BlueOx's Profile
Guided Burgundy Wine Tours
We have been guided by Mike McAndrew (http://www.frenchwineroutes.com/) both in Burgundy and Champagne. He is very good at finding and setting up tastings with small producers. His quarterly newsletter about wine, food and life living in Puligny Montrachet is now in a "blog", http://frenchwineroutes.blogspot.com/. The best part is Mike and Maxine are wonderful people.
Burgundy Wine Guide
I use Bergman's web site (http://www.bourgogne-info.eu/html/burgundy_map.html) and click on the village I'm interested.
Guided Burgundy Wine Tours
In Burgundy, 2010 the vendange started the week of 13th September and last year it started the week of the 5th of September, with many picking before that.
motorcycle trip to crested butte,co
My daughter (who lived in Crusty Butt) says dJango's (http://www.djangos.us/) is wonderful.
Vail - romantic, not too pricey, open Sunday night?
Janet, being a first visit, you may want to walk through "Vail Village", the main part is off of Bridge Street and Gore Creek Drive. I'd recommend doing appetizers at Sweet Basil, Bully Ranch (mussels, but get the order for 3) and Terra Bistro (folks are saying their trout is killer). If you do apps and sit in the bar area, the prices aren't bad. I'd also think about walking over to Larkspur and again do apps in the bar. This will give you a great Vail experience.
Vail - romantic, not too pricey, open Sunday night?
Janet, I owe you a recommendation because I used so many of yours in Las Vegas. The most romantic, I think, is Mirabelle (http://www.mirabelle1.com/) at the entrance to Beaver Creek. That said, its a bad weekend to be in the Avon area, big rock concert going on, but ask the folks at Mirabelle for directions (only go if you are driving, buses will be tough to use). Sunday night things should be winding down.
BURGUNDY - Best wine-tasting lunch and Best cheese tasting - need advice!
In Puligny Montrachet there are two places that do tasting and some food:
Le Montrachet run by Thierry Gazanges does a tasting by the glass and food to go along:
http://www.le-montrachet.com/page.php?idpage=22&language=us
Olivier Leflaive's place; http://www.maison-olivierleflaive.fr/maison-olivier-leflaive/en/lunch.html
The food will be very good at Le Montrachet and Thierry is really a nice guy and very close to the local growers and producers.
Guy Savoy
Glossy video on Guy Savoy: http://www.guysavoy.com/fr/guy-savoy-film
Gives a feeling what's involved in making a 3 star in Paris go!
Bar food in Vail
The game was yesterday! If you are thinking SuperBowl, that's best done at a private party.
Bar food in Vail
If you are not mobile, try the "Tap Room" in Vail. A more in your face place would be the Sandbar in West Vail, but be careful. My guess is the best place in the Valley (think Edwards) would be the Gore Range Brewery or E-Town. Except for the reinvented Gore Range, food will be deep fried and mediocre.
Quick Bite Near Gare de Lyon Station Before Lunch
Actually, if you can put together essentials for a train picnic at CDG, you get get the TGV from the airport to Nice via Lyon without stopping in Paris. Check this web site: http://www.bonjourlafrance.com/index.aspx
Restaurant suggestion in Beaver Creek
DD, another update, Kevin Furtado, the wine guy that made Larkspur's wine so wonderful is now at Spago in Bachelor Gulch as the sommelier. Besides being the best wine person in the Valley, he is really a nice guy. Now I'm finally going to have to go to Spago.
And the Castle Peak Grill is the old Zucca Za with the same ownership and staff trying to be a sports bar.
Holidays in the Eagle River Valley
DD, thanks for the update, just very small correction, Splendido is in the Chateau, not the Charter as I'm sure you know. And one of the sisters that owns Fiesta's is opening Cafe d'Luna in the old Blue Plate space in the Chistie Lodge in Avon. Hopefully it will match the current Fiesta. The early reports on the new Blue Plate which moved across the street to the east end of the "boat" building have been good.
We had dinner at Cima (replaced Avondale in the Westin) which is doing "new" Latin food. It was excellent and very reasonably priced. However, the biggest surprise in Avon is the Northside Cafe which is where the pizza hut was located. The owner "scraped" the PH and built a very nice facility from scratch, much more mountain like architecture. Its a higher end coffee house (Blue Bottle Coffee for you SFO folks). The food is very good and its a real hangout for locals now.
Driving from Denver Int'l to Vail
C&C, Thimes and Robyn nailed it, got to be Kermits. On Sundays its a great place to park your Harley.
The closest Costco, other then the one at the east end of the Eagle Airport (EGE) is Arvada as Thimes wrote. The meat at the EGE Costco is very good, but the City Market lamb (Superior label) and young chicken (Redbird label) is probably better. The EGE Costco's lamb has been all Aussie and has a slight mutton taste. Superior is very good and is Colorado lamb.
The liquor store attached to the EGE Costco is an independent, Colorado liquor laws restrict supermarkets ability to sell wine. That said, the EGE Costco store has very good deals on wine, particularly between $12 and $25 a bottle. We no longer have to stock up on our Denver trips at Applejack since they have been open.
So, if you have a vehicle, I think you can do as well at Costco and City Market in the Valley as the traditional stop at the Youngfield King Super and Applejack.
Beau Jo's is OK if you don't expect traditional pizza.
Paris area large supermarkets that worth visiting ?
In September in Beaune, we hit the local E. LeClec for goods to stock our gite. We knew about the no bags policy, but not about the shopping cart deposit. A couple of our group spread out to find carts and took empty ones near the front of the store. Whoa, they were besieged by the ladies who paid a 1 euro deposit for the carts. It took awhile to sort out, we didn't speak French. Kind of exciting at the time, now its part of our adventure.
The Perfect Restaurant List for 5 Nights in Vail Valley????
Good list of higher end places, La Tour is now owned by the chef (I think), its probably even better. At Larkspur I'm partial to sitting in the Bar, I like the energy level better, plus if Josh is there, he's the best barman in the Valley. Think about adding Zino's and Dish in Edwards to the list, as well as the Golden Eagle at the Beav.
I saw your post about Block 16, but I don't have any first hand knowledge of that and the Flame which may be very good, but not sure how much fun. If you are here over Christmas, make reservations.
Help finding a chef who would like to cook for 8 people for 8 dinners next June in Carmel Valley
Gail,
Thank you for the response, I'll follow up and then let you know what I was able to set up.
BlueOx
Help finding a chef who would like to cook for 8 people for 8 dinners next June in Carmel Valley
Looking for help finding a chef who would like to cook for 8 people for 8 dinners next June in Carmel Valley. Our group has bicycled, eaten good food and drunk red wine all over France the last 5 years. We stay at gites (rural house) and are very informal. Interesting food and good wines (beers, too) are as important as the bike riding. This year I want to try the same, but stay in the Carmel Valley. Last year we only went out for dinner one night, the rest of the evenings we survived on wonderful food bought at the markets. As well as some wine discoveries that were killer. This year we want to try it with a chef for 8 of our dinners. Some of us would like to “help” prepare the meal. Three of us have reasonable kitchen skills. I’m pretty good at assigning tasks and keeping order, so the chef won’t have to “baby sit” our group
So any recommendations of how to look for a chef for 8 dinners in June?
Help with Vail restaurants
Trekster, I think you nailed it, sorry. Please don't think the whole "Valley" is anything like that. The other night while having dinner at my favorite place in Vail, the conversation got around to other places to try and KL came up, one of the other folk mentioned that last time they were there the patrons stood up and applauded when KL walked into the room...PLEASE.
Kind of new news, Thomas got himself out of the Westin in Avon and turned it over to an "upscale" Mexican food group from Denver. Thomas has been quoted as saying he's going back into the kitchen at Larkspur.
And Elway's is taking over the operation at the Lodge at Vail. Why couldn't have been Bradford Heap?
Boulder Breakfast Help
Does the Golden Buff still do killer breakfasts? Just a nit Claire, but I think the LA Diner was on the west side of 28th.
Crested Butte, CO recommendations?
My daughter tells me that Django's in the Mountain Village is really good. She has been trying to copy their Brussel Sprouts for the last year.
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Django's
, Crested Butte, CO 81225
best place to eat between denver and steamboat springs?
Never said Vail was more "real" Colorado, in fact, thank goodness its less. What I said was 131 towards Steamboat is still like the State was 100 years ago, mining, railroads and working ranches.
best place to eat between denver and steamboat springs?
Thew, first I want to fully disclose my bias, I live in the Gore (Vail) Creek and Eagle River Valley. So the 3 ways you can get from DEN (called DIA by Frontrangers) to Steamboat is over Berthod Pass into Grand County (Winter Park & Grandby), through Silverthorne to Kremming both about 180 miles and 2 mountain passes, or do 210 miles and stop for a meal in our Valley which is about 2.5 hours from DEN. Steamboat is 1.5 hours from us. If you do a Chowhound search on Vail, lot's of great places will appear. The drive up Hwy 131 from Walcott to Steamboat goes through the "real" Colorado. Sorry for the "commercial" but that's how I see it.
Gashouse Keeps Getting It Wrong
DD, that's it, use to be Sato's which is now in Edwards Corner (same development as Dish). 163 is very local friendly, great staff, the corned beef hash is wonderful.
Overly Oaked - the New Norm?
If it taste strongly of oak, butter and/or vanilla it must be a California wine!
Best foodie experiences for bike trip in Dordogne
We do a bike trip in France every year, its really a wine and food trip with some biking (30Km a day) thrown in. We usually do Burgundy and one other region in France. What has always surprised me is how nice the lunch places treat us, even though we are in bike clothes (spandex like) and some of look akin to the Michelin Man. When we ask to be seated, I say its alright to put us in a corner where we don't standout, particularly in one star places. How we appear never bothers the restaurant and they seat us at very nice tables. I love riding in France.
Gashouse Keeps Getting It Wrong
DD, the Gashouse and the Saloon are 2 places that the only thing I'd order was a beer. Fun mountain atmosphere, maybe, but the "food" not very good. The place to try in Edwards for breakfast and lunch is Cafe163 across from Larkburger. Also Cafe Milano near the I70 exit is very good. The chef from the Beav Hayatt bought Gore Range Brewery and plans to improve the food. They are still working on getting their license to brew more beer.
3 men in Burgundy want it ALL. Need help!
The place in Pommard is next to the butcher shop and was "new" last September when we were there. Didn't get to try it, but will this September when we return for our annual bike trip. On our trip, bikes are just a way to travel between tastings :>)
3 men in Burgundy want it ALL. Need help!
JH, if its the same butcher that friends in Puligny have recommended to us at the Beaune Market, his shop is in Pommard and he has an interest in the new restaurant in Pommard.
