To kick off the holiday weekend my wife and I headed to 8 Rivers  Caribbean restaurant in LoDo.   We had a Groupon  for $30 worth of food that we had to use by the end of the year.   I made reservations online, though they were not needed, as the restaurant was mostly empty upon our arrival.   We were greeted and seated by a young man who would eventually be our server as well.   I decided to start with a cocktail, the dark and stormy, which mixed rum with ginger beer.   It was good, but perhaps a little expensive at almost $10 a glass.  

Upon glancing at the food menu, I realized that expensive would be a common theme for the night.   Most entrees  were well over $15.   I’m not opposed to having more expensive meals while dining out, but I expect the food to be  great and a good value.   Unfortunately I don’t think the food lived up to the cost.   I had the Jerk Chicken Pasta  with Festival Bread, which is one of the spiciest  dishes on the menu.   The Caribbean spice is different from what I’m used to, but still I grew to really enjoy the taste.   It was definitely spicy, and I’m glad the server warns customers of this, as it could take some people by surprise.  

Jerk Chicken Pasta with Festival Bread

The serving of Jerk Chicken Pasta was also fairly large and seemed like a decent value for the $17 price tag.   However, the Jamaican Curried Chicken that my wife ordered was a much smaller  portion  and didn’t seem like a very good value at all.   The dish  consisted of slow cooked chicken and onion in Jamaican Curry. Served traditionally with rice n’ peas, fried plantain and chef choice vegetable (green beans).   The chicken was served  on the bone, which made it look like a lot more food than it really was.    To top off the  smaller than expected dish were just a few of their plantain chips.   I would like to have seen a few more thrown on the plate.   Again the food was pretty good, it just seemed to be  too expensive for what was received.  

Jamaican Curried Chicken

I doubt that we will return to 8 Rivers. Again the food was good, it just didn’t seem like a good value. I’m glad that we had a Groupon that helped to eat some of that excess cost.  

Late last week I finally made it to Freshcraft, a restaurant that has been on radar since it’s recent opening.   My wife and some of her friends had a baby shower there and all raved about the food.   I was happy to hear that the food was as good as I knew their rotating beer selection was.   When my wife and I arrived on this visit, one of the owners stopped by to say hello to her, as he remembered her from the shower.   That was the first thint that impressed me.

The next thing that impressed me was obviously their beer selection.   They don’t list their offerings online, but I had already heard great things about the menu.   There were a number of beers I wanted to try, some served in small snifters, but since it was happy hour I stuck with the reduced priced pints.   My first choice was the Seeyoulator Doppelbock from Boulevard Brewing.   This beer wasn’t overly sweet, and had some nice spice character at the end that I really enjoyed.   As far as food goes, we started with the Ale and Cheese soup, which was a great choice.

For dinner I decided to have the  Fresh Pretzel Turkey Baja: freshly sliced slow roasted turkey layered on a fresh pretzel bun with avocado pulp, tomato slices and jack cheese.   My wife chose the  Whiskey BBQ Chicken Sandwich: grilled chicken breast tossed with a delicious whiskey BBQ sauce and packed in a baguette with house slaw and cheddar.   Both choices were very good.   The sauce on my sandwich was a spicy mustard that complimented the sandwich very well.   And the BBQ sauce and slaw mix on my wife’s sandwich is always a favorite of ours.

Top: Whiskey BBQ Chicken Sandwich. Bottom: Fresh Pretzel Turkey Baja.

On the side of each sandwich was our choice of hand cut fries, house slaw or for one dollar substitute handmade spudpuppies or seasonal roasted veggie.   I chose the spudpuppies which were just like hushpuppies but made with potatoes instead.   They were very good!   I washed all of this food down with  a pint of Avery Brewing’s Old Jubilation, which paired well with the food and let the flavors all stand out on their own.   I was very happy with my first visit to Freshcraft and can’t wait to go back soon.

Previously I had voiced my opinion on the HandleBar & Grill, which morphed into the Downing Street Bar and Grill earlier this year.   Well they finally completed the bar renovation recently and we went in to check it out.   I must say that it is much improved!   There is now a large U-shaped bar, surrounded by a few high top tables and plenty of booths along the walls.   Also they’ve really increased their TV quantity  and quality.   As if it couldn’t get any better, I think the food has actually improved.   Not that it was bad before, I just feel that the quality may have gone up even more recently.   True they are still using the old menus (even with the bicycle theme printed on them) but I guess they are of the opinion of don’t fix it if it isn’t broken.

I had the chicken chimichanga  smothered with green chile, which I was very happy about.   My wife had the turkey reuben, which was served  on thicker marbled rye than I remembered, and stuffed high with turkey and sauerkraut.   She also had the mashed sweet potatoes, which were very tasty, with flavors familiar of this time of year.   Just as I was starting to grow tired of this restaurant it seems that they have done a lot to bring people back to it.   I’m sure we will be back again in the near future.

Last night I had my first experience at a Brewery Bar restaurant.   Prior to our second childbirth class, my wife and I stopped in at Brewery Bar III for a quick meal.   I already knew that the restaurant wasn’t a brewery at all, but a local chain of Mexican restaurants.   Apparently the first in the chain of restaurants was inside the old Tivoli Brewery in downtown Denver.   With that bit of knowledge the name makes a little more sense.    

Margarita along with complimentary chips and salsa.

After reading that the margaritas were on special, I decided that I had to try one.   I wasn’t given an option  to have salt on the rim, but happily mine came served that way anyway.   The drink was good.   I wish the same could be said for the chips and salsa.   The chips are obviously not fresh prepared, and I’m not sure if the salsa is either.   It could have easily come right out of a jar.   If it was in a jar, it would have been labeled spicy.   Perhaps the spiciness was the only redeeming character.   At this point I wasn’t expecting much from the meal.    

Three chicken soft tacos.

I decided to try the special of the day, which was three tacos and a margarita for only $8.95.   I had already ordered the margarita for the happy hour price of $4, so this was an easy choice.   I was given the option of having hard or soft tacos, as well as either beef or chicken.   I went with chicken soft tacos.   At this price I wasn’t expecting too much, especially after the chips and salsa tasting.   Unfortunately my expectations were met.   The tacos were very plain, though I added some taco sauce which did help some.   Still they were filling and very cheap.    

Combo 1: crisp chili relleno and a smothered burrito.

The redeeming dish of the night was what my wife ordered, the Combo 1 featuring a crisp chili relleno and a smothered chicken burrito.   She choose to have it all smothered in both hot and mild green chili.   The hot green chili was definitely hot, but was by far my highlight of the meal.   The chili relleno was also very delicious.   The smothered chicken burrito was as to be expected, but also hit the spot with the addition of green chili.   Green chili makes everything better.   If we decide to eat here again I will be sure to try dishes that are served with their selection of chilis.

This past Sunday my wife and I ventured out of the house for breakfast.   We still had a Groupon to use at Breakfast on Broadway so we drove that way again.   We arrived to find  a line out the door and decided to walk over to Bites, a newer cafe that we had noticed a few times before.   It’s only a block or so north on Broadway, so the walk was simple.   We arrived at Bites to find it halfway full.   After quickly glancing at a menu we decided to grab a table for the two of us.  

Biscuit And Gravy

We both started with a chai latte, which came served in a pint glass.   I enjoyed the drink very much, but my wife thought it could have been hotter.   When her chai gets too cool, she doesn’t enjoy it anymore, and she wasn’t able to finish the entire thing.   We both decided to order items from the specials, not from the menu.   I ordered the biscuits and gravy while she ordered the pumpkin and walnut pancakes.   She also added a couple of eggs while I also chose an order of the rosemary potatoes.  

Rosemary Potatoes

Overall, the food was very good.   I could immediately tell that the biscuit was  baked  from scratch, and it tasted wonderful.   The accompanying  sausage gravy was also very good with nearly enough spice for me.   I  added a little Cholula (as seen in the  first photo) to spice it  up even more.   The rosemary potatoes were also  quite delicious, but weren’t served as  hot as I would have liked.   My wife’s pancakes were also very good and didn’t even need to have any  maple syrup added to them.   We will definitely be back to try more of their delicious food.  

Pumpkin And Walnut Pancakes

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.   I know I did.   We had dinner at some friends’ house who were hosting a group of the misfits (mostly from Cincinnati) for the holiday.  

My plate of food on Thanksgiving.

The hosts cooked a bunch of the food, but I volunteered to bring over a couple of dishes to share.   I choose to make the sweet potatoes and a green bean casserole.   After hearing that someone at the party either was allergic to or didn’t like mushrooms, I decided to try something different for the green bean casserole.   I found this recipe  and followed the directions exactly.   This dish turned out great, but I wasn’t overly impressed with it.   Maybe it was just all of the  great food that was prepared, but I think it could have had even more flavor.   Still a very pleasing alternative to the traditional casserole.  

Grandma's Green Bean Casserole.

I settled on this recipe  for the sweet potatoes, mostly because it was the highest rated sweet potato dish I could find.   Let me say that I would have to agree with the rating on this one, it was delicious, and seemed to be  the favorite of many of our group.   With that said, I had a few problems with the recipe, which I again tried to follow exactly.   It seemed that my sweet potatoes weren’t nearly done enough after only fifteen minutes in boiling water.   I removed them from the water at that time and I couldn’t mash them at all.   I returned them to boiling water for another ten minutes, and I still had problems mashing.   Unfortunately  I didn’t realize the problem before I added the sauce to the potatoes.   So rather than  boiling them anymore, I was forced to put them into the oven to cook.  

I baked them for around ten minutes, and finally I was able to start mashing some of the potatoes, though not nearly half as the recipe indicated.   Again, I baked them for another ten minutes and finally I was able to get half of the potatoes mashed.   I think that cutting the potatoes up into smaller pieces at the start would have helped fix my problem.   I had another problem with the last step of adding marshmallows  to the top and baking until brown.   It seems my dish was a little too liquidy, and the sauce was boiling rapidly in the oven, which quickly disintegrated most of the marshmallows.   Rather than trying again, I simply mixed the remaining marshmallows into the dish and watched them melt.   Despite these issues, the sweet potatoes were excellent.  

In rushing to get the potatoes finished, I forgot to take a photo of them.   You will just have to trust me that they looked as delicious as they tasted.

I finally made it out to Jack-n-Grill  this past Sunday.   We have wanted to try it ever since one of my wife’s cousins alerted us to its existence when he saw it on The Travel Channel’s Man v. Food.   I didn’t visit  to conquer the seven pound burrito that the TV show host attempted to eat, I just wanted to sample some regular sized meals.   Fortunately for me, their meals are far from normal sized.  

We arrived at the original location  in the middle of the afternoon and were immediately seated at a table directly next to the kitchen.   There is a large glass window that allows diners to view the kitchen and the preparation of their food.   We started with the chips and salsa, which only cost $1.   I knew we were in for a spicy meal the second I tasted the salsa.   I remember it burning my mouth right away, but it was very delicious.   Before long we watched as our meals were quickly assembled in the kitchen and then delivered right away to our table.  

I ordered a chicken burrito smothered in both red vegetarian and pork green chile, also known as Christmas style.   I was given the option  to have sour cream and guacamole added, which I agreed to.   My wife ordered the plate of four gorditas, choosing one each of refritos, chicken, chicken and bean, and breakfast.   These are deep-fried sopapillas that are again served with choice of chiles for dipping.   We decided to split both meals, and I’m glad we did.   The gorditas were delicious!   The burrito was also good, with the standout items being both chiles.   The pork green chile was very hot and full of flavor.  

Finishing the last bits of my smothered burrito.

Even though we were very hungry, we could not finish all the food, as the burrito was very large in addition to  the serving of four stuffed sopapillas.   The prices seemed fair, $10 for each of  the meals, though I wasn’t aware that the guacamole and sour cream on my burrito would be extra.   $2 for one scoop of guacamole seems pretty high to me.   I would recommend ordering the guacamole as an appetizer and saving some for your meals, if desired.   Overall I left the restaurant happy and completely full.   Their menu is very long, so I hope to make it back to sample more in the future.  

We had our first Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend.   A good friend of ours will be leaving the country for work before Thanksgiving arrives, and she wanted to have a great American meal before she left.   This group of friends are all quite the cooks, so I had to prepare a couple of my favorite recipes for the occasion.   The first are these wonderful garlic mashed potatoes.   I’ve been making them for years, and I don’t think there are any better mashed potatoes out there anywhere.   I also made a large batch of stir fried asparagus.   I followed both receipes closely, except for I heated the teriyaki sauce for the asparagus until it thickened and was much more like a glaze.

Just as I was posting this, I remember that today is the Thanksgiving potluck at work.   So I am actually having my second Thanksgiving meal of the season right now.

Over the weekend I made my first visit to Swing Thai.   My wife had tried their food once before, but neither of us had ever dined in.   There is a location  close to our house (301 S. Pennsylvania) but we always seemed to pass it up when heading out for Thai food.   The nearby Thai Basil gets most of our business.   Since we were on foot, and Swing Thai is a few blocks closer to home, we decided to give it a try.

Immediately I was amazed  at how small this location  is.   You can see that it is small from the outside, but it was even smaller than I expected.   The nice thing about the small size  is that the kitchen is very close and the wonderful smells greet you right away upon entry.   We were seated  at a small table in the middle of the room.   The service was alright, though it did take awhile  to get our drinks, just a water and iced green tea.   Refills came much quicker and the food was served quickly too.

I decided to try the Jungle Curry, while my wife had the Pad Thai.   The curry came with a warning of it being hot, but I didn’t think it was too spicy.   It was a little more soupy than I’m used to, but the vegetables were wonderful.   I was a little shocked at the serving size of the dish.   Typically when ordering curry at other restaurants  I’ve been given so much that it often supplies enough leftovers for multiple lunches.   The serving of curry here was much smaller and I had no problem eating it all.   The Pad Thai was closer to the normal service size, but perhaps still a little small.   We left with absolutely no leftovers.   Despite this complaint, the food was very good and of the highest quality.

El Diablo has been open on South Broadway in Denver for a few months.   We tried to go there at the end of August, either  their first of second weekend of business, but gave up after being told it was an hour and a half wait.   Since then, the restaurant and bar has remained very popular, and I finally was able to check it out this past Saturday.   Some friends were hosting a pub crawl, and El Diablo happened to be the second bar of the night.

Kim and I arrived there around 8:30 and stopped by the hostess stand to ask about the wait for a table.   She told us that it would only be a few minutes, but we decided to join the group on the pub crawl for a drink before grabbing a table.   The bar area was crowded, but we lucked into a couple of seats right away.   Before long a bartender took our order.   I decided on a specialty margarita with Stranahans Whiskey instead of tequilla.   And then I asked for something nonalcoholic for my wife, hoping they had something special.   The clueless bartender said all she had was club soda, so Kim just had a water instead.   I was not very impressed with the drink that I ordered, which came with a near $10 price tag, and was served in a small glass.   I was expecting much more.

Eventually the pub crawl group was moving on to the next bar.   Kim and I stayed behind and got a table for dinner.   Since it was already late in the evening, we quickly found an appetizer.   The Cazuela de Queso Fundido was our choice, and it was served very quickly.   The description calls it a cheese fondue with rajas, chorizo, mushrooms and flour tortillas.   I call it delicious!   The strips of green chile were wonderful, and the chorizo added a bit of spiciness to the dish.

Cazuela de Queso Fundido

For dinner Kim ordered the Al Pastor tacos, and I decided on the Chile Relleno Burrito.   The tacos come served in threes.   Kim’s selection featured chile rubbed pork with pineapple, adobo and onion, each piled high on a pair of small tortillas.   She was very happy with her selection, and if we go back I think I’ll have to try some of the other taco options.   Before I ordered the Chile Relleno Burrito I asked the server about it, and was told that it is just what it sounds.   A queso stuffed green chile, pan-fried, and the rolled into a large tortilla.   The burrito was gigantic, but mostly was filled with rice and beans.   The Relleno was definitely the highlight of  it, but there wasn’t enough inside.   Fortunately I had the burrito smothered with green chile, which helped enhance otherwise plain bites of rice filled burrito.

Burrito And Tacos

Overall the food was good, I just think I made a bad decision with my meal.   I was not a fan of the drinks.   I tried a mojito with my food, which was better than my earlier choice, but still nothing better than average.   Our service was great once we finally sat at a table.   However the bartender that we ordered from needs more experience in my opinion.   The food seems fairly priced, but the drinks were much overpriced.   We may return again in the future, but it may be hard with so many other fantastic Mexican restaurants relatively nearby.