Mile High Standards in Denver!

Wow, am I behind on my blog entries. There have been a good handful of places that I've visited, with some great restaurants to visit. Let's start.

Denver - what a beautiful city. The weather was just stellar the entire time we were there. Sunny and warm during the day, cool and comfortable at night.

We started out with brunch at Snooze. What a fantastic breakfast/lunch place. It has a great modernized retro feel, and their circular booths are fun and quirky. No reservations are taken, so you have to wait. But for those who are, there's coffee and water to sip on in the foyer area.

I had an omelet stuffed with portabella mushrooms, spinach, onions, provolone, and chicken sausage. Awesome. It was moist and bursting with the ingredients. They don't skimp here! Also on the plate was a circular edifice of hashbrowns. They had a brown crusting on the top and throughout. Delicious. I really wish potatoes didn't make me fat, because I would have eaten every single shred.

I substituted the toast for the Namaste Pancake - whole wheat flour with bananas. Now, the pancake was pretty dense, what with the use of whole wheat flour, and the bananas could have been left to ripen just a little longer. It was a great size, but I didn't get past just a few bites. Not worth the calories.

My companions had the corned beef hash. It was homemade and Jeff was in total heaven. If he could have licked the plate, he might have.

Mike had the Eggs Benedict, and he was as happy as a clam. The next time we're in Denver again, we will hopefully go back.

Dinner that night took us out to the Buckhorn Exchange. It's a bit of a touristy kind of kitschy place, but it's definitely an experience, nevertheless. Five presidents have been through the place, and the walls are adorned with pictures of celebrities. But that's not all that's on the walls. There are a lot of dead animals, displayed in all their taxidermal glory. Now, most of you know I am a great lover of meat. I must say, after sitting there for a while, I was losing my appetite. It's not because of the animals themselves, it's the fact that they've been stuffed and have been hanging on the walls for at least 2-3 decades. I kept imagining microscopic bits of stuffing and animal hair getting all over my food. Mmm. That aside, of all the items sampled, stick with the red meats. The New York Strip, Buffalo Tenderloin, and Elk were very, very good. I also had the Game Hen. Don't bother. The Game Hen down the street at Symposium was 100% better than at Buckhorn's. Everything else isn't memorable at all. This is one place I'm glad I visited, but I will never return...

Next day, and we visited a place called Bones. It's Asian, but with some contemporary and French influences. The wine list is decent, indeed, with their house Riesling made by Dr. L. That's a good sign. We appetized on Crispy Rabbit Eggrolls (I swear, it could have been pork, the other white meat!). The Steamed Bun with Pork Belly was really pretty good. It approaches that of Momofuku, and I was entirely pleased. The Baked Scallop was very good, but I wouldn't pass up either of the other two appetizers for it. Their entrees are mostly noodle soups, which is really why I went. I got the ramen. It's been several years since I've had a really good, authentic ramen. Having spent so much time in Japan, I really yearn for a good bowl of ramen every so often. The ramen is served with lobster and a slightly creamy broth that I am sure is full of butter. So while the arteries were getting clogged, boy, was that a good dish! I'd go back in a second.