One of the things I love about traveling is trying out new places to eat. Sometimes it is a small hangout that only the locals know about and other times it might be a semi national or regional chain. While we didn't plan on eating out for every meal while we were in Colorado, the trip did afford us the opportunity to try out a good number of places.
I already talked about my first trip to In and Out burger in this post. I also covered our trip to one of the many Mexican restaurants in this post. I think my biggest regret about visiting Denver is that we didn't try more Mexican places since that is one of the things the town is really known for. Although, many times a lot of those restaurants basically have the same menu, so we might have actually not missed much.
Finally, in this post I talked about what might have been one of if not the best meal I had while we were on our trip from a Mediterranean chain called Cava.
Just down the road from the house we were staying in there was a Chinese place that was offering "$1.25 per scoop". My brother in law was intrigued by the concept, but we never took the chance of risking it!
Instead, after our first morning of softball in Denver, we found ourselves in a place called Homegrown Tap & Dough in Arvada, Colorado. It is a small chain with three locations in the Denver area and they specialize in beer and pizza as the name would suggest.
The decor as you can see above was pretty cool, but what I really liked was the ski lift seats they had at one of the tables next to us.
The beer was also quite delicious and since we were there at noon, I think it was a bit cheaper that it would be at night or on the weekend. I have to give a shout out to this place. We showed up with a huge group of softball players and families and there was only one guy working the place. In my opinion they really should have called ahead to give them a heads up, but that wasn't my call to make.
In the end, the staff did really well and things turned out okay. @mrsbozz and I shared the Rustic Ranger pizza that you see in the opening photo. It consisted of BBQ Sauce, smoked mozzarella, chicken, bacon, caramelized onions, oregano, and green chili. It was pretty fantastic.
My oldest niece and her dad got the meat lovers pizza to share. It's basically just what you see above there in the photo.
The next day after watching some more softball, I was in the mood for chicken wings. Somehow I was given the task of where we should eat and after doing some research I found what I thought was the perfect place to get wings in Denver.
We ended up in some strip mall out by the Red Rocks area where there was a bar next to a bunch of other stores and there were a couple choppers sitting out front. @mrsbozz and I are used to blue collar bars like this, but it is safe to say that the rest of our group was a little uneasy.
I can't remember the name of the place now and honestly, I'm not even going to bother looking it up because the food was just meh.
It was almost like they got a little spooked by having suddenly having eight more people show up than the regulars they are used to and they over fried pretty much everything.
The pizza egg roll appetizers weren't horrible, but everything else was virtually burned to a crisp. The one good thing about this place was the fact that it was happy hour, so the drinks were strong and they were relatively inexpensive.
With all that in mind, these weren't the worst wings I have ever had in my life, but they were far from the best. If this is what Denver has to offer in terms of wings, I am not impressed. Looking back now, I shouldn't have over-thought it so much and I would have absolutely picked someplace different.
I actually wouldn't be surprised if on a different night with maybe a different cook the food here might have been amazing.
The next day our group decided to split up. @mrsbozz and I went disc golfing which you can read about here while the rest of our group decided to go shopping at a local mall. We were trying to find a place to meet up for lunch when it was finally decided we would each do our own thing and meet back at the house.
Oddly enough, we both ended up choosing the same place which was Snarf's Sandwiches. It's a local sub shop in the Denver area that ended up being really good. I got the Cuban sandwich which was on special that day.
My wife ended up getting the chicken cordon blue sandwich after going back and forth between that and something else before finally placing her order. We both agreed that the sandwiches were really good and if were ever back in the area, we would definitely visit Snarf's again. They have plenty of locations in Colorado to choose from, as well as a couple in Austin, Texas and several more in St. Louis Missouri.
Finally, you are probably going to laugh, but the second best meal I had in Denver also came from a national chain. If Cava was the best thing I ate in Denver, El Pollo Loco was a close second. Where In and Out burger left me feeling a bit disappointed, these two places absolutely shined.
I'm trying to think of how to describe El Pollo Loco. It's sort of like Ya Ya's, Kenny Rogers Roasters, or KFC, but with a Mexican flare. As you can see above, I got the two piece chicken meal with mac and cheese and mashed potatoes and gravy.
@mrsbozz got the chicken fiesta bowl or something like that. She loved it and just looking back at the photo now I can tell why, it looks delicious!
They also give you tortillas with your chicken so you can scoop some of it up and eat it. That's what the last photo is above in case you can't tell. My brother in law has a friend that lives in California but doesn't eat beef or pork. El Pollo Loco is one of his favorite places to eat out, so my brother in law was bound and determined that we were going to give it a try.
I'm glad we obliged because it was absolutely fantastic. Unfortunately, it looks like they have locations in Arizona, California, Colorado, Louisiana, Nevada, Texas, and Utah.
That means I have to do a bit of traveling to enjoy "The Crazy Chicken" again. That being said, if you have one of these close to you and you haven't tried it yet, I highly encourage you to do so. We have a local chain in Michigan called Ya Ya's, but that is more of a Greek inspired flame grilled chicken versus this Mexican inspired offering.
Denver is such a cool town with so much to offer. I really hope that we are able to make our way back there one day, but there are also so many other places we hope to explore. I can't wait to share them with you!
