predecessors, it's good but there's something missing. people, perhaps? it has the recipe for success, so we do hope locals and tourists give it a chance and pump up the vibe. the happy hour specials were good, the food & drink were tasty and the decor is a bright, funky twist on your traditional southwest decor. all positives. hopefully The Saguaro won't fall victim to the curse of its residents of past.

After drinks at The Saguaro, we headed to one of our trusty old favorites, AZ88, for dinner.

a romantic dive for three.

after my wonderful day of pampering, danny and i went to an old classic for valentine's dinner and then our three-way started. our dear quinnster flew into phoenix on february 14th so we had him join us at dinner and decided on drinks shady's, my favorite local watering hole, for some classy lite beers and juke box domination. 

we missed you meg, but not as much as quinnster did. xx