Denver Dan

Denver Dan was our food tour guide and was worth every cent. We met at Marco’s pizza place and had pizza washed down with limoncello and vodka – bit early for me to hit the vodka but I sipped slowly. The pizza was made using water from Naples but that was 100 years ago – now they use local water and adjust it to match the mineral content of Napoli water. Hmmmmm – not quite the same. But for pizza it tasted like pizza!

The group was a great mix of mainly Americans and a Swede. Some local Denver people (interesting to live somewhere all your life and then decide in your mid-40s to see what the local food was like), a couple from Cleveland who had been to Yurop a few times and were pretty friendly and broadminded, two family groups and three friends who had been to see New Kids on the Block the night before and were unable to speak because of all the shrieking and singing along. As I have said before – a food tour isn’t just about the food.

Next stop was Lazo Empanadas – a delicious empanada with beef and a raisin or two, accompanied by a glass of cold red wine.

It was really good. Next stop was a green chilli soup place called the Cherry Cricket. Denver Dan didn’t know why it was called the Cherry Cricket but it wasn’t to do with cricket. The chilli soup was okay. The photo does it justice.

Stop number four was at a great place in the old dairy quarter – would recommend eating/drinking there if you are ever in Denver. We had a wagyu beef taco – to be honest the beef didn’t seem to be as wagyu-ey as other wagyu beef I have tasted. But the taco itself was very good. The accompanying margarita was even better.

We ended up at Union Station which was a great building – the main hall is now just restaurant and bars but they have kept the destination boards and window numbers. And the lights were stunning. One of the eateries (see I am speaking all American already) was a Spanish bar which included those magic words ‘Sherry on tap”. I just had to pop in and check what sherry that actually had on tap and was offered a free taste – a manzanilla called Aurora. Not bad!

Our final tasting was a pastel de nata – hmmm – I have high standards and for me this was less good than the frozen ones you get from Waitrose and bake for 15 minutes.