Delicious was dinner

I was fortunate to be the recipient of a home-cooked meal by Zoobroker today. That dude can cook. Seriously. Ribeye salad with roasted garlic broccoli, hard-boiled eggs, bacon from hell, and spinach/romaine mix.

Happy 4th of July, everyone!

Appaloosa: Good food, good beer, good music

Tonight, Zoo Broker and I ate at Appaloosa. We heard from a certain source that someone we met 1 1/2 years ago here in Denver was working there... It turns out that yes, this certain someone works here, but worked the lunch shift. Alas... what were we to do but enjoy ourselves anyway? Deets after the break.

First off, some Queso Dip and I had a really spicy and good Chicken Lasagna.

I had my first (and second) pint of White Rascal - a Belgian-style white beer made in Boulder. Damn fine beer.

Next up we had a neighbor that Zoo realllllllllly liked.

Than the Clam Addys took the stage

Do yerself a favor if you're in town and they are playing - go see them. Great singer, harmoica player... Aw, heck they're all fantastic.

Good bar, good times. Thanks, Denver!

Elko Nightlife

Zoo and I ate a family-style dinner at the Basque restaurant BilToKi. It was amazing. Very farm-style food. Started with a tomato/onion/cabbage soup, some awesome bread, then a trio of sides: Beans, Steamed (soft) veggies and some pasta with red sauce. Then came the meat (sorry for the quality - it's a phone):

A perfect, giant-sized pair of filet mignon, and high-heat seared-to-perfection pork chops. And fries on the side. Needless to say, neither of us cleaned out plates. Holy bloat. So, we headed back to the hotel to ride out the food coma and blog.

Apparently, Elko has the highest concentration of Basque in America. Thank you! Dinner was outstanding.

Wednesday night in Elko is neither dead nor hopping. At the suggestion of the gal behind the counter at our hotel, we headed over to G's for some drinks. What was that noise as we approached? Karaoke. You know it! We had a few brews, sang some songs and enjoyed getting to know the locals better. Friendly people, but kinda stuck... Stuck in circumstances, stuck in beliefs that they will never escape.

Take the glitz and glam on Las Vegas, mix in a rodeo, the Basque, some mexicans and Native Americans (lots of mix blood around here) and you get a really interesting cross-section of cowboy gambling drinking farmer young stuck in the town feeling. Kind of desperate, but resigned. It's charming if you like gritty (and I do), but as I mentioned in my night shots post, it had a slight edge of danger because a few people had a chip on their shoulder for out of towners.

We popped out heads into three brothels, just to see what it was like. Zoo Broker will be going to Amsterdam shortly.

Now we head off to... (to be posted)