Never Make a 7Eleven Your Parking Landmark

A View from Red Rocks

Day one in Denver got off to a pretty start.  I ended up getting my rental car from Fox in an effort to save some money.  I got a free upgrade to a midsize video.  I ended up with the most scratched up Toyota Corolla that I’ve ever seen in my life.  The scratches didn’t really bother me but the fact that the vehicle didn’t have cruise control was pretty much unbearable.  I use cruise control constantly; it’s my one guard against speeding.  Oh well, with the many scratches I had, I don’t really have to worry about bringing that car back in good condition.

Braised Beef Brisket at Masterpiece Delicatessen

Our first stop was at Masterpiece Delicatessen.  I pinned it in my Google maps before I came here simply because they were on Thrillist’s list of best sandwich shops in the US.  They didn’t disappoint either.  I ended up getting the brisket sandwich.  Their brisket was incredibly tender following a twelve hour long braise.  Then the sandwich has this lovely red wine gastric and along with a Taleggio fondue, which I could have honestly had a bit more of.  All criticisms aside, when you combine the tender beef with the sweetness of the caramelized onions and the little spicy bite of arugula all on a crispy toasted baguette, you have a really great sandwich.  I don’t know if this shop ever gets really busy, I’d imagine it would though since it is really small.

From there we went to check into the hotel room.  The Doubletree I chose is not in Downtown Denver, but it is only 5 miles away from Downtown, when you factor in the price that you don’t have to pay for parking there as well as the fact that Denver isn’t usually a traffic laden place, it is well worth it to save the extra money and stay on the outskirts of the town.  Especially since the going rate for rooms Downtown is almost twice as much.

Bike Ride Through Washington Park

After settling in for a bit we decided to go to Washington Park for a bike ride.  Denver has a bike rental service where you can use bikes for the day for $8.75.  Maybe it’s just me but I ride bicycles decently fast even when I am riding through somewhere pretty scenic.  We made a few laps through the park before we returned the bikes.  The park is definitely one of the nicer parks city parks.  I’m a sucker for squirrels though and I spot them all the time and love taking pictures of squirrels, I don’t know exactly why.

Fries at Jonsey's

From there we finally went to dinner.  We went to a happy hour at Jonsey’s Eat Bar.  We got street parking and walked through a small park where people were playing a good game of kickball in order to get there.  Jonsey’s had a very good happy hour going on at the time.  We could get much of the good quality craft beers on the menu for half off alongside their selection of fries for $5.  I found this place after a tweet from Alton brown that had a link to the 30 greatest fries in America.  Jonsey’s landed number 28 on that list.  Knowing this I had to try them since I was conveniently in Denver at the time.  Now I question the validity of that list because I’ve had number three on that list and these are better.

We ended up trying three different types of the fries, which was far more than enough food for two people.  Yes I had dinner that day completely of French fries.  The three varieties we went for where the Truffle, which were my favorite and had a truffle aioli and shaved parmesan.  We also had the Green Chili, which was a requirement, being in Denver you have to get as much as you can with green chili and these fries were an example of how the mild flavor of that chili makes Denver’s love affair with the chili completely justified.  Last up on the list were the Asian version that had a tangy sweet and sour sauce.  Before trying them I wouldn’t think that this would work before I tried it, after the fact though the sweet and salty effect that you get with these fries really works.

After dinner was over we did a bit of shopping in the 16th Street mall.  We still had a bit of a wait before the concert later.  Neither one of us really wanted to sit down after such a heavy meal.  The mall had your classic stores, H&M and Express and such but there were a couple of very unique places.  One of them was Rocket Fizz.  This was a candy and soda shop.  The store had a kind of a funky vibe that you get from the 60s music playing over the loudspeaker.   You could sodas there from almost any flavor even those as diverse as ranch dressing.  There were more rows of root beer than you could count.  The practical joker in me wanted to switch a ranch dressing label with a coconut soda label and watch the mayhem that would arise.

Then we lost the car for a while.  It was kind of a big deal since we had only a little while before the concert as well.  I had learned a valuable lesson; maybe you shouldn’t use a 7-Eleven as a landmark.  We ended up having to search for the car for about 15 minutes and found it about the time the doors opened for the concert.  It ended up not being a big deal at all because there was a long line for the concert.

The Knife is a very different band.  I have to say there is probably nothing out there like them.   I can only think of a beer analogy to compare them too.  They are like a really hoppy IPA.  It’s very good, very different, but not necessarily something that you would want every day.   Also not something that everyone would enjoy.  I have to admit, when the show started with the dance aerobics, I thought that I wasn’t going to enjoy myself at all.  This couldn’t have been further from the truth.

Although I must admit the show was so confusing from my perspective that I couldn’t tell what was going on most of the time.  There were so many different instruments that I’ve never seen before and so many people singing that I couldn’t tell what was really going on.  Add to that the fact that I couldn’t really make out the lyrics most of the time and it was just me watching most of the time.

I know this sounds as though my review of the show is overall scathing but that is untrue.  I enjoyed the music and the dancing was pretty well coordinated.  It was like a bit of an acid trip.  You really just have to let go and not think so much in order to really enjoy the Knife.

After the show, there was an hour long DJ set.  I was ok with staying and dancing for a bit until the bartender said the words that wouldn’t want me to leave even faster. “I can only do water right now.”  We walked back to the car only to find that I lost my keys.  I was really worried because I didn’t want to have to end up paying that huge fee that comes with losing the keys to a rental car.  We walked back and talked to the security people and they told us we would have to wait until everyone left.  We stood around for about 15 minutes before I reached into my back pocket and felt the key.

Live Music at Appaloosa Grilll

By this time I was kind of hungry again and so we ended up at Park & Co.  I had been here before the last time I was in Denver.  I go there because they make really good cocktails at a decent price.  They did have a good Happy Hour Special going on at that time but unfortunately the kitchen was closed.  This turned out be a good thing because it caused us to stumble on to Appaloosa Grill.

Appaloosa Grill has great food and the added bonus of having live music every night.  It took me aback as the only places that I’ve seen with live music every night have been on Bourbon Street in New Orleans.  The music they played ranged a lot.  From covers of Bob Marely to Marvin Gaye, but everything they played had you dance a little bit.  To eat I went with the fried pickles.  They came with a very interesting sriracha ranch sauce which was the major selling point for me.   I also enjoyed the Chorizo sliders as well.

Fuel Cafe

Jerk Chicken at Fuel Cafe

The next morning we ended up getting breakfast at Fuel Café.  We were expecting breakfast but it ended up being more of a lunch place.  Fuel Café is a nice little spot that succeeds in providing nice healthy fare to its customers, but fails at providing adequate parking.  I wouldn’t recommend travel there by car as we had to drive around the parking lot for quite some time in order to get a parking spot.

I ended up getting a soup that had kale pork and potatoes.  While the broth was very flavorful, once you got a spoonful of potatoes, it came across as under seasoned.  I took this as an opportunity as well to enjoy the original Coors Banquet Beer.  It was a good time sitting out there with the sun hitting your face and an ice cold beer.  For what it’s worth, there are a lot of craft beer snobs that look down on the consumption of brews from the big three, but I think every now and then it’s good to enjoy one of those mass manufactured beers.

Oatmeal Cookie at Fuel Cafe

For an entrée I decided to go with the Jerk Chicken.  The Jerk Chicken had all of those strong herbal flavors you might expect, except it was lacking one major and probably most important flavor.  Heat.  This chicken wasn’t even spicy at all which is completely atypical.  With jerk chicken you usually get massive amounts of heat from the scotch bonnet (aka habanero) pepper.  This chicken while tasty had no spice at all.  It was like jerk chicken for your grandma.

The desert was a bit of a simple high point.  It was a cookie.  I like Oatmeal Cookies, but I hate raisins.  Raisins always make things worse.  You never taste something and then think to yourself “You know what this needs, dried grapes.”  Not to mention that raisins taste significantly worse than grapes.  This oatmeal cookie had walnuts and chocolate chips.  It was an Oatmeal cookie that I could really get behind.

Me and Dusty Smith

Then there was an art museum trip.  The Denver Art Museum is worth a trip just to see the amazing architecture on the outside as well as get a good view of Downtown Denver from the viewing deck.    While we were there was an exhibit going on Modern Masters Exhibit going on.  This also got you into the Clyfford Still Museum, which we would end up not taking advantage of.

After the museum, we ended up meeting up with one of my favorite YouTube personalities, Dusty Smith.  He’s pretty hilarious and pretty blasphemous, so religious people should be warned before visiting the linked site.  Anyway we hung out and had a few drinks at Coyote Ugly.  It was happy hour there and the beers were only $2 each.  This was another one of those times when I would end up drinking beers from the big three.

After that it was down to Park and Co for more drinks and dinner.  I really wanted something with Green Chilies so I ended up going for the popper burger.   We also had the Pulled pork nachos as a starter.  The pulled pork nachos were satisfying on every level of unhealthiness by combining the sweetness of barbecue sauce with the saltiness of chips.  The burger had that perfect char on it.  It had a whole roasted green chili on it and cream cheese with diced jalapenos to give you a little bit of spice.

For dessert I would end up going with the snickers bread pudding.  I am a sucker for bread pudding and this one sounded too interesting to pass up.  A little chocolaty for my taste but for some that might not be a bad thing.

We rounded out the night at 1up.  I am usually a fan of classic beercades, but this one was kind of a letdown.  It was so small and really lacked all of the games that I usually love to play.  I’m a big fan of left to right scrolling action fighting games like The Simpsons and X-Men arcade games.  Of course I can’t complain too much because they did have a lot of the classics you expect like Galaga, Centipede and Donkey Kong.  Problem is those games are incredibly hard and incredibly simple.  I also wasn’t a big fan of their no refund policy as it relates to pinball machines, because I lost 50 cents when one of the balls got stuck in the Metallica pinball machine.

Red Rocks

We went to bed early in order to try and catch the meteor shower later that night.  You think it would be easy to drive somewhere without light pollution.  Alas it isn’t as easy as you think it would be.  We ended up driving around for hours in which we’d get farther away from civilization only to get closer to where there were more humans and after driving around for a few hours we gave up.  It was very uneventful as we turned down a couple places that weren’t too shabby for watching the meteor shower but were still quite less than ideal.  There really should be a light pollution layer on Google maps.

For breakfast we went to DJ’s 9th Avenue Café.  It was around noon by the time we got there and unfortunately they stop serving one of my favorite breakfast items at 11.  All the benedicts were off the table.  I decided for the next best thing, the kitchen sink.  This was a combination of potatoes, Canadian bacon, bacon and green chili sauce.  I must have been very hungry since I downed the breakfast in record time.

Beer Flight at Golden City Brewery

After that we went to Red Rocks.  Many of the trails were closed but we did end up taking a nice hike along the Trading Post trail.  It wasn’t terribly long or difficult a mere 2.8 miles.  Once we got back around though we did go up the steps at the amphitheater.  This was pretty intense and you feel like you’re going up the stairs forever.  I did tell the difference between the altitudes as I go up about a hundred feet of stairs at work before I start breathing heavy, yet after about 25 feet I was breathing pretty hard.  Still we soldiered on to the top and you could see tons of people taking pictures and working out.

Cheese Flight at Barrels and Bottles

After being nearly exhausted from all of the hiking we made our way to a couple of breweries in Golden.  The first stop was at Golden City Brewery.  It was kind of cool because you could really smell the byproduct of the beer production that they had going on there.  I had a flight there where we tasted six of their beers.  My favorites there were the Mad Molly Brown.  It had a rich and nutty flavor and was just incredibly smooth.  I also loved their Evolution IPA which had the bite of hops without being too aggressive which is what I search for in a good IPA.  The only beer that I didn’t like there was the Cedar Creek Golden Pale Ale.

Beer Flight at Barrels and Bottles

Afterwards we went to Barrels and Bottles.  It was good to go to a small town craft brewery that was owned by a former military member.  They were very friendly and the beers there were good as well.  The real winner though was the cheese plate.  My favorite on the cheese plate was this sage cheese but that is mostly because I’m just a sucker for sage.  My only complaint about the platter would be that it could have used some more crackers or bread.  As far as the beers go, I was a real big fan of the Proper Gentleman.  They may have won me over with the name a bit but it was definitely a smooth and easy to drink beer.  I also liked that they were creative.  They had a special beer brewed for Easter that was brewed with peeps.  The honey peeps wasn’t too sweet though and you could hardly recognize the sweetness of

Inside The Source

the peeps.

For dinner we headed to Acorn.  We still had a bit of a wait before the kitchen opened for dinner so we decided to take a little bit of a walk around the marketplace that it was in  The Source has a few restaurants, a coffee place and a specialty liquor store and bakery.  The entire shopping area is unified by simple turquoise lettering in a minimalistic design.  For example the letters spelled out liquor for the specialty liquor store Proper Pour.  Everything had an eye towards a high end artisanal sort of appeal, and I really wish the coffee shop that was there wasn’t closed.  I guess 5 pm was exactly the wrong time to arrive since we were too late for coffee and too early for dinner.

Drinks at Acorn

After we were seated, we got acquainted with the menu a little and they have a near overwhelming amount of cocktail options.  I guess this shouldn’t be a complaint, but when I see more than 10 drinks on a menu I instantly give up and ask the server for help.  I know my way around cocktail ingredients quite a bit, but why kid myself when I can easily test the abilities of the server and bartender by explaining to them what I like.  I told them I like Whiskey and I was repaid in kind with their Across the Atlantic.  It was a smooth play off a Manhattan.  I honestly would have never thought about the addition of Benedictine to the cocktail to give it this nice herbal quality that makes your drink somewhat reminiscent of gin (which I also love).

Iberico at Acorn

Dylan went for the Momo Rino.  I shied away from it because she described it as a sweet drink and while it was sweet, let me tell you it had a bit of a punch.  Our waitress was not a lightweight by any stretch of the imagination if she clung to this drink as her favorite.  I could see myself drinking that drink as it had that sweetness from the honey liqueur balanced against a bit of lemon.

Dessert at Acorn

Acorn serves family style, and if they would have had more vegetarian options I would have been more than happy to embrace that theme but sadly none of the vegetarian options peaked my interest enough to keep me away from the Iberico Ham and Chicken Liver Pate.  I do think that liver from chickens and ducks is about one of the best things you can eat when it comes to organ meat.  I know that usually it is a tough sell, so it usually doesn’t stay around on menus long which is why am quick to order it when I see it on the menu at a quality place.  When you combine that smooth texture of a well-made pate with a little bit of saltiness and a bit of sweetness from the compote, you have something delightful.

I was very curious about the Iberico dish as the last time I had Iberico was when I was in Barcelona.  Iberico is the most expensive meat product there is and is in my personal opinion the undisputed king of pork products.  The highest grade of Iberico, Jamon Iberico de Bellota, comes from pigs that are free range in oak forests and have a diet of acorns.  The meat is then cured for 36 months.  This gives the meat a deep red color and the fat that is present in the Iberico is very high in Omega 3s making it also the healthiest ham you can eat.  The fat in the ham actually melts at room temperature which is an amazing sight to see.

The Tune-Yards

I worried that serving such a high quality ham with anything else would have been a bit of a mistake, and while I didn’t take a bite of the chicharon together with the romesco and the ham as a composed bite.  I sort of overcame my how you eat this puzzlement by combining the romesco (which was one of the best romescos that I’ve had and wished I had more of) with the chicharon and tasting that wonderful delectable ham in between bites and it was quite pleasant.  For an entree Dylan had the mushroom risotto.  While it was quite tasty, they were slightly heavy handed with the white wine.  While I did sample a few bites of it I could see how I would have trouble finishing an entire bowl of the stuff.

I let my waitress pic my second drink as even though I didn’t think that the bartender could do better than the first one, I had to test the waters a bit more and honestly, two of the many drinks on their menu isn’t large enough of a sample size to be able to confidently endorse all of their drinks as good product.  She chose the Central Slope Sour.  Ironically it is a drink that I probably would have never chosen for myself by looking at the menu.  I love bourbon as much as the next guy but I’ve never had good experiences of cocktails that are mixed with drinks.  The sage garnish and not knowing what was in the drink initially kind of won me over.  It was slightly sweeter than my last drink, but still one that I liked quite a bit.

For dessert we went with the caramelized brioche. Again I was playing along with my obsession for bread pudding desserts.  Or maybe I was randomly attracted to the dish for my love of strawberries.  At any rate think of this dish as amazing French toast meets crème brulee and get together and have a decadent love child.  I hate to use the lame cliché but my only complaint about this dish was that there wasn’t more of it.

After a quick shower, we were off to see Arcade Fire.  I was pretty hyped for it especially since Tune-Yards were opening for them.  I’ve been picking up on the Tune-Yards recently because they are playing at Pitchfork.  I’m going to that festival later this year and I didn’t want to go blind and they were one of the bands that I really kind of latched on to.  When we got there she was already playing though to a bit of my dismay, but I still got to see most of the performance.  While I didn’t get to see them perform my favorite song We’re All Water, a Yoko Ono cover believe it or not…  They did however perform two of my other favorites Powa and their new song Water Fountain.

There was a little bit of weirdness from Kid Koola, as he played a DJ Set that featured songs from Yo Gaba Gaba… Needless to say, I wasn’t quite drunk enough to enjoy music designed for 5 year olds, especially considering my aversion to children.  When it comes to preschool shows I’m a Sesame Street and Dora loyalist.

We had floor tickets and after a while of waiting we had a decent spot in the crowd that was about 5 or six rows of people from the front.  We were able to get this close after a couple of songs, positioned in front of this chick with this annoying Indian head dress that kept hitting me in the face (thanks for the costume or formal wear suggestion guys) after some chick passed out and their friends had to carry her off.  It was a pretty wild show.  The guy working the floor had to have one of the best jobs ever as all he did was stand around and bum weed off of people rather than confiscating it or kicking them out while enjoying the show.

The show was awesome.  I thought I would feel a little ripped off in the end because the tickets were a little pricey but it was well worth it.  I even though the show was over about halfway through when they left the stage for a bit for a little interlude where the copy band the Relfecktors, modeled after their new album name shows up wearing the giant paper Mache masks that have grown to become synonymous with this album.  Just after that they showed up on stage to perform what are hands down my favorite Arcade Fire song.  Normal Person.

I’ve got to say it was a very well-produced show.  It’s hard when you go to a show for a band that you really like because you really want them to play all of your favorites, and there is no way that they could play them all.  Absent on the set list were a couple of my favorites like “Black Mirror” and “(Antichrist Television Blues)”

The next morning after breakfast in the hotel which I just had your normal eggs bacon and hash browns and drowned everything in green chili sauce.  We drove off the grid.  It was a 90 minute drive to the Rocky Mountain state park.  It was a pretty scenic drive that we took getting out of the car every now and then to take pictures.  Eventually we got to a trail that was far too ambitious.  There were lots of mountain bikers along the trail as well. The Bitterbrush trail was 3.7 miles each way up and down the trail but we sort of gave up a couple of miles in.  My shoes weren’t equipped at all to handle the abuse from walking on tons of rocks up hill.  Still I got to take some beautiful pictures and I want to go back, even if it is completely off the grid.

On the way back down we stopped at the Colorado Cherry Company.  We pulled into the place because they were sampling cherry cider.  Also because after a long hike and drive, with limited snacks, I could have eaten just about anything.  We tried a few different ciders before I settled on the peach and a bowl of the bison chili for the drive back.  The chili was pretty good, and while I do appreciate the use of bison, in this sort of application it really is indistinguishable from beef.

For dinner we went to Happa Sushi.  Happa Sushi came on to the radar for paring weed with sushi.  It was a promotion that they were running.  They do not sell weed there and I do not consume it so it didn’t bother me at all.  The place had a really modern feel to it.  I went against one of my major rules here.  I usually only consume fish in regions near coast.  Chicago gets a pass for me since it’s on one of the great lakes and is also a big hub for just about everything.

For appetizers, there were the veggie dumpling s as well as the veggie tempura.  You couldn’t complain much about these as the batter was crisp on the tempura.  I would have liked for the sweet potatoes in the tempura to be blanched a bit more as they did taste just slightly underdone.  That aside it was decent.  I wanted to try one of the Happa Appetizers as well so I went with the Happa sliders.  They were good sandwiches but I don’t see how they really fit in with a sushi restaurant, unless you are looking for a dish that could please someone that doesn’t like sushi.  I’m not saying that it wasn’t good, it was just a pulled pork slider that tasted as though it had a bit of sriracha mixed into the barbecue sauce though.

Vegetable Dumplings at Hapa

I can’t say too much for the sushi.  I ended up going with the XXX roll.  It wasn’t very memorable.  It was one of the signature rolls they make there, but it suffered for me for having too many ingredients such that you couldn’t taste the fish almost at all.  I can’t complain too much though it was a decent dinner.

The last stop was a local bookstore and coffee shop.  Fireside Books and Coffee, was a great combination of a coffee shop and bookstore.  What’s awesome about the place is that they also have coconut and almond milk options for your drink.  There were also some good deals on some used books as well.  I usually just use books to go on my nonexistent coffee table as I prefer reading on my kindle more than anything.  That being said I did find a lot of books that I would have been willing to purchase, if my luggage wasn’t already full at the time.  You do have to appreciate their hours as they are open very late.