Since we were traveling on my birthday we decided to head out for my birthday dinner last night. Having always been a big fan of Italian food, I wanted to try a place that I had often heard about but never visited (or driven by for that matter), Carmine’s on Penn. This family style restaurant serves giant dishes of food that can server up to four people and is consistently rated among the highest restaurants in Denver for this style. If you do visit the restaurant, I encourage you to read over the menu before going, as once you get there only the names are written on chalkboards. It is then the duty of your server to guide you through the menu to help you select the best dish to fit your needs.

Fortunately for us, I remembered a few things that I had read on the menu the day before. I asked about the Chicken Montana and was delighted to find out that it is actually one of the most popular dishes in the restaurant. It pairs rosemary chicken with sun dried tomatoes, asparagus and a gorgonzola cream sauce. Let me tell you that it tastes just as delicious as it sounds. And since the portions are so large, we still have over half of the dish in our fridge for tonight’s dinner as well. We also started with their house salad, which I was equally as impressed with. The entire meal was delicious!