Patsy’s Italian Restaurant, Denver

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Lea Ann

A shot at our booth, a lunch outing at Patsy’s Inn, the oldest Italian Restaurant in Denver.

My husband is a Denver native and grew up in what we affectionately call “the old country” and officially known as the “Little Italy“. In recent years, the area has undergone a renovation and now is part of “The Highlands“. Rich in Denver history it’s located just West of Downtown.

Winding your way through this partially renovated and unique neighborhood you’ll find historic brick bungalow homes next to upscale boutiques, next to run-down liquor stores, next to a razed modern loft projects and then you get to Patsy’s. Let’s take a look.

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Ja Ja French Bistro, Littleton, CO

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Lea Ann

Bacon Wrapped Date Appetizer. Absolutely delicious and a “must order” at JaJa French Bistro

Back in August, our California friends Nancy and Neal were coming to Denver for a few days before we all headed up to Grand Lake for a mountain get away vacation. Once I knew they were coming, I started the arduous task of finding “just the right” restaurant for a group dinner out. Requirements were not that difficult; locally owned, with just the right lively and welcoming atmosphere and with clever mouthwatering food that would make us swoon. I assumed I’d find that criteria only in Downtown Denver.

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Kraut Burgers and Berry Patch Farms

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Lea Ann

A mid-day field trip to Brighton found us eating Kraut Burgers for lunch and exploring a wonderful certified organic farm. Let’s take a look.

With my friend Marla as tour guide, Kirsten over at My Kitchen In The Rockies and I were given a mighty fine tour. You see, Marla’s Russian-German descendents settled in this agriculture rich area of Colorado. She and her family still live in the area and when she suggested that Kirstin and I meet her for a Kraut Burger, followed by a stop at Berry Patch Farms, we couldn’t get it on the calendar fast enough.

Let’s start with Lauer Krauts, a small family owned and operated restaurant in Brighton simply serving Kraut Burgers and a soup of the day. You can get your Kraut Burgers three ways; regular, with cheese or with jalapeno. I opted for the original “regular” version. A Kraut Burger is ground beef, onion and cabbage and some seasoning, steaming inside a fresh-baked bun. Cut it in half, squeeze in some spicy brown mustard and you’ve got a delicious treat.

The meal even came with nice visit with the owners who demonstrated a sauerkraut making machine and gave us a view of a special German pastry, kuchen.

Their kuchen is made with a German berry that can only be obtained by growing it yourself. Smaller than a raspberry with a more tart flavor. They grow the berries behind the restaurant and keep a list of patrons that want to purchase a slice of kuchen each fall. Doesn’t it look beautiful? I didn’t write down the name of the berry…darn it. Marla actually just commented on this post and informed us the berry is Schwartzbeeren and you can read abit about it at this link: http://www.volgagermans.net/portland/foods.html

Seating inside is friendly and hospitable and we had such a good time chatting with everyone. Kirsten, my blogging friend is from Germany has only lived in the states for a few years and I honestly didn’t think they were going to let her leave. Too much fun talking about German food.

Lauer Krauts is beaming with small town charm and great food. I’ll definitely be back.

Next stop was Berry Patch Farms, which hosts a barn full of beautiful certified organic produce grown on the land that surrounds it. Take a look at their website to learn more about them.

You can also pick your own at Berry Patch. We didn’t, but as you can see by the look on this young man’s face, it’s a satisfying task. Man, don’t those raspberries look good. It’s a wonderful place, with a great selection of produce and a lot of items I had never heard of…lilac and chocolate bell peppers to name a couple. It even comes with a greeting crew of beautiful roosters, a farm dog that chases the roosters and a pig that doubles as entertainment and sheriff. As you can imagine, I felt like Alice in Wonderland.

Thank you to Marla for a wonderful Foodie adventure, and stick around for a slide show tour.

[slideshow]

Denver Art Museum, Palettes Restaurant

Posted on August 20, 2010 by Lea Ann

The Tut Poster outside the Museum

Everyone needs a little culture, so this week we headed into the city to the Denver Art Museum to see the King Tut Exhibit.

One of our favorite things to do is to attend a show at the museum and have lunch at Palettes Restaurant. Palettes is located inside the museum, is a Kevin Taylor Restaurant and a fabulous place to dine and drink in some food art before you soak up culture at the museum.

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PHObia

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Lea Ann

022 I’ve been wanting to go for Pho for years. I just haven’t because I didn’t know what to order, how to eat it or even how to act once I got there. This past Friday, Deborah and I went for Pho.

A couple of months ago I walked into our office and Deborah was there and had brought Robert Pho for lunch. Robert is one of the owner’s of our company and Deborah is his girlfriend.

I asked Deborah to take me for Pho. I explained to her my PHO-bia. I am most certainly glad she agreed to go with me. Looking at the menu I was clueless. Oh, I suppose I could have Googled “How the heck do you order and eat Pho”, but it was way more fun to have Deborah go with me as my mentor. We had a great time with some great food.

Here’s what I learned from Deborah

You can choke while eating live octopus because they can crawl back up your throat with their suction cups and suffocate you because you can’t swallow them because they’re stuck to your throat
How to correctly pronounce Pho (which makes the title of this blog post wrong – it’s not a long O)
Pho broth is made from Oxtails
How to get those slippery Pho noodles to stay on that little spoon
How to order, how to act and how to eat Pho

We ended up at Pho Saigon on Arapahoe Road, just east of I-25. The place is packed for lunch! There are several selections of Pho dishes. She recommended we order the rare beef.

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A beautiful plate of bean sprouts topped with fresh Thai basil and cilantro, lime wedges and sliced chili’s is delivered to the table.

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Next is a steaming bowl of noodles and beef steeping in a very delicious broth. Already at the table are bottles of Hoisin sauce, sriracha hot sauce then some unlabeled really scary hot sauce that Deborah warned me not to use.

In a small bowl, we mixed together the sriracha hot sauce and Hoisin Sauce. Take some of the fresh herb leaves and tear them into small pieces and drop into the soup. With chopsticks in one hand and spoon in the other, dip spoon into the sauce mixture, spoon up a little of the broth and meat, pile on some bean sprouts, then some noodles and slurp it down.

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Delicious.

Pesce Fresco With Friends

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Lea Ann

Friday for lunch, I met friends Lee and Mary at Pesce Fresco Restaurant. Pesce Fresco is a great little place tucked away behind Safeway just north of the intersection of Arapahoe Road and Quebec Streets in Centennial. I love this restaurant, the food and the atmosphere.

Look at those crunchy golden fried mushrooms

We decided to share an appetizer and chose Gorgonzola Cheesecake. The House Speciality. Oh my goodness. This is a fabulous and interesting creation. A savory warm cheesecake topped with caramelized balsamic onions and served with crispy golden mushrooms. I recommend this.

A big spoonfull for all

And one order was just enough for a big spoonfull for all three of us.

025 Since I was preparing pasta for dinner Friday, I decided to go the healthier route so ordered my stand by; Sauteed Scallops and Bacon Salad. Sauteed sea scallops tossed with mixed greens, green apples, red onions, applewood smoked bacon and a sweet apple cider vinaigrette. This is delicious and fresh.

026 Both Lee and Mary ordered the Shaved Italian Beef Sandwich. This is shaved grilled marinated tri-tip with sauteed peppers, fresh herbs, balsamic onions, smoked provolone served on a Hoagie roll. It looked wonderful and they both said it was great. It’s a large sandwich and each of them ended up taking half of it home.

I am still looking forward to ordering the house specialty Seafood Relleno. Handmade relleno stuffed with shrimp, lobster, crab, Manchego and Asadero cheese, over a savory posole with calavasitos, topped with a fried egg and sharp cheddar. One..of..these…..days. One of these “I’m feeling skinny-ish days”

Sahara Restaurant

Posted on August 15, 2009 by Lea Ann

003 About 7 of us met for lunch today and when this group gets together, Sahara is “our place”, a long-standing tradition. The group is tied by one common denominator; place of employment. Current employees, past employees, relatives of employees…the only way we’d ever know each other is because of corporate America.

Sahara Restaurant is a casual spot offering Middle Eastern specialties from Lebanon and Morocco and is located in a strip mall just east of Arapahoe Road and I-25 in Centennial.

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Another tradition with this group seems to be some sort of odd rule. You’re supposed to order the Spicy Chicken.

SPICY CHICKEN is grilled sliced chicken marinated with a special Harissa sauce, served with saffron rice and grilled vegetables.

I’m a fairly new invitee to the Sahara Lunch Clique so last visit followed ritual and ordered Spicy Chicken. It was good, very special flavors, liked it, but didn’t fall in love. So today, I decided to try something different. I ordered the Combination Brochette. When the words came out of my mouth, Bob queried “You’re not getting Spicy Chicken???????” Rooster calls entertaining the place abruptly fell silent from David’s I-Phone. Brenda looked down at her menu in order to remove herself from the “situation”. Confident Robin didn’t blink an eye. Mark, the vacationing relative, was oblivious to the situation. However, I did notice he ordered the Spicy Chicken. Brenda must have warned him in advance. I think they even make poor Tommy Tucker order Spicy Chicken. Tommy is a an occasional invitee and owns a graphic imaging shop. He calls on Bob for business. He probably feels like he has to order spicy chicken so he doesn’t lose the account. hmm…Tommy wasn’t there today, I wonder if he didn’t order Spicy Chicken last time…….I wonder if Bob has switched graphic imaging vendors???

At any rate, my saving grace was Josh, Robin’s 9 year old, who ordered Onion Rings. High-five to Josh and kids everywhere who strive to eradicate peer pressure in our lifetime.

Spicy Chicken

The Kabob

BROCHETTE COMBINATION is a combination of beef kabob, chicken kabob and gyros. Served over a bed of saffron rice.

I was very pleased with my lunch. The beef was very tender with mildly melt in your mouth flavor. Next visit I’ll probably try the Shawarma (that is IF I’m invited back). Upon closer study of the menu, it sounds very interesting. The Mustard Chicken also sounded intriguing.

Sahara is reasonably priced and the atmosphere is festive. The menu is packed with a good variety of interesting sounding selections, however, we don’t know much about any of them since everyone always orders Spicy Chicken. Sahara was busy and hosted a good lunch crowd, and after 15 years in business that speaks highly of their reputation.

Inside at Sahara

Via Baci Restaurant, Lone Tree (Denver)

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Lea Ann

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A year ago, if you would have told me that my favorite neighborhood restaurant would be stuck in the far east end of the Super Target parking lot in the strip mall at Yosemite and Lincoln, I would have laughed.

I’m not sure I ever would have known about Via Baci if it wasn’t for our friends Dan and Teri. Let me tell you a little more about the food. I couldn’t agree more with the verbiage on their website: “Via Baci has a passion for fresh, light Italian foods with bold unique flavors”.

I absolutely adore a great salad and Via Baci has one of my favorites. I love a great pizza, I have never had any quite as good as this. Looking for a great Angel Hair Pasta or Butternut Squash Ravioli, you’ll find it at Via Baci. On its own, each dish is perfectly crafted.

I love their unique pizza. An authentic Neopolitan pizza with hand pressed thin crust, imported flour directly from the Vesuvius Valley in Italy. They also make their own mozzarella in house, every day.

A couple of the pizza’s we’ve tried are:

Chicken Bianco: Oven roasted rosemary chicken, goat cheese, house-made mozzarella, marinated black olives, sun dried tomatoes, scallions and fresh grape tomatoes.

Diavolo: Spicy hot with San Marzano tomatoes, house-made mozzarella, sopressata salami, pepperoni, pepperoncini, spicy red pepper, fresh basil.

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This picture is the Chicken Bianco. The mixture of flavors are superb, and look at that crust!!

One of my favorite salads and usually what I order is: Wood Roasted Salmon, over mixed baby greens with roasted asparagus spears, marinated tomatoes and sweet balsamic syrup.

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This last visit I ordered the Angus Sirloin Salad: 40 day aged sirloin for premium tenderness and flavor, wood roasted and sliced, over mixed greens with diced egg, capers, scallions, tomatoes and house Dijon ranch dressing. The capers with the dressing combined with the rest of the flavors are fantastic.

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The atmosphere is social, lively and family friendly. The decor is modern and comfortable, and the service is always wonderful. An all Italian white and red wine list, featuring around 20 – 25 selections, good quality with affordable prices, I think it’s a fabulous little wine list.

Via Baci has become our choice for many a family and friends meet up destination, whether it be to plan a wine tasting trip to Oregon, celebrate our son’s art gallery opening, or just for no reason at all “let’s meet for dinner”.

I also need to mention prices are very reasonable, a great value. Take a look at their website for location and full menu: www.viabaci.com

Takin’ Care of Business, NoNo’s Cafe Revisited

Posted on July 11, 2009 by Lea Ann

Thank you Randy Tickle, Colorado State Bank and Trust, for sending me business, thanks to NoNo’s for being in business so I can take care of business and thank Randy for his business.

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A client appreciation lunch ended up at NoNo’s Cafe in Highlands Ranch. Randy read my blog post about NoNo’s and being the good ol Southern boy that he is, choose NoNo’s for lunch. Not that he’s new to NoNo’s, he’s been going there for years.

As always, good service greeted us at the door as we were quickly seated near a window. It’s a bit of a shame that NoNo’s is losing their mountain views due to hotel construction directly to the west. But if you look carefully you can still glimpse the mountains to the southwest.

017 I felt adventurous, so ordered something different. As soon as I did, I was 2nd guessing my decision and wondering if I should have stuck with my favorite NoNo’s house salad drizzled with NoNo’s delicious homemade Blue Cheese Dressing along with a cup of Shrimp Bisque???? Too late. I ordered Chicken NoNo.

The dish was bite-sized chunks of chicken swimming in a sweet and spicey tomato sauce served over a bed of angel hair pasta with a side bowl of Maque Choix. I’d have to say the flavors of the tomato sauce were delicate with just the right kick of spice to make it interesting.

Randy ordered the Crawfish Pie. Not much left on his plate, so I’m assuming he enjoyed the selection. I didn’t take a photo of this since I already have a photo on a previous post. It’s a house favorite and popular selection.

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As always, NoNo’s brings an offering of bread with that dipping sauce. What is that stuff????? I know it’s a spicy oil, but don’t know what the sauce part is. It is soooooooo good.

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I didn’t put this sauce on any of my food, but spotting the bottle on the table decided to take a picture just to add to the Loisiana ambiance of this blog post. When I looked at the bottle, the words “Don’t try this at home” came to mind, I also had visions of Sookie and Vampire Bill sauntering up to the table to ask if I wanted a vile to go.

NoNo’s was pretty much packed for a mid week lunch. I’m glad to see them doing so well. It is a good place to take a client for a casual lunch, as the noise level is perfect for conversation. As always, don’t leave for home without purchasing a jar of the homemade Blue Cheese Dressing. Delicious.

A Stout Lunch at Breckenridge Brewery

Posted on June 4, 2009 by Lea Ann

I know I’ve written alot about restaurant visits lately, which is not my planned focus for this blog. I’m suppose to be talking about good recipes! It seems we can go 6 months without eating out, then all of a sudden we’re everywhere! Not to worry, we’ll get over it soon and back in the kitchen.

When Bob and I scheduled lunch with Sean, we decided on Breckenridge Brewery (5th and Kalamath) since it’s a short walk from Sean’s Studio, Studio 12.

I was expecting a commercialized chain restaurant feel like Champs…..I’m not at all interested in that type of restaurant. I was pleasantly surprised to walk into a cozy “local joint” feel brew pub.

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