Doing the Dishcrawl in LoHi

Whew! What a night. If you saw my post last week about the inaugural Dishcrawl in Denver, you might have been wondering how it went and if it was worth it to venture out of the safety of Boulder County onto the cold, dark streets of Denver.

Totally. Worth it.

We started at the brand spanking new Jezebel’s Southern Bistro & Bar, in the former Squeaky Bean space. This place has serious southern cred with a handsome head chef who hails from Atlanta and has the cooking chops and cute accent to prove it. A tasting platter of shrimp and grits, barbeque braised pork belly, deviled eggs with bacon and gluten-free corn bread started the evening off with a bang.

From there, we meandered down to Vita restaurant, where we were plied with butternut squash soup topped with smoked paprika oil, a salmon carpaccio crostini with beet puree and mustard cream, and the awe-inspiring house-cured skewered lamb belly with confit tomato and cumin creme fraiche.  To die for, really.

A tough act to follow, but Central Bistro & Bar was up to the challenge with a gorgeous grilled baby octopus ragu and etherial chicken liver mousse “old fashioned” with cherries and orange.  Follow that up with a bacon chocolate chip cookie, and it made for one happy crowd.

Finally, we rolled ourselves across the bridge to Eat+Drink Denver where owner Pollyana Forster made us all feel like her new best friends with an exquisite cheese platter.

Worth the drive to Denver? Oh, absolutely.

Do yourself a favor and sign up now for the next Dishcrawl, a Foodie’s Night Out in LoDo on March 27th.