Platte Canyon Bar and Grille

This is my soon-to-be corner bar (or within-a-few-miles bar). I've been here twice and both times on beautiful days. It is half outdoors and has L.A.-style heat lamps hanging from the ceiling, meaning that you can stay outside comfortably longer than you otherwise would. Cheap beer, TVs with the game (whatever the game might be), and kick ass veggie enchiladas that held me up through new years eve. They came with healthy portions of guac, salsa, and sour cream. Veggies were mushrooms and green/red peppers--just my style. I always leave here feeling slightly happier than when I came in....a little bit like Cheers... or maybe the beers are just stronger or 22 instead of 20 ounces. I have yet to figure it out and am in absolutely no hurry to do so.

Sushi Basho

Right off Santa Fe and near the heart of downtown Littleton, this is likely to be the most convenient sushi place to me to enjoy on a regular basis. Knowing that going in...I was a little nervous...this was do or die...I mean...I've already signed on a townhouse...what if the sushi is not even acceptable?

Well, acceptable it was, even by L.A. standards... but I wouldn't dare take an L.A. friend here. For one thing, the customs are all different. I sat at the sushi bar but was not encouraged to order from the sushi chefs. In fact, I wasn't encouraged to order from anyone. They wanted me to decide what I wanted all at the beginning and write it all down on one of those paper menus. I've always seen them but thought they were very anti-climatic to the whole sushi experience. Why sit and the sushi bar if you're going to decide what you want all at once? It's like going to a bar and ordering three different drinks when you first sit down. I don't even think it's legal.

At any rate, getting over it. I look directly at the waitress with my blank white menu card and ask for albacore. Dumb stare. The Japanese waiter comes over and says...ah, that's white tuna, yes? I think this would be the incredulous look. I then notice I have two choices: white tuna and super white tuna. Slightly freaking out. The white tuna is good. The slightly spicy scallop roll is good and I think they actually understood my request for a little mayo to cut down the spice. The red snapper is not so good but not so bad. I have another piece of tuna and a piece of yellowtail (yellow tail is so so, which is too bad because this is typically my favorite). The cool thing is that it's happy hour and most sushi is $1 a piece--and you can order just 1 instead of 2 pieces together. I must go back and try them all and figure out what I can live with. And I must go often enough to be able to special order exactly what I want.

Of course, when in despair, they do have those wonderfully large bottles of Sapporo.

Anthony's

Stuck in my yucky rented condo room all day because of the flu but afraid to venture too far away as hey, I was recovering from the flu, I headed up to some restaurants on Dartmouth in my soon-to-be-past-hometown of Aurora. Anthony's was full around 8 p.m. so I went to the bar next store. Menu was all fried food--great for recovering from a hang over but not from wrenching stomach pain that was just starting to turn into hunger. Had a quick beer (yeah, I'm crazy) and headed back next store. Empty at 8:45.

I ordered the veal parmesan pasta--very reminiscent of mom's home-cooking and it actually lived up to the charge. Fried veal patty, sliced and layered on top of pasta with marina sauce. The whole plate doused with a healthy portion of cheese. I had a side salad with the freshest tomatoes I've seen in Denver so far (only been here since November remember). Unfortunately the salad had absolutely huge pieces of lettuce and all of that white bitter stuff in the middle. Still, the tomatoes, a health portion of cheese, pepperoni, and homemade tasty ranch more than made up for the less than stellar lettuce. Who eats a salad for the greens anyway?

I was surprised by the combination of helpful service and a laid back atmosphere. One guy was folding boxes while watching the basketball game. The girl in charge had her boyfriend there yet was always right on top of things and doing clean-up as well.

Overall a great little place to grab a bite to eat. Total came to $12--with a plastic cup of Chianti.

C B and Potts

Since I was on a sort of bizarre double date with craigslist people AND this is a chain, I might have avoided writing it up altogether except for one simple fact: the spinach salad was so freakin' fresh it blew my mind. It had grated parmesan and a to-die-for house dressing. And tons of fresh spinach. I was very pleased, especially since the local beers were on a Monday-night $3 special. Fun times.