A Trip to Boulder, CO

This weekend we took a quick road trip out to Boulder, CO.  This small city is about an hour away from our apartment, and the primary attraction for us is the Pearl Street Mall.  This pedestrian street is home to a variety of interesting shops and restaurants, and offers a pleasant place to wander and explore.

We started off with a quick lunch at Centro Latin Kitchen and tried the Pork Belly Avocado Salsa and the Shrimp Tacos.  Both were quite tasty, although I found the salsa was quite chunky and therefore somewhat hard to eat on the smallish chips.  The rice served with Shrimp Tacos was lightly seasoned, but lacked flavor when eaten in conjunction with the rest of the meal.

Pork belly avocado salsa with charred Anaheim chiles

Griddled shrimp, garlic mojo, and jalapeño aioli taco

After lunch, we continued on to check out some of the boutiques along the street.  We spent most of our time at the kitchen store Peppercorn and the historic Boulder Book Store, but there were a number of very interesting shops along the way.

Hanging plants at the West End Gardener

Antique typewriter at 8th and Pearl Antiques

One of the many street entertainers along Pearl Street

Finally, we had dinner at The Kitchen, which was recently nominated as number 14 on 5280's 25 Best Restaurants of 2011.  Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera in to take pictures of the meal, and it was a little too dim for the iPhone to take anything reasonable.  That being said, the food was fantastic, and my wife has named it as the best food that she has had in Denver so far.  Most of the appeal comes from the fact that their ingredients are sourced from local farmers, and their menu appears to change every day based on those ingredients.  The only real complaint was that there was a 45 minute wait to get into the restaurant and once inside the food came out quite slowly, but I can honestly say that the food was worth the wait.  We started with the mussels, which were extremely tender and came in a delicious broth.  It was hard to decide if my wife's Lamb or my Porkchop was better, but both were extremely well prepared with excellent flavor.

Hopefully on our next trip we can try out Frasca, which was rated number 1 on the list, as well as check out the Boulder Farmer's Market.

Our Travels in the USA

Since our move to the US, there have been a few good opportunities to travel to US cities.  Travel is much cheaper within the country than flying from Calgary, and we hope to take advantage of that soon.

In the meanwhile, here are some photos taken of our recent trips this year.  (All pictures in this post were taken on my iPhone 4s using Instagram)

San Francisco, CA
 
Since both of our maternal grandmothers live here, the missus and I have had ample opportunity to visit the City by the Bay.  Other than the obvious family ties, we enjoy our trips to San Francisco because it is home to some of the best variety of food.  On this particular trip, we visited the Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market and took in some of the local flavor for breakfast.  Most of the photos that I took were around the area, and unfortunately I think I was too busy eating food to take any pictures of the actual marketplace.

A rocket on Embarcadero .  Apparently local to Earth

The Ferry Building clock tower

Vaillancourt Fountain (aka Québec Libre)

The lobby atrium of the Hyatt Regency San Francisco

Sante Fe, NM 

Our first road trip from Denver was to nearby Sante Fe based on recommendations from some of the folks in the office.  The drive itself was about 6-7 hours if you take the I-25 all the way south.  The city of Sante Fe feels almost like a different country if you take into account the architecture and cultural feel.  We greatly enjoyed the laid back attitude and interesting stores lining the streets around the Sante Fe Plaza.  Also highly recommended are the art galleries lining Canyon Road.  My wife primarily enjoyed the side trip to Albuquerque, NM to visit Rio Grande, which is apparently the Mecca of jewelry supply stores.

St. Francis Cathedral Basilica

Museum of Contemporary Native Arts

WORSHIP ME PUNY MORTAL !

An example of the unique Sante Fe architecture

An interesting moving sculpture on Canyon Road

St. Pete Beach, FL 

This was a business trip and unfortunately the wife was not able to join me.  I attended a convention at the Tradewinds Island Grand Resort for two days only, so I was not able to spend much time exploring.  I did end up eating at Crabby Bill's down the street and enjoyed the Steamer Bucket and Southern Swamp Water Special.

Pre-devoured Steamer Bucket from Crabby Bill's

Typical sunset on the beach

A very pink Loews Don CeSar Hotel

The vicious toothless shark at the Tradewinds Resort

 Our future plans include trips to New York City and Hawaii in the near future, so I can promise that there will be more pictures to be added.