Inspiring Travel and Wellness. Join me for adventures above and below the ocean, exploring nature, luxury travel experiences, spa and wellness activities.
Celebrity Theatre is a great 1960’s design concert venue located in Phoenix, Arizona. This circular venue includes a rotating stage to ensure that everyone has a great view of the stage, no matter where your seats are located!
Last night I attended the Taste Chandler’s Culinary Festival in Downtown Chandler. Single ticket was $35 and Couples admission was $50. All tickets included 12 drink tickets, redeemable for 12 drinks! Chandler was smart to offer free bottles of water. You can eat and drink for 5 hours, which was a great value for the price. We visited both lounges and 
went back to the Vintage 95 Wine Lounge a few times sampling the different wines. 12 tickets went a long way with the generous pours in the lounge! Chandler did a good job organizing the event, with hand wash stations, plenty of rubbish bins, and music.
This is a great opportunity for restaurants to showcase their food. Some of them achieved this goal, while 
others saved me time and money to ever visit their establishment. This is a tasting event, about a tenth the size of Taste of Chicago, but a similar concept. Each vendor brings small plate portion or a small single serving. This allows you to sample a little bit from everyone.
Places now added to my “skip it” list:
If you are going to do one thing, then do it well:
Superstars:
preparing and serving food in an outdoor festival, they were did a great job with the delicious salmon and white fish sushi with crunch rolls. They brought a portable refrigerated case, hand-made everything right there by their best sushi chef, and customized each plate with preferences. It was by far the
BEST dish served at the festival, and it is not nearly as good as what they serve in the restaurant. Seriously, they are that good!
We attended the famous Taste of Chicago 2012!
I was told that this year was smaller than previous years, for both restaurants and crowds. A lite drizzle of rain really cleared the streets of Grants Park on Friday. I was glad to avoid the crowds, and I am not sure we really missed out on fewer vendors. Many smaller or less well-known restaurants were able to make an appearance in “pop-up restaurants” which allowed many delicious food options. There were MANY pizza places, and a great variety of food from around the world. Our favorite meal of the day was Jerk Chicken Belize-style from Garifuna Flava.
Tickets were 12 for $8. 
Eli’s cheesecake offered “taste” size original cheesecake for just 3 tickets ($2). While most glasses of wine were between 8 to 10 tickets (average $6 each). 3 Ticket items were rare, and most portions were 8 tickets. Not enough places had true sample or tasting size portions. There were quite a few chain and multiple location restaurants, and only a few unique Mom & Pop places that we could see.
Overall, we left full and happy. We ate some good food and some amazing food. The cool weather and a bit of precipitation was an added bonus!
While in Flagstaff recently, I discovered Vino Loco wine bar. This is a darling little boutique wine bar, located in downtown Flagstaff, walking distance from the Monte V. Vino Loco stocks many varieties of wine, including some great local Arizona wines.
Due to the altitude, and my resulting diminished tolerance for wine, I decided to try the wine flights in order to try as many different wines as possible. Prices are reasonable for flights, by the glass, or by the bottle.
It is one of the best selections for hard to find Arizona small batch boutique wines. The staff is friendly and they offer a few cheese & fruit platters to accompany the wine. My next trip to Flagstaff will certainly include Vino Loco!
