A Night Out In The Valley

So last Friday morning I got a bit of a surprise. There was a knock on my door at about 7:30 in the morning. (Note: the only reason I was up this early is because I work condusive with Indiana hours since that is where my company is.) I was pretty surprised, not sure who it could be. I answered the door and there was my friend Stacy from Indiana! I was very surprised, and excited to have some company for the weekend since my boyfriend was working and playing golf pretty much all weekend.

As I finished my workday on Friday, I tried to come up with ideas for Stacy and I, good ways to show her how great Scottsdale and Phoenix can be. We had dinner and drinks in Old Town Scottsdale on Friday night, then headed out to a new place for dinner with friends on Saturday. Stacy isn’t quite as into beer as my boyfriend, Ricky, and I are, so we tried to find a place that had a good selection of cocktails. Courtesy of our friends Jeremy and Petulia, we ended up trying out Hula’s Modern Tiki, a Hawaiian-style restaurant in Phoenix. Jeremy and Petulia had been there before and gotten the Scorpion Bowl, a mixed drink big enough for a couple of people to share. They were excited to go there with us, because they had been wanting to try the even larger version, the Volcano Bowl, which is big enough for 4 people. Stacy and I were in – it sounded good to us. The Volcano Bowl was pretty and tasty. It really does look like a volcano, with a small section in the middle for a shot of Bacardi 151 lit on fire. Very exotic!

The food at Hula’s proved to be good as well. Their menu was hard to pick from with so many options. I really liked the fact that there were a lot of good choices and it wasn’t just your typical bar and grill food. I ended up ordering the Polynesian Chicken Sandwich, which was good, but messy. It was much easier to eat with a fork than my hands. And, of course, I had to try their sweet potato fries. One thing to note about Hula’s, though, is if you order meat and you like it cooked well, definitely tell them you want it well done. Stacy ended up having to send some of her food back because it was a little too rare.

After Hula’s, we decided to head back to Scottsdale for some dancing. We went over to Martini Ranch to check out Rock Lobster, a local band that I’ve heard good things about. It seems a lot of others had the same idea, as we had a hard time finding a parking spot. Old Town Scottsdale gets busy on the weekends! We finally found one and headed in. As we were walking up, we ran into Ricky who had met us down there after work. We paid the $5 cover and headed into the club. Once inside, we discovered that this place was actually pretty big! Martini Ranch has multiple dance floors, bars, and levels. We had fun wandering around and checking out what was going on. We snagged a front row spot for Rock Lobster and soon the band started playing. They were a lot of fun, playing a mix of 80’s and 90’s music. They had a really unique look too, with the guys wearing plastic pants and eyeliner. Very fun to watch and rock out too. I definitely plan on checking them out again!

All in all, it was a fun night out, and I think Stacy enjoyed it. If you are in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area, I’d definitely advise visiting both of these places, and make sure you go see Rock Lobster too!