Whoops, I thought I sent this in a previous packet. It now
appears here out of chronological order; but if the echo slows
down again I have bunches of travelogue stuff that never got
to FIDO, and I'll post them - whether that's a threat or a
promise is your call.

Denver has been anointed 4th best food city in the US by Zagat and 
People, behind Los Angeles, Austin, and Chicago, ahead of Seattle, 
DC, Charleston, New Orleans, Atlanta, and San Fran, ah, heck, here's
the whole list of 30 in order, I need practice typing, Philly, Raleigh, 
Houston, Boston, New York, DFW, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Miami, 
Nashville, Detroit, Indianapolis, San Diego, Birmingham, Richmond,
Lexington, Portland ME, KC, Baltimore, and Asheville (this list has
not been updated since 2017). Oddly, heavy hitters the other Portland, 
Memphis, Phoenix, and Vegas didn't make the cut. One notes that this
list was based not only on the general quality of the restaurants but
also their buzziness and innovation, so one figures it's of an
arbitrariness if not a silliness; anyhow, one can eat well for as long 
as one wants in pretty much any major city, even in the plains states.

As noted, it was a Plan B city, New Orleans sounding like a bad idea, 
the hurricane bearing down on Louisiana right about the time we would 
have been there. Edited to add - the city proper got just half an inch
of rain, not enough to cause consternation, but certainly enough to
put a damper on our celebration.

The weather throughout our stay was good - not crystalline, there being
fires burning along the Front Range, but the air quality was decent,
just a few dozen points above back home, where the atmosphere had
cleared out admirably. 80s in the daytimes, 55 to 60 at night, dry as
a bone. Three days, three fairly notable meals, plus assorted snacks 
and cobbled together breakfasts unworthy of mention.

==
Ultreia, helmed by a Beard award winner named Jennifer Jasinski,
is one of the hot spots, and as it was more my kind of food than
hers, she treated me with the understanding that on her birthday
proper we'd find her perfect meal and drain my bank account.
Being right in Union Station, it's hard to miss. 

I saw inside tables set up plus a few properly physically distanced
drinkers at the bar, but it was still in the 70s, so we gladly took
the awned outside four-top they offered us.

A glass of Perez Ultreia St. Jacques (Mencia) 17 put Lilli in a
good mood; a medium-bodied mixed-berryful wine with a little clove
and a nice tapering finish. I figured that, as she doesn't willingly 
drink white or rose, this would go well, and anyway the restaurant
is named after it.

S-Naia (Sauvignon Blanc) 18 is a perfect ham wine, quite savory, a
riot of stone and tropical fruit, tart but with the salt of the ham
bringing out a slight offdry quality.

The buzzy dish here is one that isn't even prepared, except by 
being hand-sliced with a long thin knife into what is often called
paper-thin shavings but in reality may be closer to tissue than
regular paper. An ounce or so of three pricy versions of cured pig.

Fermin Jamon Serrano, aged 2 years - serrano ham is just about
any Spanish ham, but Fermin has made a name for itself producing
the best of these; they retail at 250-300 for a whole ham. This is
an uncomplicated ham, not oversalty, with no rancio. It was Lilli's
favorite among them; she can be a cheap date. I've reported on this
brand before, noting that though it's quite a high quality product,
rather moreish (not Moorish), I'm not sure about paying the premium
for this brand, for which Jose Andres has or had exclusive US rights,
as it doesn't seem all that different from other serrano.

Mangalica (producer unknown), aged 3 years - now this was a majorly
different product, almost Kobelike in its netty marbling, and
unbelievably moist and tender despite its age. This was my favorite
for the almost melt-in-the-mouth fattiness and the gentle savor,
rather close to my ideal of dry-cured meat. The mangalica or 
mangalitsa is a Hungarian breed that is bred for harsh climate and
has wool rather than hair and a tendency to build massive amounts of
fat, right up my alley.

Cinco Jotas Jamon Iberico de Bellota, acorn fed, aged 4 years -
free-range pigs living in the forest, aged a minimum of this length
of time after a simple salt and sugar cure. Like the Smithfield ham
of old but nowhere near as salty and with a nutty quality that the
grass-fed better Smithfield pigs can't match. A lot of rancio and
aged character, perhaps close to too much, and Lilli didn't like it
at all. I called for some bread ($2, five slices) to go with this,
a coarse-grained but moist peasanty loaf that she enjoyed but I
needed to go with the flavor concentration. This was trumpeted in
the papers as the $1000 ham, and in fact it retails at half again
more than that. I don't think it's worth it, but it certainly is 
an experience.

Glazed Moorish spiced ribs, Basque chilies, olive oil - good but
not extraordinary in any way: meaty local pork done quite nicely
with a cumin, paprika, sugar, salt rub, more Memphis than Moorish.
The waiter described the chiles as French peperoncini, which was apt
enough but for the French part - both Spaniards and Basques would
take issue with that: mildly hot, pretty tasty but milder than real
peperoncini. The flesh was a little hard and resilient, but better
tough peppers than tough meat. The olive oil, a sizable puddle of
it, was very good.

Huevos diablos, harissa deviled eggs, tuna conserva, crispy shallots:
I was hoping for real harissa, but what we got was more like Cholula
devilled eggs, not bad in itself. I was also hoping for ventresca,
but not all of a fish is ventresca, and they have to use the white 
part for something, and this was apparently it. So the rather sour
and not too hot filling was piped into the egg white, which was
strewn with snipped chive and shreds of tuna. I carefully picked off
the tuna from one for Lilli, and she ate it with apparent pleasure.
The fish by itself was like albacore in oil used to be and pleasant
enough - water-packed tuna, especially white tuna, is an abomination
- but did not add to the dish. The crispy shallots were, surprise,
not shallots but regular fried onion rings, though good for that.

The other thing the restaurant is famous for is also not prepared
here - the seafood conserves from La Brujula, and I thought about 
getting an order of the mussels at $22 for 4 oz, but then figured
that that was costly and antisocial, so went for another hit of wine
instead.

Our final indulgence was churros with chocolate sauce, which came as
one curled up 18" churro done extra brown, so it had a peculiar
appearance on the plate. It was very crispy but with a custardy soft
inside, one of the better doughnutty things I've had. It was dusted
with spiced (mostly clove) sugar and sided with a bittersweet milk
chocolate almost-mousse sauce, which I liked very much. The best
part was that the dessert tab was taken off as a birthday present.
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