Jane Finds Tasty Loveland Eatery Enjoyable

In response to my readers notes, I am working on the next in the series and will post as soon as I have the opportunity to finish up my research. In the meantime I am headed South to the Albuquerque Balloon Festival and will be blogging along the way. Stay tuned, I'll pick up the pace in a couple of days.

Another quick thought, I went to see the movie Julia & Julie last evening at Centerra Mall. A good movie. Meryl is brilliant in the character. But be sure to set aside the funds for a great dinner afterwards because you just can't do justice to Julia's memory at a hamburger joint. We went to Bonefish Grill in Loveland and it was wonderful. I indulged in Maryland crab cakes, thanks to a wonderfully personable bartender named Matt, and then a char-grilled spiced chicken breast wrapped in spinach with goat cheese and artichokes hearts, Jasmine rice, steamed veggies, and the House salad. I believe it was called "Lily's Chicken". Excellent, superb, wonderful dinner with good service capped off with a French Beaujolais 1997. (Yes, I mix my reds with chicken--sorry to those it makes queasy).

Beaujolais is very light, fruity, and easy to drink. It typically has aromas of pear, banana, and like smells. Because of its easy drinkability, there is a lot of cheap, jug wine - normally served in 46cl (note this is NOT 1.2 gallon as the Oxford Wine Guide says!) containers. On the other hand, the Crus produce fine quality, crafted wines. Beaujolais Nouveau is the first output from each harvest - ready exactly on the Third Thursday of November each year. It's a celebration across the world, as people gather to taste the first Beaujolais of the new season.

Matt enlightened us, after joining in a rousing reminiscence with my companion, a fellow east-coaster with an appreciation of crab houses, that the restaurant gets in soft-shelled crabs for a couple of weeks every year when they come into season. I plan on returning to try one. Even though I have lived extensively on the sea board I have not had this experience. It sounds like a great way to justify the specialty and expense by calling it a calcium laden dinner. I hear you eat the shell and all... yum--memories of Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah were flashing through my mind.

If only I had a tail to swish.

I highly recommend the dining experience if you haven't been.

Also did the Egg and I for breakfast. Another wonderful localized treat. I hear they are in Greeley but we were in Fort Collins. Wonderful service, great atmosphere, and very good reasonably priced food. I had the goat cheese (yes this is a theme in my life) scramble.

What was really nice is the Egg and I appeared to employ the entire class of a local high school. The hostess looked thirteen and most the bus boys were later teens. Wonderful enthusiasm, politeness, and good service. It's nice to see that in the local youth and nice to see them employed on their Saturday mornings.

Good grief, I am beginning to sound like my Grandmother. I dearly loved my Grandmother so that is not all bad. But it is definitely interesting the change in the things I notice as I age. Twenty years ago I'd have been concentrating on the young men in their hiking gear congregating around the tables before venturing out on a weekend. Now I look at the various social groupings and basically people watch.

Oh well, off to Denver to do more of the same. I'll report back as soon as I can.