Last up for this week...

For our final dinner of this official Restaurant Week adventure, we went to the Barolo Grill in Denver.

Rich and I agreed that this was our favourite of the three; we had a simply wonderful evening. Though the place filled up while we were there, it was never noisy.

Rich started with prosciutto with shaved fresh horseradish, and I had arugula with toasted pine nuts, shaved parmigiano-reggiano cheese, olive oil & lemon juice. Both were delicious.

For the pasta course, Rich ordered spinach tagliatelle served with bolognese meat ragu and I ordered the risotto with fresh crimini mushrooms, which I thought was just divine. We switched plates partway through as we often do, and we both liked what we ordered the best.

The entrees were delicious too! I had the seared salmon with lentils, spinach, and micro fennel salad. The fennel gave the dish a slightly licorice-y taste, and it was sublime. Rich had the beef short ribs with polenta, carmelized onions, and swiss chard which he raved about. He let me try the polenta but he didn't part with even one tiny bite of the beef. It must have been good! lol

Dessert was the same for everyone; a vanilla bean panna cotta with apricot passion fruit tapioca. The panna cotta was so smooth and creamy- with intense vanilla flavour, and the tapioca was citrusy and tart, a perfect complement to each other. We ate it in the tiniest little bites to make it last!

We both had the wine pairing to go along with everything and all the wines we tasted were really good.

Besides the food, what stood out for me was the service. The servers flitted between tables, always around, but never intruding and they were so friendly! They genuinely appeared to like their job and it was relaxing and lovely to eat there.

So. Overall, The Barolo Grill wins in our book. Great ambience, great service, sublime food- what more could you ask for? We will definitely go back.