Colorado Adventures Part 3 – Lunch at Euclid Hall and The Trip Home
guest blogger announcement
Before I get to the latest installment, I want to let you know that there’s going to be a terrific guest post next week. It’s from Domingo, who I knew from my days selling wine at a specialty grocer here in Ann Arbor. It’s a great guide to picking up chicks with minimal effort. And it’s also about cheeseburgers.
Denver
There we were, unexpectedly holed up in a Denver hotel for a couple days because a blizzard kiboshed our flight. Boom Boom made the critical mistake of bringing her laptop on vacation, so she decided to get a full day of work in. That meant that I had to get The Pieholes out of the hotel room to give her some peace and –
Wait a minute. She just got six kid-free hours with shopping and spas nearby. I gotta check the credit card bill…
While she was “working,” we cruised around town and found Larimer Square. It’s a cool one-block stretch in downtown Denver with all kinds of boutiques and restaurants.
Denver restaurant guide
It was lunchtime and we came upon Euclid Hall. Since I remember incredibly odd and obscure pieces of information, I recalled that the the chef, Jorel Pierce, was a competitor in the first episode of Top Chef Seattle. I suppose it wasn’t that hard to remember because he had the same name as Superman’s father. That, and a sweet moustache.
restaurant review
He didn’t make it past the first episode, but I figured he was on the show for a reason. As we soon found out, his food was absolutely fantastic. They call it “an American tavern” and they lived up to that by serving pub food. But damn, it was really high quality.
I started off with a beer from their huge beer list. The restaurant and building were named after Euclid, the Greek mathematician who was known as the “Father of Geometry.” I thought it was cool that they honored him by using math terms to organize the beer list –
– Algebra: Still approachable, more flavor, more complexity
– Geometry: Broader styles, more aggressive, not too intimidating
– Trigonometry: Moving up the ladder in complexity
– Calculus: Pushing the Envelope
– Quantum Mechanics: Biggest, strongest, most complex
I went with Rayon Vert, a Belgian-style pale ale from the Trigonometry section.
Here’s what we had to eat…
Bruléed Center Cut Beef Marrow Bones with espagnole and sherry gastrique
Wild Mushroom poutine, porcini gravy, cheddar curds
Manila Clam & Merguez Caldo Verde, braised kale, fried garlic, grape tomato, olive oil crostini, smoked malt and rye brood
Brat Burger, bretzel bun, pickled cabbage, 10,000 island dressing, Jarlsberg cheese
Chicken Schnitzel Sandwich, double decker, double wide, dill rye, aioli, apple cabbage caraway slaw
Oyster Po’Boy on potato bread, bacon aioli, Jorel’s hot sauce, cucumber, red onion
food pictures
We loved every single bit of this meal. The Po’Boy was done to perfection as was the marrow. My son’s Caldo Verde and was a very clean tasting soup where the diverse and distinct flavors all came shining through and mixed well. Although the poutine looked nasty, that gravy was really good. As explained by the bartender, it’s all pureed mushrooms – there’s no broth or liquid that was thickened like other gravies. Ugly, but tasty. What surprised me the most was that each of the entrees were in the $8-12 range. For that quality of food and decent portions, that was a outright steal.
lunch
The Trip Home
So then what happens? The day we were supposed to leave, that same blizzard that trapped us in Denver made its way to Michigan. The weather apps on our iPhones were saying 3-4 inches were hitting the Detroit area. But there was another app we were monitoring that’s often more accurate – Facebook. There, all our friends were saying 6-7 inches.
Boom Boom was fuming. I said, “Honey, we should kinda maybe think about what we’re going to do, just in case, in the small minute chance, that our flight home gets canceled.” I thought I was being gentle and non-threatening, yet she ripped my lungs out.
Unbelievably, our flight went through. It was about an hour late, but we landed safely a little after midnight. NOW the trick was getting home. There were at least 6 inches of snow on the roads (see, Facebook was right) and with it still coming down, it didn’t make sense for the state to plow. I’m not exaggerating when I say those were the absolute worst driving conditions I’ve ever seen. I was following in the tracks of some semi that passed through much earlier, hoping that semi actually stayed on the road.
It was absolutely stupid of me to try to drive home in those conditions – it was late at night, the conditions horrendous, and I’m ASIAN. But the only things dumber were those d-bags who flew past me in the lane with no plowing or tracks. I felt zero sympathy when a couple of those Dale Earnhardts were introduced to the ditch.
home
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7 comments on “Colorado Adventures Part 3 – Lunch at Euclid Hall and The Trip Home”
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I do like the beer categories! An Asian driving in a snow storm is probably my worst nightmare (I can say that because my wife is Asian, right?)!
Sure can! I’d be offended, but damn, it’s true. Tho if I’m remembering correctly you have a double-whammy – Asian driving a Prius?
you had me at the manila clam creation, glad you made it home safely on your hell drive from the airport )
I read a few posts of yours. You are hilarious! Now I’m hooked and its half past midnight here. Oh well, nothing to do tomorrow so I’ll just continue reading. 😀
Thanks for the kind words!
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