Donny & I like to try out new restaurants all the time. Doesn’t matter what type of cuisine or how fancy it is, we just really enjoy trying new places and seeing how creative the chefs can be these days. Denver has a million cool restaurants that have been around a while or some that are fairly new. It really is an up-and-coming food city in my opinion.
We tend to each have a list in our head what restaurants we want to go to at some point. I read a lot of articles and “lists” of the top restaurants in Denver or Boulder and Donny does the same. We have these never-ending lists in our heads, but when it comes to picking a restaurant when we have a date night, we all of a sudden can’t remember what we had for lunch that day, let alone a single place we’ve been wanting to go.
I might also mention that neither one of us is great at making decisions. We are both pretty agreeable and, in terms of dining, are pretty much open to anything! This becomes a problem when we are both this way….
One time we were joking about our lack-of-decisiveness and decided we needed to just write down every restaurant we want to try at some point on a little slip of paper and throw it in a hat. Then we want to go on a date, we refer to the hat-of-restaurant-options and we pick one. No decisions necessary.
How does one get better at making decisions? By avoiding making them. I think I read that somewhere….
Anyway, we talked about doing that for a while and never took the time to do it. Well last week we did! We planned to go to Denver to pick up some stuff for a dinner Donny is cooking next weekend and so we decided to go on a date.
We made a huge list of 20+ restaurants in Denver that we want to go to. Anything as casual as Biker Jim’s Gourmet Dogs to less-casual places like the steakhouse Guard & Grace.
We got all of our restaurants written down then folded the papers up and threw them in a hat. By hat, I mean Donny brought in an empty cigar box he had lying around and we threw them in there. We are a classy couple – I won’t lie.
It was kind of exciting waiting to see where we were going to go! The first one we pulled out was Barolo Grill, which is Italian. I honestly wasn’t that excited about it. In my head I was hoping for Biker Jim’s so that I didn’t have to put on nice clothes… oh the stuggles of going to nice restaurants! However, we couldn’t pick a new one – that was not the point of the game! Instead, we looked up the menu and made reservations.
I am so glad we stuck it out because it was awesome! I wasn’t even mad that I had to wear real clothes and look presentable. They did some really cool things that we have never seen before. We did the chef’s tasting menu and one of my favorite dishes was the “Super” caprese. They used heirloom tomatoes, which is always a great idea, but they also made extra virgin olive oil powder. Yes, powdered EVOO. What?!?! It was on the dish as a white powder and when it hit your tongue, the moisture made it taste exactly like olive oil. It was wild.
Another cool part of that dish was the balsamic vinegar caviar. It wasn’t real caviar, it was little pellets of balsamic vinegar that looked like caviar, but was actually the vinegar. So crazy. Our waiter was awesome and he kept laughing at us because we would ask all these questions about the dishes that apparently no one ever asks! It was so cool and quite different from anything we’ve had in a while.
Another cool thing was that I guess once a year the entire staff at Barolo Grill gets to go on a 12-day trip to Italy. The three main chefs go on a tour around the country trying new dishes, etc. The rest of the staff gets educated on the different wines in the country. How cool is that? Every year they bring back new ideas for dishes and I’m sure it is great for employee morale. However, it did make Donny & I want to go back to Italy….
My verdict: go to Barolo Grill. You will enjoy it.
So, who loves grilled cheese sandwiches?! It is one of my favorite things. There is something about the crispy warm bread on the outside and the gooey cheese on the inside… fantastic.
This version is a take on the classic chicken cordon bleu. It takes the main ingredients of the dish (chicken, ham, and swiss cheese) and instead I’ve turned it into a grilled cheese. Plus the ingredients are clean-eating approved. You are welcome. As Donny would say “on a scale of shitty and not shitty, I’d say this is not shitty”.
I used Dave’s Killer Bread, which you can get at Safeway. There are several different varieties, but one of my favorite’s is the Powerseed which has ground flax seed, whole flax seed, oats, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, and black as well as brown sesame seeds. You can use whatever bread you have on hand, but if you haven’t tried Dave’s Killer Bread then I recommend it.
The sandwich does have stone ground mustard on it. I don’t recommend skipping it, but if you don’t have any then substitute for Dijon or plain yellow mustard. I love mustard and think it adds some great flavor to the sandwich.
Butter really can be enjoyed with a clean-eating lifestyle. Like everything else, use in moderation! I used Kerrygold grass-fed butter, which you can also find at Safeway.
These sandwiches are pretty big and not exactly low-calorie if you eat the whole thing. Either cut the sandwiches in half or enjoy the whole thing with something light on the side, like a veggie salad.
- 4 slices whole wheat bread
- 4 oz sliced chicken breast
- 2 oz sliced ham
- 2 oz natural swiss cheese
- 2 tbsp stone ground mustard
- 1-2 Tbsp Grass-fed butter
- Preheat a flattop griddle over medium heat.
- Spread butter evenly on one side of each piece of bread (about 1/4 Tbsp).
- To build the sandwiches, lay one slice of bread butter-side down on a plate. Layer with 1 oz cheese, 2 oz chicken, and finally 1 oz ham. Spread mustard on the bare side of another slice of bread. Lay the second piece of bread on the sandwich with the butter-side up. Repeat these steps to build the second sandwich.
- Gently place the sandwich on the heated griddle. Cook for 3-4 minutes, or until golden brown. Flip the sandwiches and cook an additional 3-4 minutes, or until golden brown.
- Any bread will do, however I used Dave's Killer Powerseed Bread.
