By Amberly Fitz

It was nearly deadline and panic was setting in big time. The assignment had sounded simple enough. All I had to do was search the Valley for six sensational summer salads.

But after two weeks, 11 restaurants and countless contenders, my brain felt like frisée and I still hadn’t found the holy grail of greens. Worse, I’d developed a real fear of blue cheese, dried fruit and candied nuts. Could this town truly not yield a measly half-dozen refreshing salads in the midst of summer? Were even our local “celebrity” chefs too obsessed with pork bellies to find inspiration in seasonal melons, peppers, eggplant, chard, cucumbers and purslane?

It sure seemed like it. Maybe the mythic medleys were out there, but I could eat only so much and drive to so many places. And there was no denying that my quest bore the signs of a curse. After hours of grueling Googling “best of” lists and patron recommendations to find decent candidates, I’d run into one obstacle after another.

I turned to prayer: “Oh, Green Goddess, why have you reduced me to a vegetarian Odysseus, wandering the land for a salad?”

With a single day to spare, the fickle lady finally delivered not one, but two bowls of verdant treasure. But the road would be so very long.

Ladies and gentlemen of the foodie persuasion, look at this tangle of greens.

Full disclosure: I tried to avoid the big chains as well as the restaurants already featured in The Times, which is why you won’t see such standouts as Pita Jungle’s Mediterranean Chicken Salad, or Sens’ Shrimp & Papaya. Also off the table were non-summery salads or tired staples such as Caesars, Iceberg Wedges, and Cobbs.

No mayo disgraces Carly Bistro’s lemony, briny Tuna Nicoise

Day 1: An Auspicious Start

Carly’s Bistro, 128 E. Roosevelt St., Phoenix

Unassuming Carly’s Bistro is a regular stop for the arty crowd in Phoenix. The first thing to catch the eye is a mural of a bare-breasted lady stretched out in the Arizona desert, cradling a brewski. She sure looks like she’d appreciate a nice butterhead lettuce.

Beet salads have been popping up on salad menus all over town, and at Carly’s ($7.95) an avalanche of the ruby roots are strewn across mixed greens groaning with blue cheese. That would be a whole lot of creamy, but crisp green beans and carrot curls throw down some snap, and every once in a while you get a bite of woodsy toasted pine nuts, refreshing as a Christmas breeze.

I ended up ordering two entree salads and consuming every last leaf, oblivious to the aghast eyes of lookers-on. If you’ve never had Tuna Nicoise ($8.50), prepare to be amazed at what can happen when romaine, tomatoes, green beans, and olives get to cavorting with a tuna scoop. Granted, tinned fish doesn’t sound like a particularly refreshing ingredient, but the white, flaky tuna is seasoned only with lemon juice and salty capers. A lovely light house-made vinaigrette makes the whole bowl sing.

“This assignment is gonna be a cake walk,” I thought, nibbling on Carly’s bonus slice of grilled ciabatta. “I can’t wait!”

Fun fact: Nicoise is indeed prounced nee-swaz, though the server here will try to correct you many times.

Parlor dresses farm-fresh tomatoes with basil pesto.

Day 2: Beet Me

The Parlor, 1916 E. Camelback Rd., Phoenix

This was my first visit to The Parlor, named for its former life as a beauty salon, and I wasn’t expecting the mandatory valet parking or well-heeled crowd. Tucking my unkempt hair into a bun, I pulled my shoulders back and strode in, distracting diners from my pajama bottoms with a false air of confidence.

I turned again to tubers. Orange and pink nuggets tugged from the soil at McClendon’s Select farms adorn The Parlor’s Roasted Beet Salad ($10) of peppery arugula, shavings of cool fennel and a bit of avocado. Tasty stuff, made even better with bites from the walnut-crusted goat cheese served on the side.

But was it one of the best salads in the Valley?

The chef came out to talk to a friend sitting behind me. I butted in: “What’s your most amazing salad?”

The answer was Heirloom Tomato Carpaccio ($10), and soon I was swooning over thinly sliced purple, yellow and red tomatoes fanned beneath arugula leaves. Instead of vinaigrette, the chef uses basil pesto and vinegary sweet onions for zing. As I dug in, I discovered cucumbers and pungent grape tomatoes hiding within the greenery.

Now, this was a summer salad to straighten the spine and invigorate the heat-weary soul. “Could things get any better?” I thought.

Fun fact: I tipped the valet an extra $2 to let me walk to my car so I wouldn’t have to climb into a 1995 beater in front of all the waiting Lexus owners.

Vincent’s trio of happy hour salads: haricot verts; pear, arugula and pecans; and roasted corn with goat cheese and basil.

Day 3: Baby Bowls

of Green

Vincent’s on Camelback, 3939 E. Camelback Rd., Phoenix

Don’t you think a salad of lobster, grapefruit, avocado and beets sounds magically delicious? That’s what brought me to Vincent’s on Camelback, where a tuxedoed waiter informed me the melange is no longer served.

Crushed, I slumped into one of the blue velvet sofas in the Bleu lounge and ordered a consolation glass of $5 bubbly from the happy hour menu. The other salads looked like candied-nut and blue cheese snoozes, so I eyed the appetizer selection for alternate sustenance. Salvation! Vincent’s offers a Trio Salad Assortment during happy hour for only $4.50.

Salad lovers rejoice, because these baby bowls will blow you away. Choose your trio from eight diverse preparations—a combo of pear, arugula, walnut and gorgonzola, perhaps? Or simple roasted cauliflower or tender haricot verts?

The most summery taste by far is Roasted Corn & Feta—smoky, sweet and touched with basil. Also amazing is the delicately shaved Roast Beef & Capers.

Fun Fact: Everyone near us who ordered the brioche sliders of “crab cake/avocado” and “duck/raisin” said they were god-awful. We tried them anyway and would like to formally apologize to everyone near us.

Nourish makes kale yummy in their Kale & Bright Lights Chard Summer Salad.

Day 4: Kale to the No

Nourish, Optima Camelview Village, Scottsdale

It’s too bad Nourish has the most refreshing mojito I’ve ever sucked down, because I’m never going back. The restaurant, focused on “comfort food with a healthy twist,” is not a comfortable place to be—all hard surfaces, lime walls, and grimly determined service.

But kudos to the kitchen for Kale & Bright Lights Chard Summer Salad ($10), created specially for the season, and bursting with vivid colors. Ribbons of raw kale and chard nest alongside fresh berries, candied walnuts and loads of dried figs and cherries—more than you’d find lurking in a fruitcake. The menu calls it “a delicious illness-fighting blend.” (Nothing fires up the appetite like dropping the “I” word just before dinner, right?)

Ultimately, my pretty salad faltered in the flavor department. Strawberries lacked sweetness, blueberries faded, and even a crushing amount of dried fruit wasn’t enough to balance out the sour citrus vinaigrette.

Good but not great. I was running out of time to find splendid fields of green.  And though I’d dodged the valet dude this time, the underground parking here was awful.

Fun fact: Kale, Brussels sprouts and cabbage and broccoli are all members of the mustard family. They contain sulfur, which gives off that new-babushka smell when heated.

The Original Chopped Salad at Public Citizen House refuses to fade from Valley palates

Day 5: Chopped Runaround

Citizen Public House, Craftsman Court & 5th Ave., Old Town Scottsdale

I’d nearly blown my entire Times budget and I’d found only two places with superior salads. Desperate for a ringer, I decided to revisit Zinc Bistro in North Scottsdale, where a friend had assured me the crab salad would amaze and delight. Tummies rumbling, my dining buddy and I read the sign on the door: “Closed for Annual Floor Cleaning.”

Unbelievable. I had a backup. We headed down the road to FreshMint, known for putting a Vietnamese spin on vegan dishes. “Closed Sundays,” the sign wailed at us.

More unbelievable. I remembered some online Yelper had recommended  the Burnt Tomato Salad ($9) at Roka Akor, and we headed south. Blood sugar plummeting, I threw down my fork in disgust, my mouth full of burned tomato skin. I wanted to crawl inside of a cow and cry.

Instead, we pushed onward to Public Citizen House for a ring-a-ding ringer, the most overexposed salad in Arizona: Chef Bernie Kantak’s Original Chopped Salad ($12), which has been served under the “Stetson” moniker at Cowboy Ciao for centuries. Shame on desperate old me.

In the unlikely event you are unfamiliar, the salad has a Facebook page and describes itself thusly: “I am corn, couscous, smoked salmon, asiago, pepitas, tomatoes, arugula and currants. All dressed up in a sassy buttermilk pesto dressing. In short—I am delicious!”

True. But opt to toss the salad yourself, or the server might dump the entire pitcher of dressing in your bowl, and you won’t experience much but textures, smoky fish and smoldering resentment.

Fun Fact: The Original Chopped Salad hasn’t had really said anything new about itself on Facebook for months. I can relate.

Bistro’s Iceberg Salad with Dungeness crab bobs into the camera’s flash.

Day 6: Crabby

Iceberg Ahead

Zinc Bistro, Kierland Commons, Scottsdale

Exhausted and in the neighborhood again, I couldn’t help it. I went back to Zinc Bistro hoping to catch the crab salad with lime, pickle and chopped egg. While the floors were finally clean, the waitress chirped that my dish wasn’t on the dinner menu, and the kitchen couldn’t possibly make it because the lime, pickle and eggs were stored in a cooler far, far away.

But, lucky me, the Chopped Iceberg Salad with Sweet Sherry & Smoky Blue Cheese ($15) was available with Dungeness crab for some ungodly tack-on fee. Yay. On paper, the combo held as much summery appeal to me as rolling around a marshy golf course in a sleeping bag with a quilt in my mouth

Because the restaurant was plunged in a romantic gloom, all I could discern on the plate was a whitish blob. My friend took out his key-ring light and we squinted at what appeared to be a deep-sea creature with one jellied eye. No wonder they were keeping the lights low.

I dutifully began wading through the soup of blue cheese and hazel nuts, pulling an odd baby tomato or green bean from the lettuce “bowl.” A series of trial knife stabs revealed most of the iceberg lay at the bottom, a shelf of uncut leaves impossible to cut and eat.

After almost cracking a tooth twice on shell bits left in the crabmeat—which I couldn’t see to remove—I gave up. I stared at the salad’s probable location and whispered, “I hate you.”

Fun Fact: I never want to see blue cheese again in my life. Also, “haricot verts” (air-uh-coh-vair) is French for green beans. They’re like the American version but thinner and younger.

The Veggie salad at 5th & Wine.

Day 7: Roughage Roads

Humble Pie, 21050 N. Tatum Blvd, Phoenix

5th & Wine, 7051 E. 5th Ave., Scottsdale

“What’s your most refreshing summer salad?” I asked the cashier at Green New American Vegetarian in Tempe. “Uh, that’s a hard question,” he replied, and steered me toward a mock-meat sandwich.

I should have run right there, but noooo. I needed an East Valley eatery, and this was it. Sure enough, my Balsamic Picnic Salad’s pecans, figs, unripe strawberries and lemon-doused apple had zero chemistry. And I could have thatched a tiki bar with those tough greens.

I needed two more super salads! As though it had a mind of its own, my car drove me to the doors of 5th & Wine, sister restaurant of Humble Pie, both proudly serving the Veggie ($7.50).

She’s a beauty, anchored in romaine ribbons, jicama and earthy white beans teased with basil and grape tomato. To take it up a notch, the kitchen adds fresh green beans and dabs of creamy mozzarella, finishing with avocado and a vinaigrette with absolute perfect tang. After eating this salad, I felt like I’d swum through waterfall spray.

Fun Fact: The chiffonade knife technique is a way to cut leafy greens such as basil or spinach into what looks like frilly ribbons. The term comes from the French word for “rags.”

Butter lettuce shines through a creamy herb vinaigrette at Tonto Bar & Grill.

The Tumbleweed with mesquite-grilled pork at Tonto Bar & Grill.

Day 8: The Mother Lode

Tonto Bar & Grill, 5736 E. Ranch Manana Blvd., Cave Creek

Back in the 1940s, greenhorns would come to the dude ranch at Rancho Manana and gather beneath the same rough-hewn wood ceiling beams and walls of today’s Tonto Bar & Grill in Cave Creek. It would have been blasphemy to order anything but the Tumbleweed salad ($14.50) with mesquite-grilled pork.

This was the mother lode—a blissful marriage of Southwestern flavors romping through chomped greens drizzled with BBQ-laced ranch. Corn, black beans and green onion shared the ring with tiny cubes of pepper jack cheese and red pepper, each allowing the other to have its moment. The tender, smoky slabs of pork practically gave off mesquite puffs with every prod of the fork.

This was a salad to be treasured, talked about, remembered. Tonto takes the green scene seriously, and there are more astonishing choices than I have room to mention. Even the simple Butter Lettuce plate, simply presented with basil tomatoes, shaved cucumbers and sunflower seeds, was so much greater than the sum of its parts—and no wonder. The chef had fashioned the magnificent sunny lemon-herb vinaigrette from 15 ingredients, including yolk for silkiness. That’s caring. So was the basket of hand-rolled breads and made-from-scratch muffins.

Epilogue

There you have it. My mission is complete, yet I don’t think the search should have been so hard considering all the recent back-patting about how the Valley has grown into a world-class restaurant destination. Doubtless I missed some worthy candidates, but in Los Angeles I could have walked a 10-block radius and found six standouts.

Regardless, in good conscience, here are my top nominees for sensational summer salads:

1) Tonto Bar & Grill

2) Carly’s Bistro

3) The Parlour

4) Citizen Public House

5) 5th & Wine

6) Vincent on Camelback