Taste of Colorado

Besides football stadium burgers and samples from Taste of Colorado downtown, Labor Day weekend gave us a chance to check out Potager for the first time. The neighborhood spot in Capitol Hill (11th and Ogden) consistently gets good reviews, and it does have a laid-back yet upscale feel, with its large front windows, high ceilings, sprawling bar and open kitchen. They focus on seasonal cooking, so all our selections Friday night were mainly of ingredients from the Boulder Farmer's Market. Potager's smaller plates / appetizers are on the small side, then the menu builds with entree size plates towards the bottom. The $9 watermelon salad was a small, artfully arranged summer dish served as a special. I got the chilled cucumber soup and eggplant w/ veggies and cheese. Good but I wanted more. Then FCT got the tuna nicoise dish, with amazingly fresh, juicy tomatoes, but she said the beans were slightly undercooked. CP's prawn dish looked and smelled yummy. Came in the shell and with heads. For dessert we tried the raspberry tartlet with chocolate raspberry gelato. Sounded like it might be light and good, but it wasn't that impressive. Overall, the place gets a B. You won't spend as much here as you would at Fruition, but I think Fruition satisfies more. Potager does have a nice atmosphere though and the staff is friendly. It's also fun to be able to watch the cooks from your table. The menu suggests wine pairings for each dish.

Saturday night, we wandered to Luca D'Italia for dessert. The staff was very accommodating and friendly with finding us seats at the bar on a busy, busy Saturday night. Now that pastry chef Angela Yeung has left for Dallas, the restaurant seems to be trying to keep up on desserts. The crostada for summer is a peach crostada, served with vanilla gelato, rather than the ginger gelato served with the apple crostada when Ms. Yeung was cooking. The pastry wasn't as light and flaky or as artfully presented but it still tasted all right. The tiramisu is semi fredo, more of an ice cream dish. The almond cake was tasty, although CP thought there was way too much syrup drowning the cake. Good for sugar fiends!

Taste of Colorado is still going on Labor Day, so you have one last chance to grab a turkey leg or a taste of fried alligator. We tried etouffee, gumbo, bruschetta, a strawberry banana smoothie, and CP got a Philly cheesesteak downtown by the state Capitol. I'm not a fan of the sandwich but this one was very good with fat mushrooms. Grab some sunscreen, try to bring in your own water (it's 3 tickets if you buy it inside), and go to the shade early and often! $5 buys you 8 tickets, and a turkey leg is 12 tickets. The smoothie was 6 tickets. Some booths have tastes of certain items for 1 or 2 tickets. The Ghirardelli people are handing out chocolate for free! Go to the Office Max display (the one with the giant rubber band ball) for a coupon for $10 free at Denver stores. The KBCO booth by the Broadway and 13th entrance to the festival was handing out free CD samplers and post-it pads Sunday, and Starbucks was passing out free samples of pumpkin spice lattes. Perhaps not the best drink in 90-degree weather but it still tastes good. There's a lot to try...crab cakes, Phillippine-Asian grill, funnel cake, etc, etc