Eating our way through Denver

Even though we cooked up a feast for Thanksgiving, we still managed to gorge ourselves on way too much restaurant dining during the week.

It wasn't all pricey though, because our first stop (not including a heaping scoop of Sleepless in Seattle ice cream from The Market) was The Walnut Room for CheapA$$ Wednesday. It was after 9 p.m., so we got $1 domestic drafts (Coors, Coors Light, PBR). The appetizers are already affordable, but it was half price, so we got pesto breadsticks (hit the spot) and wings, each for under $3.

For Thanksgiving, it was home-roasted duck, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, peppers, pumpkin-cranberry bread and pecan tarts for dessert.

Next up was City O'City. The vegan pizzas there are good, but I'm not going to recommend anything else at the moment.

Sushi Sasa has gotten a lot of hype, but its sushi is pretty good. We also tried the mussels appetizer (with saffron, tomatoes, greens...very flavorful, and the sweet potato crisps on it add a bit of crunch) We'll probably have to order omakase at some point to get the full experience, but we instead splurged on dessert. What a treat. We tried wasabi tiramisu (all the textures you expect from tiramisu, with just a cool hint of wasabi flavor) and the pineapple-banana fritter, which was sugary and crispy. The place has a cool, crisp white design with light wood floors and furniture and mirrors to make the small room seem cozy but comfortable. The staff is attentive. The customers are trendy and hip, but the place is casual. There were fancy 40-somethings but we were sitting next to a guy in a football sweatshirt and baseball cap. His date was talking about calamari, tentacles and whether tentacles and testicles are the same thing. If the tables were further apart, we wouldn't have had to try so hard not to laugh.

We stopped at Parallel 17 for a fantastic brunch on the weekend. We tried our favorites, blueberry french toast and 2 eggs, and added the croque madam. The home fries were nicely seasoned and perfectly crisped, but the greens on the side were pretty limp. Thankfully there wasn't much dressing on them. The ham and cheese weren't too salty, and the open-faced style gave it a twist. Good service here. We left happy and overly stuffed.

We rolled into LaLa's Wine Bar and Pizzeria for Sunday supper (all-you-can-eat bruschetta, salad, spaghetti and pizza) and then crawled home with our stomachs dragging across Governor's Park. It tastes like there have been some substitutions to cut costs on the Sunday supper. The mushrooms tasted canned, not fresh. And now meatballs with your spaghetti will cost you a buck or two extra. However, the restaurant is still packing them in. If you want to eat around 7, you might have to wait a while for a table.