I’ve mentioned this before, but I take these little work break walks a couple of times a day (weather-permitting*). Most of my co-workers give me this look when they see me leave the office to take those walks. This look is the same look they give me when they see me eating a salad for lunch. Like “how dare you invest in your own health, you deranged maniac.” Or possibly I’m just projecting. Because I’m a deranged maniac. So off topic right now.
Anyway, the other day, Joey offered to join me on one such walk (the perks of working with your spouse!) and I forced him into a serious discussion of how I should go about writing about our Denver Passport experiences. Do I do one post per restaurant/brewery/bar? Do I do a whole months worth at once? Do I just do one long recap at the end of the summer? This is serious! We settled on five per post, so here’s the first installment!
* This is the new way we end every single sentence here in Second Seattle** where it rains EVERY SINGLE DAY
** Second Seattle is the new way we refer to Colorado
We’d been here before for Valentine’s Day but never for Happy Hour and it turns out their HH is AWESOME. Which is great because their regular dinner menu is way too expensive to justify coming for anything other than a special occasion. They have this famous burger and it happens to be on the HH menu + fries for $9. We ordered it and they brought half of it out and we thought “oh, so that’s the catch” then they brought out the other half and our brains exploded. Add smoked trout dip in a tiny mason jar, mussels accompanied by the most amazing thick-cut garlic bread for dipping in all that extra broth and a peppery cucumber cocktail and I’m dead. Joey put it best when he exclaimed “I wanna double high five you!”
Jezebel’s Southern Bistro + Bar
I already talked about this one in a “Weekend Things” post, plus this is already wordy enough so I’ll just say more of their shrimp and grits, please!
We walked here last Monday for a pre-Rockies game dinner and I totally felt like I was cheating on Biker Jim’s. The good news is, after eating and drinking at Wurstküche, BJ’s remains my favorite dog house (<– see what I did there?). I had a jalapeño mango sausage and the flavor was on point! Plus they have something like ten different mustards to choose from and thick cut French fries that was turning me into that hearts-for-eyes emoji. But our bartender was also super awkward so that was weird.
This place can do no wrong, if you ask me. Little and I got matching Strawberry Rhubarb Mules for our sister date last week and all was right in the world. Then we had deep philosophical conversations that I sometimes try to have with Joey and he just gives me this look like “go have this weird conversation with your sister, please.”
Ugh, it’s a toss up between this and Humboldt for best passport experience so far. Another Monday, another pre-Rockies walk to dinner. This place is teeny tiny so it worked out to go early on a Monday when it wasn’t jam-packed. We got bellinis, bar nuts and a clam pizza and OH MY GOD, that pizza was life-changingly good. Decadent white sauce, crispy salty prosciutto and fresh herbs galore. Plus the staff was so dang nice and genuine. They have a “Four Seasons” pizza that I cannot wait to go back and try.
Dying to go to next:
Colt & Gray // Two words: TIKI. DRINKS.
Gozo // Been there, wanna go back!
Goldspot Brewing // How have we not been to one of the breweries yet??
Lou’s // But only if we can sit on the patio and only if “hot chicken” means fried chicken.
Freshcraft // Their drink offering is called “Afternoon Delight”…
Life as Lauren 